Keisha E. McKenzie | communication | systems | social good
Slate on the Evolution and Impacts of Telecommuting
Somehow, what was supposed to be an “electronic cottage” has become an “electronic sweatshop.” It’s not just surveillance—it’s that many employees who telecommute only occasionally end up doing far more work than before their “emancipation.”
“Nowadays, encounters of the spirit must be scheduled long in advance, and even then the endless tide of deferred chores and anticipated engagements never ceases to break on our attention…
“In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that in the future, as technology increased efficiency and production, a fifteen-hour work week would become the norm: ‘Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.’
“It hasn’t panned out.” — Giles Harvey, New Yorker
Apple vs. Samsung Galaxy III Mini
Apparently the III Mini would be unlikely to yield a sales advantage in the US anyway.
Source: The Citizen, South Africa
The placement of one’s circle of empathy is ultimately a matter of faith. We must accept the fact that we are forced to place the circle somewhere, and yet we cannot exclude extrarational faith from our choice of where to place it. — Jaron Lanier