I think that I'd be way more interested in reading about this phenomena if there was literally any term used to describe it other than "digital nomad".
There's also just the creeps who really enjoy being served by other humans, but can't really afford to own a full time servant class anywhere but SE Asia so that's where they live. Something really rubs me the wrong way about the white people who do this, lots of really creepy stuff going on.
I quite enjoy having servants when I'm in India. There are many jobs where I don't have a comparative advantage so I pay people to do them. Your language "own a full time servant" is nonsensical, it's "pay a person for their labor at a mutually agreed upon wage". If an employee finds something better (which they often do in a fast growing economy) there's nothing I can do to keep them besides offer them more money.
By contrast, in the US, I'm forced to pay people not to work.
White Americans have a very odd bias against personal service. Honestly I think it is a major obstacle to economic growth - image how much more productive the average upper middle class family could be if they could employ servants to get things done at home.
Instead USG pays a big portion of "poor" people not to work, and also insists that they cannot work for low (market clearing) wages.
A lot of people hire nannies, nurses and maids in the USA, especially older people who are not up for the task physically that much anymore.
Any kind of assistant is also pretty expensive in the USA, at least $2-3k full time per month, from post tax income. A very upper middle class family making $15k/month, that would be %15/%20 of their income, very expensive!
Indeed, because the US government heavily disincentives selling labor via steep and onerous labor taxes.
To further discourage selling labor, the US government spends a sizable portion of the taxes collected from labor-sellers to encourage people not to sell labor.
So you are putting forth the idea that all forms of personal service require sacrificing dignity? What does equality even mean with respect to one's work role?
> > So you are putting forth the idea that all forms of personal service require sacrificing dignity?
> Well yes. Following orders is always a sacrifice of dignity, even when we make it a small, subtle one.
Maybe the problem is that both 'following orders' and 'dignity' (and perhaps even 'sacrifice') are ill-defined, but I can name countless examples from my life, as well as from a cursory look at the life of friends of mine, where 'following orders' provided joy and satifsaction and where it didn't affect my (sense of) dignity. Especially in small, subtle cases.
Because leisure is preferable to labor, and labor for the overall good of society (including oneself) is better than labor for the personal whim of a wannabe hierarch.
If you want to promote leisure, why should that leisure be concentrated in one leisure class? What's wrong with some leisure transfers - the leisure class can do some labor so that I can also consume leisure?
> There's also just the creeps who really enjoy being served by other humans, but can't really afford to own a full time servant class anywhere but SE Asia so that's where they live.
Hi, I've been doing the digital nomad thing (I don't like this term either) for about a year and a half with two close friends. I'm not the way you describe, and neither are my friends.
Could you give more information about where your perspective comes from? Is this something you've seen while working as a nomad? Or something you imagine happening?
Being served, as in having a guy behind your chair when eating and handing you your shirt, like in Burmese days (Orwell)? I bet this is kind of rare nowadays.
But to me employing local people to do some very noble tasks like attending to kids is quite ok, and in fact a very healthy way to share your wealth with people that have good use for it.
There's also just the creeps who really enjoy being served by other humans, but can't really afford to own a full time servant class anywhere but SE Asia so that's where they live. Something really rubs me the wrong way about the white people who do this, lots of really creepy stuff going on.