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> Tons of people go through life without considering any alternatives to the path they are on, or developing the self-knowledge about what they actually want, which is a big reason so many people end up so unhappy.

This feels like an expression of the "just world" fallacy[1]. It's entirely possible that many of the people stuck in 50hr/week jobs did all of the things you list but didn't get the lucky breaks Tim did and so are still working 50hrs a week.

Consider an alternative reality where everybody read 4HWW, took that advice to heart and proceeded to apply it to their life. Would everyone be working 4hrs/week or would you still need some people to work those 40hr/wk jobs that keep the world running?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

> This feels like an expression of the "just world" fallacy[1]. It's entirely possible that many of the people stuck in 50hr/week jobs did all of the things you list but didn't get the lucky breaks Tim did and so are still working 50hrs a week.

Saying I'm expressing the just-world fantasy implies I'm casting judgement on people or somehow saying they deserve to suffer in miserable jobs because they made bad choices. I don't think that's what I said at all. Recognizing the reality that everyone has a role (that they may not be aware of) in deciding what to do next is not a moral judgement.

Entrepreneurship and becoming wealthy are not requirements to be intentional about work and having a fulfilling life. As an example, my sister is a single mom with an autistic child who worked in fast food for years and of course hated it. She realized she would be much happier if she could work in a healthcare field because she wanted work that made more of a difference to peoples lives. So she busted her ass and took student loans for night classes, and today she's successful as a nurse working every day in an operating room. For her, self-awareness of her desires led to goals and actions led to a much better outcome.

> Consider an alternative reality where everybody read 4HWW, took that advice to heart and proceeded to apply it to their life. Would everyone be working 4hrs/week or would you still need some people to work those 40hr/wk jobs that keep the world running?

I don't think it's necessary for everyone to achieve the same outcome for something to be a good idea.

If you read the book you would know it's not really about working 4hrs/wk but rather about freeing yourself up to pursue work you find fulfilling. I think many more people could do that if they knew it was an option, but I don't think everyone would achieve that. Entrepreneurship is risky and difficult, and many people prefer a more predictable path.

> If you read the book you would know it's not really about working 4hrs/wk but rather about freeing yourself up to pursue work you find fulfilling. I think many more people could do that if they knew it was an option

Our world, our economy, our technology, our agriculture, our transportation is FILLED with jobs that very few people would ever find "fulfilling".

I prefer a vision of a future/world in which everyone is able to lead fulfilling lives regardless of the work they do. A world in which the value of all work is acknowledged, and in which we recognize that it's not sensible for us to push people towards the idea that their fulfillment will come from the work they do.

Eusebi Güell built a small company "village" outside of Barcelona dedicated to the idea that even the cleaning staff should be able to go home after work and listen to opera, admire great art, read great books, enjoy good food amidst a vibrant and engaging social life. It wasn't perfect (and he went bankrupt), but it (like the English Garden Movement that inspired him) were steps in a better direction than "everyone should do what they love".

Let's stop pretending that everyone (or even most people, perhaps) can do "fulfilling" work, and focus on how to make it possible for people have fulfilling lives.

Our collective productivity has increased almost 3x since 1950. That 40 hr/week could be 13 for everyone but people choose not to structure their lives that way.

If we could somehow give up all of the quality of life improvements of the past 70 years without giving up any of the productivity enhancements from the same timeframe, then sure, maybe everyone could work less.

But, that doesnt make sense. Banking on my smartphone is more efficient than waiting in line for a teller, but it also means I need sufficient income to pay for the device and the network access (neither of which existed in 1950).

Do you really think that the reason we don't have 13 hour workweeks is that "people choose not to structure their lives that way?"

The OP wasn't stating that the world is just. Like at all, nada. You are using a straw man argument.

Saying they need some "personal responsibility" and not acknowledging that the odds are stacked against part-time minimum wage workers is disingenuous.

If you look at the who the poor are - it's virtually all part-time minimum wage workers. It's disproportionately women of color with children. A lot of these kids were born when these women were very young, if not girls. Most of these people were born into poverty AND live in areas with terrible public education AND the sixteen states where minimum wage is the lowest federal minimum...

Further, the majority of small businesses are not hiring 1 or 2 Ivy League educated MBAs they pay $250k per year. They're disproportionately hiring disenfranchised workers from the above ground.

Granted, these small businesses generally aren't the 4-hour work week Tim was talking about.

But "we" don't all have a choice to just "decide" to stop working full time. That's the point.

You have a choice to do something other than what you're doing right now. Having clear goals for where you want to end up that guide your choices, you can eventually stop working a job you hate and do something you find more fulfilling to generate the money you need.

So the choice is do you want to work toward a goal like that or instead just soothe your dissatisfaction by complaining about how rich people have more than you and life's not fair. That's basically what the author is doing.

man these talking points of "everyone can just make different choices and eventually be successful" along with "anyone critiquing excess is just jealous/whining" are getting really old.

Stop oversimplifying everyones lives and complex societal issues down to "personal responsibility" and hand-waving away valid criticisms. Inequality exists, it's not easy to get out of poverty, and unsustainable lifestyles have consequences.

Do you know down to the penny, how much credit you have remaining on your credit cards? Have you ever lived in a state of fear, wondering which thing you've been putting off – the toothache, the weird noises coming from your car, the surprise bill, will bring you over the brink into homelessness? Do you think anyone in this position can simply get out by choice? How many people do you think live in conditions like this?

> Have you ever lived in a state of fear, wondering which thing you've been putting off – the toothache, the weird noises coming from your car, the surprise bill, will bring you over the brink into homelessness?

Assumptions are funny things. It might surprise you, but I actually HAVE been in more or less this situation. For me, it was in the years of the Great Recession. I graduated in 2010 and nobody would hire me, not even for service jobs like Starbucks/Walmart/etc. My parents had no ability to help me, and moving back in with them in the podunk town where I grew up would've been an economic dead end. At my lowest all I had was a $300 netbook computer to my name with maxed credit cards and an empty bank account; net worth -$60k due to student loans and credit card debt I acquired trying to make ends meet during my extended unemployment.

During this period I would've been on the streets except I was able to rotate among friends who generously let me sleep on the sofa for free. I stole about 80% of my food from a nearby university by pretending to be a student on the dining plan and spent my days applying for jobs from the library while starting to learn how to code Python. What little income I had during this period came from ghost-writing papers for rich college kids--$10 per page!--and one-off tutoring gigs I arranged through Craigslist. I tried making logos for people on 99designs using a pirated version of Adobe Illustrator but never won any design contests and gave up after a couple weeks of trying to focus on the writing and coding which seemed more promising.

When I managed to get my first paid tech job in 2014, I spent my first $20k on dental work I'd deferred to the point I needed a bunch of root canals and crowns. Only after my teeth were fixed did I understand how much of my mental bandwidth had been occupied by thinking: How are my teeth feeling today?

It was difficult being poor and I considered killing myself at times because I felt like such a failure. But I'm glad I saw these as problems for myself to solve because if I was waiting for a government program or social revolution to make things fair, I'd still be waiting. Or homeless. Or dead.

> Do you think anyone in this position can simply get out by choice? How many people do you think live in conditions like this?

No, I don't think ANYONE can. And I don't think it's simple. But I think many people can. I wouldn't advise waiting on somebody else to fix your problems if you're able to attempt self-rescue. I'm tired of people who have never been poor infantilizing those who are by pretending they have no agency in life.

Thanks for sharing, props to you for getting out of your situation. I fully respect doing what has to be done to get by, but I think its still worth pointing out that achieving what you had done would have been considerably more difficult if you had stuck to the straight and narrow like society would have wanted - to the larger point that there are systemic issues that in fact do inhibit the agency of people. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids all men to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread-the rich as well as the poor."

Sure we do - almost all of us are saving for retirement at some point. It's up to you to decide how much you want to set aside so that you can potentially retire early if you're willing to sacrifice now.

maybe if by "we" you just mean "commenters of HN". 45% of Americans[1] and over 1/3 of Canadians [2] have no savings.

1. https://www.statista.com/chart/20323/americans-lack-savings/....

2. https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/more-than-a-third...

Article 1 is misleading at best. I have less than $1000 in my savings account, but only because the interest rate is terrible. It doesnt mean I have less than $1000 saved. The article's conclusions conflate the two things.

It's not "misleading", it's just one way of measuring it. Feel free to take a look at these metrics if that specific one is unsatisfactory:

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/heres-how-many-americans-are...

2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/06/03/report...

I just don't see how someone could possibly make the argument that everyone has the means to stop working and pursue something else. It points to being out of touch with the reality of not only Americans and Canadians but globally.

Jessica's dream book of collectivistic Utopia, that she was expecting under the "4-hour work" metaphor... I doubt it would sell very well and for good reason.

Her appeals to woke tropes make no sense, especially considering she goes by the title of "influencer"* - there's no colonialism in creating jobs, much less so in places with next to no digital economy. It's based on an abstract disregard to the fact that merely removing job opportunities will hardly leave anyone better off. There's also no colonialism in spending dollars where they get you further. It's just zero-sum guilt and envy porn.

*edit: it's "unfluencer" - disregard that bit

She uses the title "unfluencer", not influencer.

she does indeed, I misread that