We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor
sciencenordic.com
sciencenordic.com
My grandparents are perfectly typical working-class people. They grew up in cramped, damp houses with no central heating or indoor plumbing. They ate mainly seasonal vegetables, considered a chicken or roast of meat a rare treat and often went to bed hungry. They bought new clothes or furniture only when their old ones were beyond repair. They aspired to owning a bicycle, not a car. The only people they knew who had been abroad had done so while in uniform. They didn't regard themselves as materially deprived, because that was the only lifestyle they knew.
As much as we might deny being materialistic, the naked truth is that what we consider to be a basic comfortable lifestyle today was, within living memory, unattainable luxury. We continue to work 40 hour weeks because we have adjusted our expectations to our income. We overwhelmingly choose to work the greatest number of hours we can sustainably tolerate (somewhere between 40 and 60 hours for most people), in order to maximise our spending power.
The recent kerfuffle over "The 1%" is illustrative of this phenomenon. There was widespread mockery of people earning 500k who regarded themselves as just making ends meet. In a very real sense, we are all a part of that laughably oblivious 1%. The lifestyles we consider just about tolerable are, by any historical or global standard, utter luxury. Almost everyone who has ever lived (and almost everyone living today) would consider themselves lucky to have the spending power of an American on minimum wage.
It is very much in line with the quote that pteredactyl posted. He also did a lot of early work in consumerism and marketing.
... is still going to get a lot of people angry, even if you explicitly limit your scope to the First World. It's a combination of lack of historical perspective coupled with a perception that admitting anything has improved is tantamount to agreeing with the people who think social welfare programs need to be eliminated.
In the US, people with earned income < $5k/year still tend to consume $23k/year.
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2009/income.txt
By the standards of the past, poverty more or less has vanished. We just raised the bar for poverty so that we have someone to feel sorry for.
When you consider that the very poorest in the UK have free housing, welfare, free education and healthcare, etc, then "poverty" in a global sense is very obviously long since eliminated here.
I'm not convinced this is true: there are also intense coordination costs and learning costs. Two programmers working 20 hours a week, for example, are way less productive than one programmer working 40 hours a week. And the one programmer will learn faster because she's putting in an extra 20 hours a week.
That's true in virtually all knowledge / creative / intellectual professions.
If people are simply executing a set of tasks, maybe working 20 hours a week can make sense, but those jobs are basically commodities, and commodity jobs are a) highly competitive, b) not that remunerative, and c) because of a and b, not that much fun.
EDIT: In response to the commenters below, take a look at Brooks' The Mythical Man Month if you'd like data, at least as far as programmers are concerned.
That makes assumptions efficiency as it relates to number of hours worked that I'm not sure you can make.
How many of those 40 hours are really spent working?
40 hour work weeks are the result of labor regulations, and the binding of health insurance to full-time employment, not a free market equilibrium.
May 1 as an international day of labour demonstration was partly inspired by the immense effort of the US unions at fighting for the 8 hour day, and partly as a commemoration of the Haymarket massacre in Chicago that were part of that struggle:
http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/haymarket/the-story-of-t...
Even today, there's plenty of people who want to reverse those gains. E.g. in the UK, our sitting PM is trying hard to get additional exemptions for the UK from the EU Working Time Directive because it limits how much extra time employers can demand and/or ask for.
I am in my early 60s and for my whole life I limited my work hours to 32 hours per week, even working for large companies. I had lots of time for educational side projects, exercise, extra time with family and friends, and mediation.
My only regret was not perhaps cutting this to less than 30 hours. I did not work Mondays, and every Tuesday morning I was refreshed and enjoyed my work. Leaving about 20% of my salary on the table was a good trade. Some of my bosses did not like this, but when I worked I gave them 100% effort.
Take a look at Brooks' The Mythical Man Month for data that demonstrates the opposite, at least in programming; I haven't followed the field closely, but education and industrial organization researchers have done similar work in other professions.
All said, I expect some loss of productivity is inevitable due to context switching and communication overhead but it isn't necessarily a major loss.
The easy way to combat this is to have longer timelines for projects, or, if necessary, crunch periods followed by more relaxed recharge periods.
Brooks' book also clearly demonstrates that applying a dumb formula derived from the number of programmers doesn't predict the output, and using such a formula to estimate a project's timeline doesn't positively affect the project's outcome. It's main argument is that programmers added late to a project will actually cause it to take even longer to complete.
Brooks' book is remarkable - a lot of programming lore and culture originates there or is popularized by it. I'd compare it to casablanca or citizen kane rather than dismiss it out of hand.
I mean officially I was there 37, it was a good week if I was doing real, actual work for 20. Yes, I made up for it by working my tail off when it was needed.
We coders can be absurdly productive for short bursts, or be slow and steady. You can't have massively productive and steady for very long. In your early 20s you have a few years of this, but the more you push it then the more jaded you'll be later.
I would suggest negotiating this arrangement when you're changing jobs. Your existing employer will likely be reluctant to reduce your hours, whereas (if you're any good) a new employer will be happy to have you for half of each week if the alternative is not having you at all. And it needs to be clear that that is the alternative. My current employer made me a couple of good full-time offers, which I declined: "I'm currently only looking for part time work, as I need the time to pursue my personal projects and interests."
Still on the theme of "It's better to have you part-time than not at all", you may be able to negotiate an ongoing part-time position at your existing workplace if you are seriously considering leaving (and thus the alternative is your leaving, and their not having you at all). Be careful about this, though. You want to maintain a good relationship. An ultimatum will do you no good. But if you're genuinely in-good-faith considering leaving, they may consider your offer.
You will probably have to try a number of different companies before you find one that will hire you on those terms. And, as with all bargaining, you need to be able to walk away.
DISCLAIMER: This worked for me the one time I tried it, but that may be complete coincidence.
Some problems, to be solved, require intense work.
At 40 hours a week you will hardly feel "burned out".
Someone who works 40 hours, takes regular breaks and keeps a moderate pace, sure. 40 hours of high pace concentrated development work? In the last 17 years of managing development teams, I've had maybe 1-2 people who could sustain that for more than a week or two at the time.
A lot of people's time is filled by very low-productive work such as excessive communication overhead, or fiddling around with low-quality tooling, etc.
I spend time learning, doing R&D / experimenting, doing product work, etc. The most fun I have is on the R&D. I've been doing it for 17 years straight and there's nothing else I'd rather be doing, I rarely suffer from exhaustion / burnout (and that's always when somethings fails, rather than feeling tired by the actual work).
This discussion is also going to vary dramatically based on the structure of your current life, including family / job / mood / etc. Adding further to the subjectivity of it.
This is how Drew Wilson, creator of Space Box and many other works is able to achieve his high level of output. He manages his energy, listens to his body and mind, and does what is most suitable and productive knowing such things.
3 hours at 100% followed by 3 hours of leisure followed by 3 hours of 100% work would be 6 hours of 100% focused work. 6 solid hours of work is better than 8 hours of 50% focus (4 hours). Not only is the actual effort put in greater, but so is the focus and engagement which leads to even greater results.
From where did you pull out that data ? It is always possible that one programmer working 20 hours is more productive than two programmers working 40 hours. It depends what they are actually doing.
I measured the bugs fixed over time, commits made, lines and files changed, emails sent, all proxies for activity.
Some results are shown in this otherwise tangentially related blog post: http://yieldthought.com/post/6070927890/metagame-productivit...
Bear in mind when looking at the charts that they are corrected for man months not calendar months - my calendar productivity remained about the same or slightly better over the measured period.
I recently reduced my hours to 27.5 just by asking. Without these positive experiences for all concerned that may not have been so easy.
40-60 hours a week of A work - or just tryi g to do A work leaves us without B work - soon this piles up into lack of education, lack of preparation.
I would be far better off and more productive if I limited myself to just 5 hours client work a day (or more likely 10 then 0) than the current mad rush.
We need to balance A work, B work and probably A leisure (time with kids) and B leisure ( housework, tv)
Not so: http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=AVE_HRS
(the statistic above excludes vacatyion and national holidays, sick leave, paid maternity/paternity leave etc, which are also much more generous these days)
Note how the well off countries tend to have shorter working hours.
Anecdotally, I only know maybe 2 people who I'd say work more than 40 hours and they're small business owners who really like what they do.
I was in the industry and left, and I know many that people I worked with have left as well after about 10 years.
In the UK, I might be mistaken as I read the article a while ago, but it is the (or top 5) industry where people spend less time compared to other creative/professional careers.
So, yes, perhaps we don't always have our priorities right (choosing money over time) but it's not necessarily something an individual can do something about -- there's a huge social dimension to it.
I'm doing that short-term, directly for cash at the moment. Then I'm going to take a month off.
Most of my working life (12 years so far) has been working at the 37 hour mark, mostly because that's what was asked of me at work. There might have been some benefit in working longer hours voluntarily, but I would not have been directly compensated for them and I have a life to live outside of work.
I know this is the privilege of the skilled European tech-worker, and thank god I am one.
And those people you're speaking of live in rural China or sub-Saharan Africa. Someone is not "lucky" by any global standard to be making minimum wage delivering pizzas in NYC or LA.
Its exactly those available resources that separate 1st-world from 3rd-world. We are like fish, who cannot sense the water.
The point is, its a 1st world problem no matter how you cut it. "My job is not satisfying. I wish I had more money for discretionary spending." These are not 'real' problems.
And some people are legitimately scared of computers! Is it their own problem? Emphatically yes. Is it also society's problem? Again, emphatically yes. Is it their own fault? Well that's a matter of opinion. I think we should solve the problem and then argue over blame if there is time left over.
- I'm more rested and stress free
- I get a lot more exercise and I eat healthier
- I'm much more efficient and motivated in my work
- My creativity and exploration into new fields has bloomed
I used to put almost all of my effort into my work, with not enough time devoted to maintaining and improving myself.
Do you have any pointers on finding permanent or contracted remote work? Most of the connections I had fron before have since died out.
I think it's mostly physical jobs that 70 year olds cannot perform well. And that kind of job can be automated by robots anyway. For job like programming or CEO, I kind of think that 70 year olds can do better than say 20 year olds.
A 2002 study (published in the Alzheimer's and Dementia Journal) found that ~91% of people 70 and older were capable of normal mental function.
Also, experience
Since there is no other evidence that a 40 year old in the 90th percentile for mental performance is equal to a 20 year old in the 50th percentile, it seems more than likely that the data is skewed.
Perhaps Lumosity.com attracts above average young people and below average older people (given those results, some variation on that theme is the likely explanation).
If chess Grandmasters dropped in mental acuity as fast as those Luminosity results suggested, a 60 year old Grandmaster could be beaten by any young novice.
Also worth mentioning is that competitive chess is favors very quick thinking and action in a way that most careers don't.
Maybe in 50 years, but currently I'd say a 20-30 years old is the prime programmer age. Young people tend to learn new tech quicker, and be faster/more efficient at typing and using computers.
But I do agree that it without hard evidence, it's unfair to assume older programmers are slower or less capable. I have personally worked with some exceptional older programmers.
Says who ? This preposterous way of thinking has been around for x years already. "when the world population will reach 4 billions people, there will be no jobs for everyone", yet the population is still increasing beyond 6 billions and most people still work to live/survive. There is no hint we are moving to a post-labor world.
You will see that there is a strong relationship between reduced employment/working hours, welfare benefits when not working, and government spending. And somehow most of the countries which went down that way have now humongous public debt problems to solve. Their model is not sustainable in the long term.
This is just ideology, and not factually accurate. (P.S. Cheers from Scandinavia.)
Most likely, a post-labor world should be capable of arriving well before that. Once we can automate the production of basic necessities, working should become largely optional.
Automation has already been happening in many industries, in case you have not noticed, and that did not result in lost job opportunities on the whole of the economy. Agriculture is also largely mechanized all around the world and you have only a very little portion of the population (5% or so) in developed countries to produce far enough for everyone.
Most jobs in developed countries are service related. These jobs will not disappear even if you automate the production part of the economy.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not a Luddite by any stretch and I'm not suggesting we should go back to an agrarian society, but we have a serious economic and political problem where the benefits of technological advancement are going in overwhelming proportion to a very small subset of the population. If something isn't done about that, and soon, the resulting upheaval may force us back to pre-industrial living anyway (or more likely, much worse).
Can you support this? Millions of people all over the world are being lifted out of poverty.
Here is a chart of per capita GNI for the past 20 years http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...
edi: linked wrong chart
Right, per capita, as I stated, but really just GNI is fine too.
> people would be making more if the money was divided up evenly but it's not, particularly in the U.S
Unfortunately the google public data didn't have enough US data but take a look at these two charts for India.
First is just India's per capita GNI the second is India's income distribution over the same time frame. Notice how the income distribution is relatively flat and how the GNI is growing.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...
What is the proper proportion?
Why not? They already are. Self-checkout, online forms and purchases, ATMs, touch tone phone menus, etc.
Here is Marshall Brain's optimistic but well explained and convincing view: http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm
You could have a hundred billion people and everyone would still want that. The difference is post-labor comes when you don't need human capital (or at the worst, a negligible amount) to produce the necessities for people to survive. We are approaching that, look at how manufacturing is returning to the US in 99% automated facilities. Once you can grow food (or fabricate it with molecular engineering) without requiring human labor to produce it, you can already distribute it with automated vehicles, and you can produce electricity via solar, hydro, or nuclear wtih very little human capital involvement after you set the system up.
The idea is you put systems in place that the fruits of them are effectively infinite without human engagement. Once you can do that, you have post-scarcity bounded on the limits of the planet and our ability to deploy infrastructure, not in how much labor we can produce. We are getting there, but the fundamental problem is we try to squeeze these no labor return systems into classic market capitalism and it isn't working (a concentrated wealthy class ends up owning these means of production, and power and wealth are concentrated as a result).
We are moving away from doing anything useful and we are now even running out of excuses that could entitle us to getting some money to provide for ourselves.
The only that the 40 sets is the threshold at which workers attain specific rights regarding overtime, benefits, and other things.
My weekend work usually averages around 4-5 hours a day, I get to relax, I get to run out and do groceries and don't even notice having worked.
We should all do whatever the fuck we want, until we die.
Yeah but we’re not allowed to. Most employers will demands you show up for 40 hours a week and then frown at you or, at least, never promote you if you don’t stay for a lot more.
Most people in the United States do not have this option because they do not have enough money to do so.
You're searching for the ability to live without constraint. So long as scarcity exists, this is fundamentally impossible.
Absolutely agree.
>>>They have the option to raise that money.
Absolutely disagree. They are working 2 and 3 jobs, my friend. They do not have the money to raise that money.
>>>You're searching for the ability to live without constraint.
Please explain where I indicated this, I did not mean to.
> Yeah but we’re not allowed to. Most employers will demands you show up for 40 hours a week and then frown at you or, at least, never promote you if you don’t stay for a lot more.
The whole point here is that we aren't limited to what our employer "allows" us to do. We choose to follow the directions of any particular employer because it typically rewards us with money, which we can use to survive.
You are making the argument that people in the US don't have options. Of course they have options. The costs may be high to exercise those options, but that doesn't mean they don't have them.
And of course, the larger point:
> We should all do whatever the fuck we want, until we die.
Applies equally to employers as it does to everyone else.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, I will try to explain my original comment for you.
I agree with you that starting a business is possible in the legal sense and it is a culturally acceptable thing to do. The US government and the general socio-economic climate of the US makes it morally, legally, and socio-economically possible to start a business. Agreed.
Here is my response to olliesaunders:
>>>Most people in the United States do not have this option [starting a business] because they do not have enough money to do so.
If starting a business takes X amount of time, Y amount of money, and Z amount of skill, my contention is that most Americans do not have sufficient levels of each. To say nothing of the luck involved.
So with that in mind, let me reply to part of your most recent comment:
>>>You are making the argument that people in the US don't have options. Of course they have options.
This I agree with, as stated above.
>>>The costs may be high to exercise those options, but that doesn't mean they don't have them.
This I do not agree with. Starting a business costs Q amount of money. A certain segment of the population will never earn that much money in their entire lives.
To be snarky, I will likely never earn enough money to buy an island. The fact that it is legal to buy an island does not make buying an island an option for me.
I will strongly agree for consumer purchases by people at or above the median household income in America. Strongly disagree for medical purchases, since if you try to save money you may die.
I'd love to see some numbers or studies to prove your claim as it applies to Americans in poverty. Even some anecdotal math would be fine, using craigslist apartments and bus ticket costs and food costs and medical costs and etc. Poverty line is 23,050 for a family of 4.
November 2012: 20% of American children live in poverty
The poverty numbers are cooked to drum up support for the socialist welfare apparatus. For example, if a 17 year old's family moves and they stay behind with a friend's family, they are classified as a "homeless child".
Additionally, do you have any evidence for your assertion?
For those with money, don't forget luck. Also don't forget timing, but I repeat myself.
The money thing comes into play for the lower 30% of the population which has 10k to -infinity in net worth. Here's a tip: price out some business plans, then look up the percentage of the US population has enough net worth[1] to fund or convince a bank to fund their plan.
[1]http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/11/30/study-american-hou...
Can we agree that people with no money will starve to death unless they use violence to take food from someone, or the government uses violence to take food from someone on their behalf? The foodstamps of this great depression are equivalent to the soup lines of the old great depression: they prevent people from robbing, looting, and starving in the streets.
It is a libertarian tactic of assuming that anything the government does they don't like is use of violence, except for government protection of artificial property rights which is somehow usually magically exempt.
>>>It is a libertarian tactic of assuming that anything the government does they don't like is use of violence, except for government protection of artificial property rights which is somehow usually magically exempt.
In my experience, libertarians universally agree with me when I say "artificial property rights are completely protected and propped up by the government's threat of violence". It is their favorite part of the how governments operate, because they do not recognize the benefits of collectivism (socialism, communism, prisoners dilemma, tragedy of the commons).
Notice how I have not told you anything about my personal political views.
I can't speak to Europe as a whole or the specific country you are from. In the US, you can be put in jail for non-payment of taxes. We have good old debtors' prisons. Also, if you are hungry and take food that does not "belong to you", there are certain criminal laws that can result in imprisonment. How do European governments deal with non-payment of taxes and the taking of food?
By the way, US "foodstamps" are now called "EBT" and you get a normal looking debit card that has certain restrictions on how it can be used (no buying shoes, only food ingredients).
An argument could be made that much of the government funded research done at Bell Labs is worthless. An argument could be made that of the worthwhile things that have come out of this government research, transistors, lasers, and CCDs are the most far reaching (since transistors begat miniaturized electronics begat cell phones and computers begat the internet).
These government researchers were largely doing "whatever suited their fancy" and most of it was wasted effort and tax money. An argument could be made that the money and effort wasted was worth the amazing results.
1) Only a very small fraction of the population is doing government funded research. Large population supporting small research operations is sustainable.
2) The research is vetted on some level, and it is in a technical field. Technical research has an established history of paying dividends (even though it finds many dead-ends)
I disagree with your point 1): very many Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and being supported by welfare initiatives such as unemployment, medicare, and food stamps. Some significant fraction could be employed doing basic research instead of sitting at home watching TV and looking for jobs that aren't being offered by corporations that are making more profits than ever through fractional reserve lending and bailouts.
An example of underemployment in our industry: there are very many individuals with government funded computer scientists with BS, MS, and PHD degrees, that are employed in lucrative positions as code monkeys and computer janitors. These people should be inventing the next UNIX and IPV8 and advanced networking algorithms and image recognition and self driving cars. I'm not educated on whether strong AI is a pipe dream or not but weak AI has helped with image recognition and encryption breaking and genetic learning and spam filtering and web searching.
I think your initial point that "citizens acknowledge and accept that most government funded research won't pan out" is highly highly controversial in the US among some democrats, republicans, and most libertarians. Many want to cut non-military blue-sky research completely. These people call themselves neo-conservatives, President George W. Bush was a champion of the ethos. Liberals and normal conservatives are a bit sneakier on their wishes to de-fund research.
In the US this is not legally a man's choice.
Wikipedia>>>In some cases, men and boys that have been raped (statutorily or otherwise) by women have been forced to pay child support to their rapists.[1]
The catch: you will die a lot sooner depending on how much you take other people's needs and wants into consideration when deciding what you want to do with your time.
You're welcome.
Set a man on fire, you keep him warm for the rest of his life.
To wit: there is a strong correlation between what constitutes doing whatever the fuck you want, and how soon you'll die.
The things I want are all things that make my life better and safer.
Some people want bad things.
I wonder how much working time can we cut until the benefits disappear.
The committee was disbanded after a minor scandal when it was discovered that they were making everyone come in on Saturdays to work.
What kind of labor is that? White collar or factory assembly?
I feel like if we cut down the "official" work to 25 hours, people would suddenly realize that they need to be a lot more productive to get the same amount of work done. No more pointless interruptions. No more bullshit meetings. Everyone would try to get shit done, and enjoy the extra three hours they get everyday and be a lot happier.
However, I have to wonder, would 25 hour work weeks actually increase the length of our employ-ability, allowing us to work until the age of 80? I thought part of today's current long term unemployment problem (in the US), is that finding employment for older, more skilled, adults was difficult, due to perceived overqualifications or lack of training in newer technologies. I thought part of the point of work hard while you're young, was to save enough money to allow you to survive the possibility of permanent unemployment in old age (either due to health or over qualification in unused technologies).
There's a reason why we have a current optimal 40-60 hours kind of range for working hours in most countries. That's an equilibrium point between how much people are willing to work vs how much they are willing to earn. Everyone still wants to have free time, but not at the expense of their well-being or the future of their family (education, etc.).
Working 25 hours and earning the same amount as working 40 would not sit well with companies (if this was made mandatory by state regulation, for example). Local companies would lose their competitive edge vs other companies elsewhere and this would end up in increased unemployment.
Let people work how long they want. That's their choice.
I personally earn more than I need to get by, and I'm sure as I get older and have more commitments I'll want to forgo money in exchange for time.
Also income (or at least productivity) and time spent at work is not a linear relationship. I think this is a great idea.
Problem is that unless you go for contract work (which doesn't really translate into 25 hours a week), you won't get a 20 hour a week part time software development gig, even if it had a 35k salary attached. I much prefer working on the projects I want to than those that people are willing to pay me for.
Would it be great to spend more time with friends, sleeping or otherwise pursuing leisure? Obviously. But the labor market doesn't care about one's happiness (and the companies that do institute "leisure cultures" usually explicitly state that they do so simply because it increases productivity. In this case, companies don't care about you for your sake, they care about you for their own sake) and pursuing it comes at a loss of compensation.
The dynamic my well be very different in other countries. In the USA for example there's much more scope for increasing the supply of housing, something that's harder to do in a more densely populated country like the UK. I think this is why the US had a property crash while we didn't - the housing market here is a lot less elastic.
Still, my point is that if incomes generally go up, a proportion of that will be expended in price wars over scarce local resources, property being the most obvious example.
If you have the drive to try to do something big, putting all your time into it is kind of mandatory. But if you just work for the money to survive on, you shouldn't need to put in such a significant portion of ones time.
http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours
A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.
[1] A bit complex: "de-facto" because Denmark has no statutory minimum wage. Nonetheless, a negotiated wage floor of a bit above 100 DKK/hr (~$18/hr) covers most workplaces. Denmark's labor system, partly driven by law and partly by cultural norms, makes heavy use of sector-wide bargaining agreements between large employer confederations and large cross-company unions. The whole process tends to be very consensus-oriented (strikes are rare), and reaches blanket agreements that apply sector-wide. Small mom-and-pop stores, freelancers, independent moving-van operators, etc. are the main exceptions, since they aren't part of one of the employer confederations that's party to those agreements.
Which is to say, if everyone works 25 hours a week, rents will go down (because if they don't, you have most properties sitting empty). If instead everyone works 60 hours a week, rents go up.
Of course, economics is really complicated and rarely works out this simply. But that's the idea. It's a little silly to post here presuming that someone in Mr. Vaupel's position has somehow not thought of the fact that when you work fewer hours your nominal earnings go down. (I think this qualifies for what pg was calling Middlebrow Dismissal). It's a more reasonable response to say, well, of course he has thought of that, but I wonder what the answer is?
Granted, it might be different if I were doing a PhD, but at least up until where I am now this has worked perfectly. I get done just as much while being less stressed and feeling a lot better about life.
You want me to solve that problem for you by Friday? Why should I come to office and stare at monitor four days if I figured it out right in Monday?
I want a beautiful and open network all across the planet. I want to see North Korea become free, and sit drinking coffee in a café in Pyongyang. I want Africa to become a garden stretching from Cape Town to Khartoum. I want to visit the Silicon Valley of the Congo, and take the suborbital to Tokyo if I'm in the mood for sushi that night. I want cold sleep and ramships and I want to see sunrise on Alpha Centaur Bb (after moving its orbit out a bit:)
No matter how good leisure is in the short term, if it slows those goals down I'm against it.
There PG, call that middlebrow criticism!
I say that wondering how realistic that is and whether that's a yet another imaginary carrot dangling over our heads to make us work harder. I like my job a lot (software developer making medical software for clinics in Kenya) but flip I'd love a 4 day week because there's always something more enjoyable than work. And I'm not sure if every single job we need people to do can be that fulfilling raison d'être for someone.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive [2]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20526259
Translation: Employees will be working more hours for easily the next 5 years.
Ambitious or highly dedicated people will always work more than that, and that's a good thing. What they should have is a lot more freedom in how they spend that time-- working two jobs, one job and school, side projects.
The problem is this bullshit conformist fiction in which everyone has to pretend to be ambitious (but only internally) and dedicated (despite mediocre social status and compensation, that fail to justify such dedication). I don't think that such a problem can be legislated away. The best that the law/government can do is to break up the collusions (e.g. among VCs) that keep talent trading at such a dog-low rate against property.
The other problem, and one of the main reasons why the 40-60 hour anachronism lives on, is that companies aren't really buying (as they see it) 40 hours of time. They're also buying (in their entitled view of the world) single-minded loyalty. That's why they demand hours at such a level that a person can't possibly hold two jobs, even if she is easily capable of the work. The goal isn't just to get some quantity of the person's work, but to take that person off the market so no one else can hire her.
We should all put in the most amount of time to our lives and passions, but to maintain a comfortable life should not consume 100% of our available productive hours. (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week)
If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?
Bad assumption.
> If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?
What is "subsistence" about it? I understand subsistence living to mean "having just enough to survive."
Get a fucking life with several mortgages and children.
Or, better yet - go live the idolized life of the genius software development hermit you both appear to think yourself to be. What a wonderful life that will be.
I am so sick of these douchebag HNers that all think of themselves to be the next rails revolution and have no fucking clue as to what it actually costs to live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids (even when, as I have, you have been living and working in tech for 20 years)
Get the fuck out.
By design, the Valley's zoning laws create an artificial shortage of housing units. It costs a lot to live a "normal life" in order to keep out the riff raff.
Every person on HN should realize that they are worth more than $10/hr. Stop defending living in poverty as an exploit of others.
It seems to me this is exactly the point being made. You can live on a lot less money than whatever you currently consider "normal", but not necessarily in your current location or at your current level of consumption.
Whatever it costs you to live comfortably in SV with kids, it probably costs me half that to live comfortably in Denver with kids. I know of families living on less than half of what I do in places like Japan, who would consider themselves quite comfortable.
If financing your current lifestyle leaves you with no free time to enjoy life, you're a slave to that lifestyle -- whether it's on $5k or $500k a year. If "living in Silicon Valley" is non-negotiable, it's going to take a lot more earning power to get out of that type of "slavery" than if you're willing to live in Belize.
That's a horrible comparison. The difference in potential salaries, potential connections, business opportunities and so on would put make Denver the expensive one IMO (costs half as much as SV to have none of those advantages? wtf!).
If you're one of those near the top of the spectrum, making 25 or more times the median salary or starting up a business that truly blows up, perhaps. In which case you wouldn't be complaining that it's hard to raise kids in SV.
If you're an average joe coder, or even fairly above average, you're making 10% less in Denver and you have fewer options for tech companies (but still plenty locally, and some decent remote options). But you can buy a nice house here for well under $200k and live ten minutes from work. For the vast majority of people, it's far less expensive.
The point here is not to convince you, personally, to move to Denver. Just to clarify that there's a whole spectrum of places to live at all sorts of prices, with all sorts of advantages and disadvantages. The GGP post implied that "live a normal life in SV" was the only option, which is of course absurd. There are advantages to living in SV, but they do not come without costs.
If you can't do without what amounts to luxuries to 75% of the world population, discussing how many hours a week you "should" work is a non-starter.
I live in the bay area, Married, have 2 kids and work in SF.
Show me how to live on $10/day.
Consider me your student.
Unless your comment of "showing me how to live on $10/day" is really titled "show a homeless 15 year-old with no job, family or financial obligations how to subsist on $10/day"
If you really can show me how to live on less than the cost it is for me to get to work ($7.10, BTW) then i will accept you as my teacher. (I already ride my bike EVERYWHERE - literally - I do not personally drive at all)
If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live.
Wow. Now why was that necessary?
Poster makes a valid point – $10 daily will buy you an existence that looks positively palatial to some, and near a pauper to others. You will be living well, relative to any number of other humans, but lacking the things you want.
For example, you probably stop living in the Bay Area.
N has adopted the reality distortion field, apparently only idiots live here now.
Why would I live in the bay area? how stupid of me...
*Danilocampos, you're quire renowned here on HN, I find your post to be the lamest thing you have ever said.
The replies to my comments have been the lamest I have ever heard.
"relative to any other humans" -- seriusly - that is your argument? Sorry - that is not only naive, but also fucking pompous.
I CHALLENGE you to live off $10/day. Show me how removed I am. YOU CANT!
Get the fark off your idiocy! living on $10/day is NOT going to happen to ANYONE on HN.
Jesus!
Regardless, if you actually have an interest in low cost living, hit up Joey Hess. He, in this country, pays something around $4-5 a day in rent/utilities. Using the remaining money frugally for food and other needs is fairly trivial.
If you want to live in the bay area, you have to work for it. If you want to live on $10 a day, the point is you dont want to work for it. You can't have both.
Living on $10 a day can be done. Go build an earthship in Taos.
Gosh, are you sure? I've said tons of lame things – not sure this even nudges the needle.
Wow, HN has dropped this low?
Here were I live the standard household income is around $600 USD a Month. A family of 4 can (parents and two children) can live with that.
Of course, I want more. The guy next door has a Range Rover and a Porsche. But I know there are literally billions of people who cannot imagine the luxury in which I live.
If you are a programmer, you can't just decide to work 10 hours a week for $25k and live a $25k lifestyle. If you want to earn $25k, you'll probably still have to work full time to do it. Regardless of the comforts we enjoy, we are still slaves to the workweek (there's not enough contract work for every programmer or designer to go freelance), and that is why it's right to complain.
We may have more "things" per person than Arthur himself, yet we lack the freedom and status of being royalty.
If you refuse to leave, then we cannot get on to the next lesson of choosing cheap, even free, real estate.
But, like the koan of the full cup...
Too many naysayers don't realize how ridiculous their local cost of living is, and how a simple move can cut that by orders of magnitude.
The key is being willing to move. Once you are, options abound. Get busy on http://zillow.com and search regions and price ranges; to get in the mindset, start by searching whole states for properties under $1000 (not a typo).
I've noticed (at least grokking it more than usual) of late "it costs to live" is a very popular, and deeply misguided, and financially devastating, frame of mind. Yes, of course, on its face the statement is true ... but it belies an existence which is completely ruled by our advertising-driven culture, in an ultimately self-destructive (in a "keep the host alive as long as possible" way) manner. The mindset places spending as the top priority; doesn't matter what the income is, what orders-of-magnitude-cheaper alternatives there are, or the long-term financial consequences, so long as swiping plastic gets results then spend we shall because "it costs to live."
Thus we have a nation saddled with $54K debt per person, and intelligent productive people getting obscenely abusive about the suggestion that living in one of the most expensive places in the world probably isn't a good idea.
Right now in arm's reach on my desk I have a can with enough seeds in it to plant an acre. Being non-hybrid/GM seeds, the $40 cost amortizes to $1/year to feed a family of four for the rest of my life. Yes, it "costs to live" - but you're loading the phrase with far more baggage than necessary.
Shop at the Dollar Store, Goodwill, Aldi, etc. Look for foreclosed, abandoned, and other dirt cheap real estate; search Zillow.com for sub-$1000 properties (not a typo). Plant a garden. Move. No excuses.
Meat is very expensive so generally people eating frugally avoid it nearly entirely, but depending on where you live it may be cheap and practical to raise some chickens if you really feel you need it.
Should we? Is that the ultimate goal here? The problem with trying to tell people what their life is about, is that you are wrong as soon as you start.
> how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?
Subsistence is 'surviving' (like, not dying, not not unable to pay rent).
No, the best that the government can do for startups and the economy is just get out of the way.
Edit: That being said, government can get involved in the wrong ways and cause problems with subsidies and bad regulation.
Yes, it's true that you can't get the nice properties of a free market without some conditions being met. Specifically, you need the government to be the arbiter of physical force between people. Otherwise, you have gang warfare (anarchism).
All economic discussions of free markets that I have ever heard have implicitly or explicitly stated that one of the necessary oversights of government is to break up or regulate natural monopoly-prone industries.
It's just that it's a false concept that doesn't actually exist.
Take electricity, for example.
First, there are many large companies that could raise the necessary capital to build power plants and electric transmission lines.
Second, people can always get together and form a non-profit power company if the normal market isn't providing stable, competitive prices. (By "people" I mean, say, the people of an entire US state.)
Third, having deregulated electricity systems would open up the field to innovation, such that we'd probably all have small nuclear reactors at our houses, or wireless power transmission, or something.
So, in conclusion, a "natural monopoly" is not a true monopoly. It's a false concept.
You have the benefit of the doubt from me, but your specific arguments leave out the installation phase of the electrical grid, which I'm sure you are very familiar with.
>>>First, there are many large companies that could raise the necessary capital to build power plants and electric transmission lines.
Agree, but capital isn't the only thing. You have to put the electrical lines into the ground, disrupting traffic. The costs and capital of the electrical system are not what makes it a natural monopoly, the physical reality of our current technology does (pending wireless transmission as you mention later).
The current physical reality is solved by having the government own the last mile(for some definition of mile), while electrical providers can connect at hubs. This is how it works in places where the population understands the specifics of natural monopolies.
>>>Third, having deregulated electricity systems would open up the field to innovation, such that we'd probably all have small nuclear reactors at our houses, or wireless power transmission, or something.
The biggest problem is that these technologies do not yet exist. Maybe in the future they will be stymied by regulation, but if they were invented today I can't think of an electrical grid regulation that would stop them. Remember, consumers can hook up power generating technology to the grid already: solar panels.
>>>Second, people can always get together and form a non-profit power company if the normal market isn't providing stable, competitive prices. (By "people" I mean, say, the people of an entire US state.)
Businesses are in the business of making money. When a corporation thinks it can make money by suing municipalities that form broadband networks, they do so. Like in Lafayette.
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/60150 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-01/...
Want to know why this isn't all over the news, with the competing ISPs and cable companies badmouthing these bad corporate actions? Because the cable companies and the ISPs and the media companies are largely owned by the same people, and collude monopolistically. This is a very recent accomplishment: regulations existed to prevent it but were overturned by the deregulation achieved through the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownershi...
A better solution would be to have the "last mile" owned by the people who own properties, but that may be nit picking. And I think that's probably how things would have eventually developed without government intervention.
Now, I think that in reality, power companies (in the US, at least) almost always are regulatory monopolies, i.e., government-granted ones. But, because of the "last mile" solution, they don't _need_ to be.
In summary, I feel like my point that natural monopolies don't exist is still supported.
When a corporation thinks it can make money by suing municipalities that form broadband networks, they do so. Like in Lafayette.
You can't (logically) use one abuse of government power to justify other government power that counteracts it, which seems to be your argument.
In the example you gave, the abuse is being able to win invalid lawsuits, and that is being used to justify government regulation of arbitrary industries (telco, in this specific case).
Better to just make it so you can't win invalid lawsuits.
Because the cable companies and the ISPs and the media companies are largely owned by the same people, and collude monopolistically.
They do collude monopolistically: the telcos have government-granted regulatory monopolies.
deregulation achieved through the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Given that the telco industry is 100% made up of government-granted regulatory monopolies, this act clearly did not implement deregulation.
I do not think it is controversial to say that deregulation is the act or process of removing or reducing state regulations. I have checked several dictionaries and encyclopedias, on line and dead-tree.
So a slight reduction in the regulatory laws that contributed to the formation of "government-granted regulatory monopolies" is deregulation. Therefore, the 1996 telecommunications Act of 1996 is deregulation, since it reduced and removed some, but not all, regulatory laws.
If we can agree on this, I will reply to the rest of your comment. If we disagree I can still reply, but the definition is really important to my argument.
I think that many people act as if and/or think that a proper definition of "deregulation" is "reducing regulation."
However, I see no point in arguing about definitions. I propose that we just use the terms "complete deregulation" and "partial deregulation" from here on out, so as to be non-ambiguous.
Given this, let me state my stance on partial deregulation. I thought about stating it earlier, but it seemed just barely too tangential.
I think partial deregulation is often much worse than regulation.
For example, regulation may take the form of "Cable company X has the exclusive right to lay coaxial cable in our city. In return, cable company X must allow our city to have our own special channel where we can post public announcements; and, it must lay wire to all areas of the city, regardless of income level; and, it must allow the city to set rates that subscribers can be charged."
Under partial deregulation, X may be allowed to set whatever rates it wants, but still have the exclusive right to lay coaxial cable. So, it can gouge customers.
In this case, partial deregulation didn't correct a situation in which the government was overstepping its bounds. It partially corrected it, and in doing so, made things worse.
I think this is overwhelmingly the kind of thing that happens with partial deregulation, and I think partial deregulation is overwhelmingly what happens these days when politicians talk about deregulation.
Sorry, I know you just wanted me to agree/disagree with your definition rather than adding a bunch of new intellectual content... but I figured the above would be helpful (and likely similar to what you were thinking).
Agreed. All dictionaries disagree, but I'm not talking to any of them.
I believe that all reasonable people agree that history has shown that monopolies are inefficient in a capitalist system(see the 1920s for example). I feel that government-granted regulatory monopolies are also inefficient in a capitalist system. From your comments, I assume that you agree with both of these things, please let me know if you have a different view.
My understanding of the invention of regulations is this: Full deregulation of business seems like the best possible solution, until the point that companies become so big that they form monopolies that stifle competition. Then the government has to come in and regulate them until they are no longer monopolies. From your comments, I assume that you agree with this, let me know if you have different views.
I have to go eat but I have a comment written up about natural monopolies with relation to telcos ready to be edited and then posted.
Well, I don't think natural monopolies exist (as we discussed previously), only regulatory monopolies.
So, I don't think companies can become so big that they become natural monopolies.
I had written about some example cases that help support this (IBM, MS, Bell Telephone), but it was too long and probably not worth it, so I removed them.
Wow, way to punctuate a diatribe of ignorance with equating anarchism with gang warfare.
But for anyone else who might happen on this comment and be truly curious, here's a good starting point: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-edi...
It's heavily cited so you can go as deep as you care to.
P.S.: The short answer is: the "gang warfare" scenario comes from bartering, whether with money or direct bartering (e.g. trade 100 loafs of bread for a bicycle). For Anarchism to work, you'd need to get rid of capitalism and bartering completely. Think Star-trek.
Also note, I'm not arguing for anarchism but rather against ignorance. I personally don't think the world is ready for anarchism but at least I know what it actually is.
We've tried that and it failed. Does the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire ring any bells?
I'm not advocating anarchism.
I ask, because this argument about the "proper role" of government tends to start growing all kinds of exceptions that expand the role of government the moment someone starts taking it to its logical conclusion and argues for removing protections of exclusive access and use of land in particular, as a means of maximising liberty by removing government enforcement of artificial monopolies.
Most countries even today do have substantial exceptions to private property rights for the purpose of increasing liberty for society as a whole (e.g. granting access to natural resources to society as a whole).
That's where you'll get disagreements; your reasoning doesn't apply if the exclusive access and use of land isn't considered an artificial monopoly. Particularly, 'artificial' is usually defined as something man-made, yet property rights are extremely common among other animals as well, even if they haven't developed a moral framework to justify them.
I think government should enforce all private property rights, although perhaps at an indirect level (e.g. you still have to lock your door, but the government ultimately will punish people who break in).
However, the question of what is a property right and what is not is germane.
argues for removing protections of exclusive access and use of land in particular
If two people can do something simultaneouly without one initiating force against the other, then property rights don't apply. Sometimes it falls to the legal system (e.g. convention) to stipulate the precise boundaries.
For example, if a utility company wants to run power lines below my land, then unless that prevents me from doing something underground that I'm already doing, I think they have the right to do so, as long as the lines can be installed without causing me significant inconvenience (and with proper forewarning).
So, basically, you establish property rights by actually using the property in a certain fashion.
have substantial exceptions to private property rights for the purpose of increasing liberty for society as a whole
I think that's a false example. Society is just composed of individual people. If you take away one person's rights, it may increase somebody else's access to something (e.g., say, birth control), but it does not increase _liberty_.
(e.g. granting access to natural resources to society as a whole)
I don't really see how natural resources _wouldn't_ be available to society as a whole.
Today working around 40 hours a week is an important prerequisite for a great many important things such as the traditional suite of full-time employee benefits (health insurance, for example).
Additionally, social security and medicare taxes take 14% of income right off the top, and then federal and state income tax adds onto that. Such high tax burdens make it much more difficult for people to build up their own savings, and it's no surprise that savings rates have plummeted over the years. Lack of savings results in greater dependence on employers and less negotiating capability for non-traditional work hours.
Here's a graph of overall tax burden since 1960 broken down by income group: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/13/opinion/sunda...
Only the top 1% has seen a dramatic change in tax burden over that time frame, for everyone else taxes have either stayed steady or gone up overall. The most important parts of this graph are the middle, second, and top quintiles, who should be the most capable of putting money aside. However, their federal tax burdens all rose substantially. And the recent reduction in tax rates has only occurred during a massive economic contraction so there hasn't been a true opportunity for most people to make use of the lower rates yet.