Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

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I suspect it has more to do with trying to find community.

The modern workforce is usually not working where they grew up, not interested in religion, and not getting married young.

This seems to lead to most of your friends/community being derived from work. When that’s true what’s the point of separation? When you’re separate from your work community you’re alone.

I don’t think this is necessarily a problem since if you’re working on something you think is important with people you like that can be a rewarding experience.

There is a risk though that if you get fired or have to quit for some reason it’s a more serious crisis since now you’ve lost your community too.

I agree with you, but I find the whole vision to be pretty sad and fighting against what we intrinsically value as humans: deep connection.

How does this work when some people have families and don't want to live and be friends with work people? Are they ostracized? What if I have hobbies, friends from HS or college, siblings, etc. and want to spend time with them instead of increasingly with my workmates. This sounds like it's going to increase cliquey-ness, not improve culture.

There is already an old model out there that sort of already lives this way: IT or management consultants who travel every week. I did this for 10 years. You become great friends with your colleagues - until the project ends or some other break occurs. Then...nothing, unless keeping in touch on each other's birthdays on Facebook is enough for you.

In retrospect it all felt very vapid and superficial - just people trying desperately to make connections to get them by, but not much "built to last."

I think you have cause and effect backwards. It's not fighting against that. It's not like these people are opposed up deep connections any more than I'm opposed to having a million dollars in my bank account. They just don't happen to have any, so they take what they can get.

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