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Comment by ed312 | Hacker News Reader

Completely agree - we should be working to _reduce_ the number of "jobs".

Run for office, run for office, run for office. Crafting public policy to handle the situation is the only path to success. If you're building the automation and there are no public policy guardrails and safety nets, it only makes the problem worse. Start ratcheting down the work week (40 hrs->32 hours, 5 days->4 days) for starts, considering the productivity already realized in the workplace over the last several decades, data showing how many hours a week people aren't working at their job, at that work will expand to fill the time you allow it to fill (Parkinson's law).

The world does not need more incubators and startups (for the most part). It needs better public policy, governing, and a more equitable distribution of resources.

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." -- William Gibson

There are jobs that need to be done, but not enough funding for it. A lot of people could use some therapy or other mental health resources, but don't because of a lack of funding for it. It lacks funding because the people who need it most often are the poorest among us.

Same with crumbling infrastructure, affordable housing & education and other such things in the USA.

This doesn't conflict with what I said, and I do not disagree.

If I were ever in such a position of power I would aggressively push for 32 hour work weeks by 2022. (Tapering down each year until then). I would loop most salaried (OT exempt) jobs into this category as well as I think a lot of "OT exempt" employees should not really be classified as such. (Including SW engineers and DevOps ppl)

32 hours a week. Every hour after 32 and before 40 would be time and half. Every hour after 40 and before 50 would be double. Hours after 50 would be billed at triple the hourly rate.

I would only change the hours. Not rates, or anything else. Let the market settle out the rest.

I've been working as a SWE now at 35 hours a week for almost 4 years (admittedly at a lowend SWE salary [but still much higher than average, we live pretty comfortably]) and honestly I can't even imagine going back to 40+ hours a week (or 60+ when I was a fresh out of college kid at a start up) The extra time now I spend with my family, and just getting stuff done has been so much more valuable than I ever could have imagined.

It's something I wish I could spread to others. When I was at a startup I scoffed at people going home at 5-5:15. Considered them not "passionate about the product".

Oh how misguided I was...but I digress.

You would make it illegal for someone else to hire me at $100/hr for a 40 hour week?

What business is it of yours? Geez.

When a large number of people are working two jobs already because a lot of jobs will only let you work for less than 30hrs a week to keep costs down (not full time so don't need to include many costly benefits), it is probably not helping people if they now have to go to three different jobs. The USA should probably get rid of the rules that force companies to pay people more when the work longer. It would be a lot easier for workers to just work at one place for 60-80 hr/wk and not have to commute to an extra job if they need/want more money.

This is a terrible idea, and does nothing to increase the quality of life of workers. No one should need to work more than 40 hours a week to survive, but if you want to work more than that voluntarily, that’s okay.

Wages need to continue to be driven up while also reducing the minimum number of hours per week making a worker considered full time.

Say you would rather work 60hr a week at one job at the same pay rate instead of working 40hr at one job and 20hr at another. You like your main job and the extra commute time to another job is a pain. Your main employer likes your work and is willing to pay you your standard wage for 60hr a week. This rate is even higher than your second job. This is not allowed by the US government. You can't legally voluntarily give up an hourly overtime wage increase.

Unless, of course, you are in a salaried position. Then you can work as many hours a week as your employer and you agree on.

A higher standard of living for everyone is a great idea. How to do that over a long period of time in a society is a hard problem. I think it probably consists of letting people decided for themselves how to live their lives and have as little central planning, state control, and corporations as possible, but who knows?

The problem is, that without the financial disincentive, that employer has no reason NOT to have mandatory overtime, all the time, and try to get by on half the work force working mandatory 80 hour weeks and save the costs of benefits and PTO and whatever that the two employees at 40 hour weeks would cost.

It wouldn't happen right away, but would creep up, and people would feel they'd have no choice because they need a job and all other companies by that point would be doing the same thing anyway.

Just look at the video game industry, where the supply for jobs is so high and people are willing to put up with so much shit to live their dream that it has a notorious 'crunch time' of 60-80+ hour weeks, sometimes lasting for years on end, and just expected of you.

It's gotten so bad in that industry there are (supposedly) legitimate efforts to unionize to protect the workers. You don't see that in any other software development field.

That's basically what you're advocating for.

The overtime needs to be there as a check against the corporation's own greed and psychopathic indifference towards its employees' well being. The financial disincentive is the only thing that stops the employer from allowing these abuses in most cases.

I've been waiting my entire adult life for a politician to run on a platform of "less jobs." To me this seems like the patently obvious goal of all this technology we've been building.

Instead, we're living in a bizarre opposite world where nothing makes sense.

Keep your eyes out for a candidate who does run on that in the next federal election cycle.

In order to have less jobs, then people have to consume less stuff. Luckily, you don't have to wait for everyone to buy into this agenda, you can make that choice for yourself:

https://www.google.com/search?q=financial+independence+retir...

Not saying this is the right thing for everyone. Lots of people would hate it, and that's fine. The nice thing is that we all get to choose what's best for ourselves.

As soon as technology itself starts electing politicians without human intervention, we'll have that. Until then, well...

People want more things and they want to be better than other people. People want a higher quality of life. People want the social status and personal gratification that comes with performing higher status, skilled work well. It's not as easy as simple saying "you don't have to work anymore to have a decent quality of life". You would have to profoundly retool peoples' expectations and the way we view work as a society.

I know several people who could retire tomorrow and never work again but they keep working away anyway. If your premise is we would all like to stop working but can't because we aren't deploying tech correctly or don't have the money to do so, why do large numbers of these people exist?

I don't understand this theory. If we do that, how people that don't already have a lot of money are supposed to get money to purchase food for exemple ?

Don't use money to distribute things needed for basic human existence.

Throw out all your ideas about economics and politics. You want as many people as possible to have a comfortable enough life to pursue things they find fulfilling without stress about survival. You're an engineer, how do you do it?

Well, it's probably cultural and because I love my job, but I have a hard time imagining a fulfilling live without a job :)

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