Hacker News Reader

Comment by lummm | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the lamentation over a culture of overwork. What other method is there to get ahead as an individual other than out-competing your peers? My understanding of life as a young professional in China or Korea is that the competition is almost unbelievable to someone from North America.

View on HN

> What other method is there to get ahead as an individual other than out-competing your peers?

I think there are a lot of assumptions in that statement that highlight the problem.

What does it mean to "get ahead as an individual"? The phrasing implies that you mean earning as much money as possible, but should that really be our primary goal?

It also implies that for one person to "get ahead", somebody else needs to stay behind, but why should that be? Why should I work 60 hours a week, and another person zero, when we could both work 30?

The problem with making that our culture is that most work is not very enjoyable or fulfilling, and so we're basically peer pressuring people into miserable lives, and that causes other problems like drug addiction and mental health issues.

Indeed. And it's also worth noting that the culture of individualism tends to hold everybody back, even the individuals who get furthest "ahead". In general, individuals benefit more when everybody is collaborating and supporting their peers rather than trying to beat them.

When rising tides can lift all boats, individualists are effectively cannonballs.

There really is no need to "get ahead". Nothing wrong with taking it easy when there's no life or death situation going on. That's good enough for 80+% of productive work and a decent life.

Sadly companies make it seem like that's the case, like there's a war going on, forcing people to work until they drop or lose their income. That applies to offices and factories alike. Just to squeeze that last 10-20% out of people.

For what? A shitty app, 2 more assembled devices, 3 more ready meals, all of which will be forgotten or in a landfill without even being properly used.

Easy to say in a safety-net society in a comfortable city. But if losing a job can mean an extreme drop in standard of living, then competition will naturally be more fierce.

In that situation it would be more rational to look for allies to reduce the leverage of an unscrupulous employer.

Sounds like communism to me

We communists are famous for organising trade unions, so kind of.

I didn't mean it as a criticism, I just think its amusing that any time in the US if someone talks about unionising or workers rights - chants of "that's communism" begin. The workers have been so programmed to not stand up for themselves it has become a tragedy.

I know what you mean, the red scare is very deep in the US. It’s certainly funny that many seem to think unions are communism without actually knowing what either is or what the actual connection between them is. My tongue was in the vicinity of my cheek when I wrote the above comment.

That's not necessarily rational as an individual. Perhaps finding enough allies is much harder to achieve, or comes with more risk, than playing the competitive game well enough to meet your own needs.

That's definitely true, but not the only important thing in such a comparison. Germans work only 75% of the hours Americans do per year, and a lot of that is cultural.

> What other method is there to get ahead as an individual other than out-competing your peers?

Some of us have started to have issues with the "get ahead" mentality. Otherwise you are totally correct, wanting to get ahead implicitly means getting ahead of others i.e. out-competing them, but, like I said, some of us have started to see/understand that this battle is mostly futile.

It’s unclear the extent to which it’s futile. Does getting educated, working hard, doing side work, DIY work to save money, spending money wisely, saving and investing for retirement, buying one house, marrying one spouse, help your family “get ahead”? Pretty reliably. Nothing’s guaranteed in life, but doing that list gives you pretty good odds to enjoy life and get your kids started on their own enjoyable lives.

This is true, but when so much of our culture and the starting conditions many people find themselves in are decided before our birth, often as a matter of public policy, the whole exercise starts to feel a bit, contrived? The rules of the game are really up to us, we're not talking about axioms of the universe here and yet, we're so often expected not to question anything, and simply focus on our personal success while ignoring externalities and plights of others.

What if succeeding personally while watching many others suffer unfairly, in a rich country where it needn't be that way, isn't enough to enjoy life? Do we have a duty to expand our sympathies beyond the self and the family? Most ancient wisdom says yes, and yet the modern status quo has failed to conserve this crucial pillar of humanity. Instead we have prosperity gospel, and its more secular version, the mythical meritocracy. Failed ideas that the human race has fought off more than once, only to find itself in the same boat again.

People generally overestimate the benefit of working long hours and underestimate the value of working hard during those hours. If working 55 hours a week is enough to cause serious bodily harm, then it seems likely that the optimal number of working hours from a productivity perspective is far less than that.

I sometimes think it’s useful to think of myself as a mental athlete. My job is to perform intellectual feats of strength in controlled efforts. The rest of my time I spend preparing for those efforts by relaxing.

In most western countries, in most professional situations, working harder isn't the way to advance, often. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

A great read :)

> What other method is there to get ahead as an individual other than out-competing your peers?

There's a parable about this, about a fisherman and a businessman.

https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the...

Why do we feel the need to get ahead of others? Because we see how the lower classes are treated and would rather live a better life. Our justified fears of falling behind the curve are manipulated by our circumstances, that we have no control over, but others do. We are driven in the direction of escape from these circumstances. It's just more fight or flight, and we mostly choose flight. Our fears are a yolk, our labors are harnessed and converted to profit. We may get ahead of our peers, but we do not get very far.

You probably mean “yoke” not “yolk”.

Because health is a limited resource. It might not be apparent to you now, because you are still able to put in the long hours "as a young professional", but at some point things inside you will break and if you don't give them time to heal, they will never go back to their original quality.

If overwork is mandated by your culture, you will not find the time to heal, thereby starting a downward spiral. And with so much competition, there will be only few winners and lots of losers. If you lose, the sacrifice of your health will have no benefits and there is no way to get it back.

Life is not about work. Life is about living. And health is essential for living.

You could out-compete them by being smarter. What is the point of 'getting ahead' if you die from exhaustion? That's a false economy.

Check out “Compete to Create” by Pete Carroll for an alternate view that prioritizes rest and recovery as part of high performance.

A lot of people are forced to overwork because of a low minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage to a living wage can save lives.

> My understanding of life as a young professional in China or Korea is that the competition is almost unbelievable to someone from North America.

South Korea and China competition is "working harder". In the US it's all about "working smarter"

Also with all due respect for South Korea and China...very risk averse.

The big jumps happen when you take a risk and beat the odds, not the endless grinding which goes on in Asian societies.

Asian societies lack the arrogance of the creator/founder, which abounds in the West, especially American Jews.

Imagining something new and having the arrogance to think that it will be a great success and you'll be the one bringing it into the world. This is the trademark American Jew mindset.

Zuck turned down 1 Billion for Facebook...Larry and Sergey 1 million for Google. It takes guts and arrogance to think you'll beat the odds and say "no thanks" to 1 billion (and to 1 million too! considering it was back in the 90s and it was a very good deal for the effort they put into it)

i don't know why you say "American Jew" because that trait is a trademark of Americans of all race, religions, and creeds not American Jews only.

( skip to 1:06 ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ4aDgZSjDo

Reply on news.ycombinator.com