Remote

The dream

Imagine, living in this or that beautiful and peaceful Buddhist country, in a picturesque hilly area, above 2000m, like Darjeeling and most of hill stations of India. There are beautiful mountain areas in Thailand, Sri-Lanka, even in Myanmar.

Ideally, one has to move with the seasons, just like migration birds, from one nice place to another, and to have an endless summer.

It is absolutely real when one have just a Linux laptop, GNU Emacs, a couple of SIM cards and a GSM tower nearby. This is all you really need. And an ATM, of course.

Nowadays having a private Github repo is enough for anything serious, and the open-source tooling for software development is way better than proprietary commercial crap.

One could even set up a Trac wiki and an old-school mailing list on one’s own domain and have all the benefits of asynchronous communications and of writing everything down (which clarifies and frees the Mind). At least this kind of setup was good-enough to develop GHC - a highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art compiler suite (for Haskell).

Notice, that most of highly productive teams behind major open-source projects never had a single “meeting”, leave alone a “standup”, and never meet in person – this is not required.

an old-school classic approach

Back in the 80s and 90s, which, arguably, was the golden age of programming if we look at evolution of the Classic languages (Lisp and the ML family), we did not have any “online” real-time constant-presence crap (except IRC, which was fun).

Another crucial factor was that in the 70s and early 80s to get an access to a computer, leave alone the internet, one has to have a proper education, usually math or CS degree, or to attend a technical University in the US, which had it all.

All the means of communication we had back then were , in principle, text-based, off-line, /asynchronous, like email and mailing lists and later Usenet.

The very first web-forums also have been done right, which the emphasis on a structured text and searchable archives (which is all you need). The most important feature of any hosted email service is that it keep all your messages in a searchable “database”. This was the “killer feature of the early Gmail”.

In short, we used the ancient “paradigm”, which goes back to the ancient “spiritual practices”, based on solitude, withdrawal from society, observation after taking a step back, and focused introspection.

In modern terms that would be, stay alone, read a lot, think a lot, write a little. This is what all the best writers of the modern age (Jung, Mann, Hesse, Sartre, Hemingway, etc.) have practiced and done.

The importance of solitude or at least withdrawal from the society is well-understood in serious organizations, which protect their principal actors from socially constructed bullshit by a small army of secretaries, assistants, lieutenants and what not.

The emphasis is not on that we need secretaries (though programs as automated assistants are crucial) but on the fact that emotionally charged social bullshit is a waste and even danger. It is definitely distraction and unnecessary “context switches”, which ruins whole days (ruins focus, concentration, cause “restarts” which never reach the same level, etc).

Last but not least, the scientific communities still “run” on “paper-based” workflows - the very same “write everything down” universal approach.

In short, a form of written asynchronous communication is the most optimal way to perform distracting and mostly unnecessary (redundant) interactions with other people.

Asynchronous

Asynchronous here means that I read (work) at a proper time of the day, when I am well-primed and in the right mood, and I write at an appropriate time, when I am primed and in the mood to do it.

It is absolutely NOT when other people want me to speak or even listen to them. If they have anything to say (worth litening) they could write it down and send it to me.

Tools

The old-school means of communication (uucp, then SMTP-based email, mailing lists with accessible archives, and the Usenet) were good-enough for everything.

The complex workflows were email-based (using attachments and external “processors of particular MIME content-types). The early stages of development of the Linux Kernel were (and partially still) email-based (with “hooks” to the version control system).

It is worth noting that recreating an old-school email-based workflows and even running local Usenet (NNTP) servers would boost non-bullshit productivity of any team (by forcing people to write their thoughts down - to think more that talk).

Emacs

It was not an arbitrary coincidence that everything, including very convenient, searchable access to Email and Usenet has been well-integrated into Emacs, which was at the time (and definitely still is) a working “environment” of smart people.

The “proper”, text-based and well-structured Web (as a self-publishing tool) has a decent support within Enacs too.

The only real major innovations (no jokes here) were web-based bug-tracking systems (Bugzilla) and the Wiki (https://wiki.c2.com/?WelcomeVisitors), which was a quick way to in-place edit a well-structured web content.

Trac

This pragmatic approach culminated with the Trac - web-based project management tool, which was a huge success at its time and still being used by serious projects (notably GHC).

Gthub

Today all the old-school tech has been integrated into Github, which is in some sense an “enterprise version” of Trac.

“The hell is other people”

What people call “remote” or “WFH” works well only when it is based on some form of asynchronous, written communication.

In the past large and complex projects, from kernels, compilers (GHC) to whole operating systems (FreeBSD) has been successfully developed “remotely”. This proves (by example) that constant close interactions with “other people” are unnecessary and redundant.

Yes, whole “layers” of “managers” in some organizations exist only due to a mandatory in-person communications (endless meetings, standups, etc), but this is not necessarily a good thing and definitely is not required.

The related notion of misusing and abusing email and turning it into a constant meaningless flow of distractions (popularized by Cal Newport) is another serious argument about the actual harm of unnecessary communication.

The Brooks’s law is true exactly because of “neatly exponential” increase in inefficient and mostly redundant communication between people involved in a complex project. Eventually maintaining “required” social interactions would become the main time-consuming activity and the project will inevitably fail.

Anonymity

This is very deep notion, which emerged at the early days of the Internet and Usenet.

It is about reducing unnecessary emotionally-charged and redundant traction with the society. I simply do not need and do not want to know all the social aspects of your personality, not even your real name.

This goes back to the emergent internet (and Usenet) based “hacker” subculture, where nicknames (call signs) were good enough. The early internet “hacker” communities were bound by a common interest or a “common cause”, and the knowledge (in itself) were much more valuable than any personality.

It was indeed something similar to the way too abstract Greek ideal of an “elevated state” of only “exchanging of ideas”, but it emerges in the most pragmatic environment.

There is even deeper notion of anonymity, of not even having a distinct identity (a nickname or any other form of id “number”) and nevertheless contribute to “the common cause” by producing structured texts (documents or a source code). This is a remote ideal, of course.

When one is spared from the unnecessary traction and burden of everything social (and socially constructed bullshit) one has literally more “energy” for thinking and doing what one chooses to do.

The main reason is that everything social is grossly emotional (“by design”) and unwanted emotions is the main cause of mental and even physical suffering. Most people are in the state of a constant painful struggle with themselves to control their own unwanted emotions, and this has the most profound consequences.

This is why modern anonymous imageboards (notably 4chan) which, by the way, still retain the old-school “spirit” of a minimalist mostly text based internet (well, images are there, but they are more like illustrations to the text, as it should be), more often than not has an incomparably better quality of the content that “social networks” where the social aspect is much more prominent.

Of course, these image boards are full to the brim of the most profound stupid bullshit, which lie in between of the rare gems of anonymous knowledge and reason.

Remote collaboration

There are better ways to work, which cause less burnout, less dissatisfaction and disillusionment. It keeps one’s motivation and drive “high”, while dramatically cutting the emotional “costs” (which are very high).

This is what underlies all the early “hacker sub-culture” internet phenomena and what still “drives” the best anonymous image boards out there.

We asynchronously sent and receive [structured] text files

Just as mathematicians of the past exchanged their written correspondence using a postal service and publications in printed “scientific journals”.

Aside from some technological innovations which saves the trees, this is still the most optimal way of dealing with knowledge.

A knowledge-base in a Wiki is the only real innovation, and every non-bullshit project must have one.

Emacs + structured text + git (version control)

The good heuristic of a good workflow is that it required nothing but Emacs, a structured text of various formats (and related tools) and a version control system.

a Github repo

In some sense Github done lots of things right, so another “less esoteric” heuristic would be “if it all fits into a private Github repo”, then it is probably “doing well”.

One more time, the functionality and the tooling Github provides is more than enough for everything “constructive”, just as a structured plain text is still good-enough for the internet itself to still be useful.

Remote “Jobs”

There are a few “maxims” which makes everything much simpler and less painful (for everyone involved).

You pay for may “structured texts”

I write everything down in various strucured text formats – LaTeX (so you could read the underlying mathematics) and the source code in a half-a-dozen different languages (each of which has some aspects for the problem at hand).

I start writing after I receive the first payment, I stop writing when you have a payment missed, and I abandon the project completely (and forget about you) when you miss 3 payments in a row. The very nice and robust core protocol.

It is that simple. No tention, no traction, no emotionally charged bullshit.

Onlyfans of “structured texts”

Another emergent social phenomena. People pay for some “content” because they find it “useful” for them for their own reasons.

People who produce the “content”, more often than not, do not even want to know who the “consumers” are or anything personal about them. This eliminates lots of unnecessary burden.

Yes, there are sometimes “platinum sponsors” and what not, but we have start small.

A subscription plan

I work only remotely and alone. The only things you could get from me is some sort of structured text files, in exchange for a pre-paid subscription.

the Pre-paid GSM analogy

Just as GSM operators optimize for minimization of loses (after spending heavily on its network infrastructure) and for minimization of in-person customer services, so I am optimizing for minimization of my own potential loses of time and money after spending heavily on education and development of an expertise.

You (an organization or an individual CEO or whoever) presumably have a problem to be solved and a big budget for it. If you don’t have a substantial money allocated for this problem of yours, there is nothing to talk about.

So, just like with pre-paid GSM plans, there is no service unless you pre-paid for it. Just as a GSM network does not care what you use it for, I don’t care what will you do with my code, math or writings. I just provide (partial) solutions for sub-problems as long as payments are.

If you are not satisfied you stop paying and switch to another, presumably better service. If I receive no payments I stop working. It is that simple.

There is no way you can influence me other than paying or not. I don’t even want to meet you (leave alone to participate in your meetings) just like GSM network technicians never meet any single customer in person.

Individual, detailed protocol could be established for a particular business arrangement (which correspond to simplest possible informal contracts), but the main principle remain the same - of a pre-paid GSM network substitution. No timely advance payment for the next time period – no service and no tension watsoever.