I'm with you on loyalty to community--geolocated as well as virtual--and
if I have my druthers I won't be leaving Columbia for a good long time,
either.
But nomadism takes on a whole new meaning on the net, eh? We can move and
stay (have our cake and...). I am frequently amazed that net-based
companies, web site providers/developers/consultants for instance, require
their employees to move to California (or wherever) when the person, after
all the rigamarole and expense of moving is going to walk into a cubicle
and hit the net, something they could have quite easily done from their
previous abode.
The only rationale I hear when I bring up that question: well, maybe the
company wants to keep an eye on people. But (the question of ethics and
productivity of surveillance aside) the eye upon the body does not tell
the employer *anything* about what the employee is doing out in netland
(could be working away, could be downloading porn, could be plotting the
overthrow of a small south american country, and it would all look the
same: a body hunched in front of a computer). If surveillance is really
the reason, surveying electrons would be more effective and could be done
as well remotely as locally.
So it comes down to this again: habit.
habits are ok. I'm in the habit of putting clothes on every morning &
don't really want to break that one. But i reckon there are other habits
that have had their compelling function leak away and continue to exist
*primarily* as habits.
Making people work at some particular physical location is one.
--Eric
who's at home now and not likely to visit the office until mid-afternoon