Greetings Economists, Bill Lear writes, Bill, Direct and spontaneous face-to-face human contact is the very best way to exchange information known to the universe. Put it through a "video feed" or conference call, and a lot gets lost. I don't know the details, but when you start placing workers in remote locations from other pieces of their work, the work will usually suffer, not to mention (perhaps) the workers (though the Indians employed to run the database might be better off).
Doyle, Well this will be debated for quite awhile I am sure. Essentially this proposes to insert an interface in communications where the interface didn't exist before. The issue being geographic location for work and not. It is not clear that face to face is superior in all circumstances at all. For example Television news work is distributed across the planet. There are many ways that distributed work happen actually. Face to Face is a labor process producing a certain kind of product. Hybrid uses of interfaces in work is likely to grow. In particular the work from making interfaces is likely to grow substantially. I am thinking of memory work. Web Services where a person accesses business activity as one moves through the landscape requires that information about a physical location be available. Suppose we extrapolate video game activity into this area, there is a vast ocean of location to be filled with interface memory. As an illustration any city street has a wealth of history about it that would be nice to know in some circumstances. Who owned this house when, when was it painted? What are the plants in the yard? Etc. Etc. This sort of work will grow because it is the exchange of memory that is the foundation of social structure. The exchange process is lost if it is face to face. We can't even begin to consider the social ramifications of structure to that until we can build the interface of memory. I agree with the ILWU that work distributed ought to be unionized. Let it be defined by the 'human' rights of the work process not the profit motives of the bosses. thanks, Doyle Saylor
