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Is full-time work bad for our brains?

bbc.com

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Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#181

Post by psychometry »

DaniFong wrote: post #165

This is a paper on the work that the article cited: https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s... There is a critical mathematical mistake with their use of statistical analysis which basically, as an artifact, bakes in this "conclusion" into the "results". It comes about because they manually add "Working hours-squared/100" into the factor analysis, and then, low and behold, there is a parabola cor…

Um, what? The model is right there on page 5 and there's nothing wrong with it. The predictors include working hours, (working hours)^2, and others. The outcome is score on a cognitive assessment.

What's your agenda in trying to discredit this study with FUD, I wonder? Hopefully this can serve as yet another example of how to ignore commenters that sound like they know what they're talking about but actually don't.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#182

Post by drdeadringer »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #74
madaxe_again wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because those of us who believe otherwise usually get beaten out and decide to not run businesses any more. My confounder doesn't like hiring, likes to have a huge pile of cash in the bank to no particular end, and sends people shitty emails if they're late in the morning. He's successfully killed off enthusiasm and passion for getting things done (mine included), and now people are either making time or leaving. We…

"confounder", ha. In my experience, what does a manager do if there's no one around to manage? And how do employees get recognized for their contributions if there are no managers to track it? It's a catch-22. My thought is that if companies simply paid people as much as they could, all of this would go away. You wouldn't even _need_ managers anymore. One of managers' more important roles, liaising between department…

> the employee asks the company what is the most they can afford to pay you

I infer that people don't do this, or at least similar to this via "what is the budget range for this position" type phrasing.

Is my inference correct? Besides a lack of confidence, why?

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#183

Post by dredmorbius »

madaxe_again wrote: post #159
jwatte wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to sell and leave. And if that is really the equity structure, make sure you re-negotiate that with the board before talking about leaving, as part of being a C officer.

Can't sell except for the aforementioned £60. Not £60k, £60 - the nominal value of the shares. The only way I can leave and keep my equity is if I die. If I attempt to have that conversation in a board meeting they'll know what's up and will probably fire me - in which case no severance, not even the £60. There's a third party hnw investor who came in a few years ago who's gone from arms length to "where the fuck are…

Talk to a lawyer.

How the hell did you end up with an equity share with net value to you of £60?

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#184

Post by Moshe_Silnorin »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #174
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>College adcoms want well-rounded students, not narrowly-focused math drones. I find this incredibly misguided.

Please elaborate?

Pinker says it better than I can here: https://newrepublic.com/article/119321/harvard-ivy-league-sh...

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#185

Post by Retra »

maxxxxx wrote: post #166
ktRolster wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I agree with that I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today. Because managers up a level have no other way of knowing if you're being productive or not. So they look and see if people are ferociously typing. This is not a joke.

that's why I am sometimes envious of sales guys or traders. Their work is easily measurable.

In my experience, the more easily measurable the work, the less fulfilling it is.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#186

Post by civilian »

Kinnard wrote: post #66
Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the younger generation, I doubt it. Korea is a wonderful country full of extremely bright and nice people. But they're caught in an education arms race that is legitimately terrifying. Kids are schooled with incredible tenacity from 9 to 5 and then once they are finished school they attend night classes and weekend classes. I think putting a much higher weight on fluid intelligence over crystallized in…

I wonder what impact Korean reunification would have. I imagine it would create a large leisure class, supported by a new North Korean cheap-labor underclass, with which would come a leisure culture which could impact the overall culture. Some bad, with some good.

I think your understanding of class is off. I mean, what would an underclass really do to turn south koreans into a leisure class? The point of working crazy hard is to jostle for position with the people at or above your social position.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#187

Post by DaniFong »

psychometry wrote: post #181
DaniFong wrote: post #165

This is a paper on the work that the article cited: https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s... There is a critical mathematical mistake with their use of statistical analysis which basically, as an artifact, bakes in this "conclusion" into the "results". It comes about because they manually add "Working hours-squared/100" into the factor analysis, and then, low and behold, there is a parabola cor…

Um, what? The model is right there on page 5 and there's nothing wrong with it. The predictors include working hours, (working hours)^2, and others. The outcome is score on a cognitive assessment. What's your agenda in trying to discredit this study with FUD, I wonder? Hopefully this can serve as yet another example of how to ignore commenters that sound like they know what they're talking about but actually don't.

Look, I am 100% for the conclusion that we should not as a default case have people working too much! Even a 40 hour work week, for work that is statistically usual today, is in my opinion inhumane.

That philosophical belief however does not win out in the context of this particular analysis.

My agenda is to support sensible discourse on the question of how our brains adapt and how we live, using rigorous thought. Maybe I'm not seeing the problem with my reasoning but it seems pretty clear to me.

The problem is that you automatically get an upward or downward parabola, plotting cognitive scores versus working hours, if you have a non-zero coefficient in working hours^2

It's very unlikely that you'll get an upward parabola, especially given the strong anticorrelation between unemployment and cognitive scores that they use.

In science, you have a judgment call for which predictors you plug into the statistical analysis. Choosing any particular function, be it working hours^2, sin(working hours/100), or even, say, ballmerpeak(alcohol content) will effect the statistical results in factor analysis or anything else.

Since we chose only linear and quadratic functions to get coefficients for in our statistical analysis, the functions are going to be a parabola -- either up or down.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#189

Post by xapata »

DaniFong wrote: post #187
psychometry wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, what? The model is right there on page 5 and there's nothing wrong with it. The predictors include working hours, (working hours)^2, and others. The outcome is score on a cognitive assessment. What's your agenda in trying to discredit this study with FUD, I wonder? Hopefully this can serve as yet another example of how to ignore commenters that sound like they know what they're talking about but actually don't.

Look, I am 100% for the conclusion that we should not as a default case have people working too much! Even a 40 hour work week, for work that is statistically usual today, is in my opinion inhumane. That philosophical belief however does not win out in the context of this particular analysis. My agenda is to support sensible discourse on the question of how our brains adapt and how we live, using rigorous thought. Ma…

The coefficient for the squared component could easily be zero. This is called "not statistically significant". There is no guarantee for a parabolic shape.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#190

Post by psychometry »

DaniFong wrote: post #187
psychometry wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, what? The model is right there on page 5 and there's nothing wrong with it. The predictors include working hours, (working hours)^2, and others. The outcome is score on a cognitive assessment. What's your agenda in trying to discredit this study with FUD, I wonder? Hopefully this can serve as yet another example of how to ignore commenters that sound like they know what they're talking about but actually don't.

Look, I am 100% for the conclusion that we should not as a default case have people working too much! Even a 40 hour work week, for work that is statistically usual today, is in my opinion inhumane. That philosophical belief however does not win out in the context of this particular analysis. My agenda is to support sensible discourse on the question of how our brains adapt and how we live, using rigorous thought. Ma…

"The functions are going to be a parabola." What functions? A plot of which two variables? I have no idea what you're talking about and I'm a grad student in biostats.
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