Links for January 2, 2022

💼 Generation Work-From-Home May Never Recover — The Atlantic

To have a job without a workplace, you must build an office of the mind. Structure, routine, focus, socialization, networking, stress relief—their creation is almost entirely up to you, alone in a spare bedroom or on your couch, where your laptop might vie for attention at any given moment with your pets or kids. If the coffeepot runs dry, there is no one to blame but yourself.

📆 Is the Four-Day Workweek Finally Within Our Grasp? — NY Times

To paraphrase William Gibson, the four-day week is already here for most companies,” said Mr. Pang, an organizational strategy consultant in Menlo Park, Calif. “It’s buried under a whole bunch of rubble of outmoded practices and bad meetings. Once you clear that stuff away, then it turns out the four-day week is well within your grasp.”‌

☮️ 11 Years After Trying to Kill Each Other, a Marine and a Talib Meet Again — NY Times

An extraordinary story about a US marine who recently met with a Taliban commander he once fought against:

The rifle was a familiar tool, once an extension of myself and always within arms reach. But now that it was no longer needed, it was little more than a mass of plastic and steel, and it had no bearing on how I interacted with Marja and Mr. Gulab. He was no longer an enemy but a man sitting on the floor, pondering his next sentence. He wasn’t fighting in a war that seemed like it would never end. And neither was I.

He had won his war. I had lost mine.

🐦 Relevant Tweets

Speaking of The Fermi paradox:

The Fermi Paradox has 2 possibilities and both make me want to hug you.

Either the universe is teeming with aliens, which means we’re a single family in the cosmic society.

Or there’s no one else, in which case we’re stranded together on a tiny island in the vast darkness.

♥️

— Tim Urban (@waitbutwhy) February 27, 2021

Go hug someone pic.twitter.com/I63AaP1xQu

— Tim Urban (@waitbutwhy) September 16, 2021