During the pandemic, managers and white-collar business owners were mad, and they were mad beyond a shadow of a doubt. See, for the majority of the dominant narrative, people were manipulated into separating work life from home life because of both segregation and because there was an infrastructure created around commuting and office life. Being a home, managers found themselves at a loss when there were limited opportunities for office politics and people were focused solely on their jobs. Eventually everyone was forced to go back into the office because there were too many people committed to the infrastructure to move forward as a society.
Stating the obvious, a lot of very tall buildings were created around the concept of people working in offices. These buildings were constructed during a time when segregation was rampant and everyone conceptualized the idea of work within an office building. Technology may have allowed people to work anywhere, but the mindset of management has not changed. In the end, the buildings are built, the landscaping of central cities is irrevocably changed.
Furthermore, nothing else can be done with those buildings. Many people have tried looking into turning office buildings into residences, but there are number of barriers to such a process, not least of which is cost. Commercial architecture is built to cater to very specific activities, unlike residential architecture which can be transitioned to office or retail space. Also, the way the utilities work make it impossible to manage individual rates within a commercial space. Therefore, we have extremely tall buildings that people paid for that lack functionality to do anything else.
Consequently, all of this was about control. Instead of transitioning workspaces to be multifunctional, or having people function independently, the dominant narrative has vied for more control. Even as people pit gas against food with stagnant salaries, those with control and resources have no other notion of how people can work in society. Skyscrapers were built because people with control and resources thought everyone dreamed of corner offices and penthouse suites. Things can go faster, but instead of giving the populace time for socialization, everything is about more productivity and money. Everyone has to work full-time, at least, and there is constant noise in all of our heads about what we “need,” forcing us to give more to sociopaths.
What does this mean for the future? In all honesty, I have no idea, because society is about to hit a ceiling that it cannot handle. Demanding that everyone commute to work, purchase fast food, have work clothes and home clothes, contribute to potlucks, and attend happy hours is a fool’s errand. No one wants to do this anymore, and those with control and resources are incapable of stopping themselves. What might help is if the sycophants defending such a system would get over themselves and stop. Maybe then they could begin to visualize a world where people can work from wherever at whatever time for no more than 5 hours a day, and spend the rest of time making the earth livable.
Chasing A Dying Empire 