I have been a remote worker either part or full time since 2004. I realized then that it was more important for me to work on my own terms than to move up the corporate ladder. I was a bit ahead of the curve.
Now I am trading my white collar shirt for a blue one in semi-retirement. The reasons are a bit complex, but here is the very short version:
- Global totalitarianism has so degraded work and life as to make the service of predatory monopolies and cartels as an insight generator and accelerator impossible to bear.
- Technocracy, science worship, hyperspecialization and rule by experts have proven to be ethical and operational failures.
- Imagination, problem solving and self-posession are as necessary as ever.
- The global supply chain is broken in a Humpty Dumpty way. When the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around. You also create work for people who can fix stuff.
- Governmental fiscal profligacy, along with central bank monetary insanity, have made a crack up certain. There won’t be much more free stuff before the US goes full Weimar. Mainland China is in the same boat, so the CCP will not be the replacement hegemon. After they collectively milk American consumers dry (very soon with current stagflation) they will not have enough hosts to infest.
- I fully expect the US to renege on its promises to retirees. Medicare is broke and Social Security is becoming a joke on those who paid taxes to support it for decades.
- The fracturing of society is nearly complete. Even wagging the dog won’t create unity among the decreasingly credulous.
So I’m learning welding. Maybe I’ll also learn how to fix and use old radios. 1970’s tech will soon look pretty advanced when lots of other stuff goes offline.
ATwork space 