Liberty revised, pt. 2

The programmer-in-the-woods

The programmer-in-the-woods is our hypothetical marvel of modernity; he is equipped with a valuable trade skill, software development, which he employs for general profit while simultaneously procuring many of his own basic needs by living in the wild. He is the man who balances a mastery of technology while avoiding a great dependency upon it. He fits into the modern economic model of optimizing his wage earning potential through self-specialization while maximizing his overall freedom by steering clear of the metropolis and exacting greater control over his own behavior and environment. If the programmer-in-the-woods has such a good deal, why then do we not see more programmers-in-the-woods?

The quick answer is that the programmer-in-the-woods doesn't have such a great deal in comparison to the programmer-in-the-city. After all, is it not a benefit to live near a grocer and thus have a freedom from having to grow one's own food? To live near shops and thus have a freedom from having to make clothes, tools, and other necessities? To live near doctors and have a freedom from illness, as far as that's possible? And so on?

How good is the quick answer? As discussed in the previous post, freedom froms are not freedoms but instead are securities. The quick answer maintains that if these are securities then they are securities than enable other freedoms, and so the securities are freedoms—or, at least, they're as good as freedoms. For example, not having to grow my own food means that I have more time to blog on Mondays and Thursdays. If I were the programmer-in-the-woods and my chicken coop had a coyote-sized hole in it today then it seems unlikely that I would have found the time to finish this blog post. The burden of growing one's own food would then be an impairment upon one's freedom of action.

But consider this: despite being enabled, through a thousand urban conveniences and thousand vain pursuits, to self-actualize to our practical maximum potential, we programmers-in-the-city display a remarkable similarity in lifestyles; our housing is similar to where the main distinction is whether it's shared such as an apartment or standalone such a house; our methods of transportation are automotive and, much of the time, frustrating; our diets rely upon heavily processed foods though we may wish it otherwise; we lack community; and we never seem to have enough time for all our interests. Is this the best we can do? Were all other options inferior? Or maybe these are clues that the choices that led us to become the programmer-in-the-city were, in fact, illusory.

There are two forces I'll note here. The first is that the programmer-in-the-city is necessary because the programmer-in-the-woods is not viable on a large scale. An economy of programmers-in-the-woods is less sustainable in that it's inefficient to have a programmer unable to deal with a time-critical situation at work, such as fixing a bug that has brought down the entire system, because he's instead dealing with that coyote-sized hole in his chicken coop. Economies are more efficient when individuals specialize—when programmers are able to devote themselves to software only, and it makes sense that software shops value such (potential) devotion enough to pay a lot more for it. They could hire a telecommuting programmer-in-the-woods contractor or two at a much cheaper rate—and some do—but the bulk of the army of a software shop must necessarily be people who don't have to worry about starving. (And judging by the looks of the industry, this appears to be a requirement satisfactorily met.)

This is to say that there exists a race towards the city. The programmer-in-the-woods, our icon of balance between specialization and self-sufficiency, finds himself increasingly pressured to specialize fully to maximize wage earning or else to go off-grid fully to maximize self-sufficiency (if he is able). Those sticking it out in the middle are likely feeling pressure to tend more towards one extreme.

The second force to note is the distinction between choice and freedom. Currently I'm endeavoring to decide the advantages and disadvantages of different frame materials for a triathlon bicycle, which is to say I'm wrapped up in a rather specific problem. I can't imagine the programmer-in-the-woods spending time on such a problem, probably owing to how there aren't many triathlons held in that pristine little lake in the middle of his woods. The urbanite may view my choice as a freedom that the programmer-in-the-woods lacks, but I'm not so sure. My choice is fitting squarely within an existing pattern for urban life: that entailed by the fitness-oriented aspiring triathlete. The programmer-in-the-woods would not spend time on deciding frame materials for a triathlon bicycle because he is presumably too busy devoting his time and creative energies to cultivating his garden—both literally and figuratively. The programmer-in-the-woods and the programmer-in-the-city are equally trapped within their own lifestyles; the difference is that programmer-in-the-woods is deciding the entirety of his lifestyle, for his lifestyle is his survival; whereas, I am deciding only details within my lifestyle, and I am able to choose those details only to the extent that I successfully maintain my specialized role within the economy that sustains me. The programmer-in-the-city has many choices but only so far as those choices fit within the overall framework of his being a programmer-in-the-city; in this way his freedoms are secondary to the freedoms of the programmer-in-the-woods.

But it's not a bad deal, being a programmer-in-the-city. I enjoy my pursuits, however vain they are. Most of you reading this are Xs-in-the-city and hopefully enjoy your own lives, and so perhaps you feel inclined to attach a judgmental value that being an X-in-the-city is better than being an X-in-the-woods. This is not the aim of this post. The aim of this post has been merely to highlight how specialization necessarily leads to a decrease in overall freedom. Perhaps it is worth asking why we sometimes feel that this trade-off somehow impugns our lifestyles?