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Comment by formatjam | Hacker News Reader

meanwhile, China is doing 996 - 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week.

Obviously people hated it. But it is happening and no wonder China tech is catching up fast / winning in some areas already.

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From my experience with Chinese working culture, half of that time is most definitely spent not working.

I’d bet the factors are much more political in nature than productivity on the individual level.

It is normal for Chinese to sleep/take a nap by the desk during the day.. Pretty sure they are catching up because of other reasons than being most of their waking hours at work..

As someone who has worked in a dev office in Beijing for a bit - no. Devs routinely took up to 2 hours for lunch breaks, and took numerous breaks in a day. I didn't blame them, mind, because the reason was obvious - for most people, it's just not possible to be completely engaged and invested for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, forever. I'd estimate there was about 4-5 hours a day of properly productive work going on.

Winning what? A totalitarian government where the people are all treated like shit? They may be winning the GDP game but that's not translating to any improvements for their citizens or the world.

The only people winning in China are the people at the top of the communist party.

or maybe they are faking their gdp numbers with reckless real estate ponzi schemes

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