Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

metarabbit.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 198 posts

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#171

Post by Rusky »

WalterBright wrote: post #167
Rusky wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free market forces don't prevent it from getting close enough to cause a problem (if that's even possible under capitalism- the problem we're talking about is due to the attempt to gain a monopoly, not having one). I couldn't care less what Standard Oil's maximum market share was, you're arguing an irrelevant technicality. My point is, again, that in this case the prospect is what causes the problem.

> cause a problem The "problem" was that kerosene prices dropped 70% under SO. The real problem was that Rockefeller was rich, and then (like today) a lot of people just can't stand the idea that others are rich. If you're really interested in going beyond soundbites and understand what was happening, I really recommend Chernow's "Titan". Chernow actually agrees with you, so you can't argue his book is unfair. Cherno…

Neither of those are the problem I'm referring to, which should be obvious based on the thread we're in...

But to spell it out, the problem is that the winner-takes-all aspect encourages people to overwork themselves or their employees, despite the diminishing returns that brings.

Maybe you're just so convinced of capitalism's good nature that you were blinded to what we were talking about in the first place? ;)

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#172

Post by thinkfurther »

dantheman wrote: post #113
18nleung wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this essentially a winner-take-all situation, though? Capitalism tends towards winner-take-all systems, but not all winner-take-all systems are capitalistic. I find the example fitting.

Capitalism actual doesn't veer toward winner take all. Government does, elections do, etc. Capitalism leads to people voting with dollars so instead of a red or green car being given a vote, the red car may be cheaper if lots of people want it.

Yeah, that's why there is AMD and Intel, NVIDIA and AMD, Apple and Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

> the red car may be cheaper if lots of people want it.

Also see the pharma industry, right? The US government isn't all governments either, in some countries parties actually rule together, compromise and whatnot. And considering getting money out of elections isn't even attempted in earnest, the question really is what is the tail and what is the dog here.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#173

Post by rhizome »

jrs95 wrote: post #77
rhizome wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

asymptotic productivity of work, and winner take almost all nature of capitalism. seems like a very succinct way of explaining why people work so damned much A myth of capitalism is that the donkey can reach the carrot hanging from the stick if they work harder, that "almost all" can be won by those who are being driven to work more hours. However, this doesn't take into account that there are at least as many carrot…

Well personally I've come from a family where hardly anyone make a productive decisions, where nobody had a college degree, and a tiny portion are even middle class. And now I'm 22, self-taught, and make $70k a year in the Midwest. And I did get there by working endless hours and catching the carrot, repeatedly. I think the truth of how these things go is probably somewhere between where your typical anti capitalist…

>I think the truth of how these things go is probably somewhere between where your typical anti capitalist and your typical social Darwinist would expect it to be.

What isn't between those two poles?!

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#174

Post by WalterBright »

Rusky wrote: post #171
WalterBright wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cause a problem The "problem" was that kerosene prices dropped 70% under SO. The real problem was that Rockefeller was rich, and then (like today) a lot of people just can't stand the idea that others are rich. If you're really interested in going beyond soundbites and understand what was happening, I really recommend Chernow's "Titan". Chernow actually agrees with you, so you can't argue his book is unfair. Cherno…

Neither of those are the problem I'm referring to, which should be obvious based on the thread we're in... But to spell it out, the problem is that the winner-takes-all aspect encourages people to overwork themselves or their employees, despite the diminishing returns that brings. Maybe you're just so convinced of capitalism's good nature that you were blinded to what we were talking about in the first place? ;)

I think you're inventing a problem. I don't know many capitalists or employees who believe they must work themselves to death because of some presumed winner-take-all aspect. In fact, I don't know any.

Few define business success as erasing all competition. Success is making a good profit.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#175

Post by ryanbrunner »

One point I'll agree with is that a lot of times, people use the argument that working 40 hours a week is actually the most efficient to mask their real argument, which is socially unacceptable in today's business climate (particulary tech):

People ought to have more to their lives than their jobs, and working 50, 60, or more hours a week makes that difficult.

Personally, even if people had inexhaustible energy, I still would think it would be wrong to spend more than a third of your day at work. It so happens that it makes sense from an efficiency standpoint to, but I want people working under me to be able to have hobbies, families, and something other than their career.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#176

Post by toasterlovin »

grigjd3 wrote: post #168
toasterlovin wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an exponential back-off kind of a thing. Our 6 month old probably requires 30 hours/week by himself (and that's already much reduced from what it was). Our 3 year old probably requires 10 hours/week. And our 4 year old maybe requires 3 hours per week. The bigger issue is that this time is spread out pretty evenly throughout the day, so in practical terms it takes up every single hour that the kids are awake. Wha…

I easily put 30 hours a week in getting my 3 yr old dressed, to daycare, entertained while my wife makes dinner, and on weekends. My wife puts in similar time.

I guess we just live a different lifestyle. My wife is a full-time mom, so no daycare. The three year old dresses himself at this point, plus he and the four year old entertain each other pretty well.

I think there's also an element of once you have multiple children you just don't have any extra time. As a result, all the inessential time expenditures get cut. For instance, neither my wife nor I spend any time whatsoever entertaining our children. We don't have the time and they can entertain themselves.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#177

Post by conanbatt »

majewsky wrote: post #146
conanbatt wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tasks.sort { |a,b| b.difficulty a.difficulty }

tasks.sort_by(&:difficulty).reverse Readable code FTW.

O(n logn + n)??? do you think computing power grows on trees?

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#178

Post by raymondh »

veidr wrote: post #9

TL;DR: you can get more done if you work 60 hours instead of 40 hours in a week, but the work done in that extra 20 hours might be a small fraction of what gets done in 20 hours during a 40 hour week. This is self-evidently true for many jobs. E.g., if you pick apples for 40 hours, then even if you only pick one apple per hour after that, you will still pick more apples working 50 hours than 40. We software developer…

> This is self-evidently true for many jobs. > E.g., if you pick apples for 40 hours, > then even if you only pick one apple per hour > after that, you will still pick more apples > working 50 hours than 40.

That logic presumes that the first 40 hours aren't affected by the additional hours. IIRC, one of the premises of the "sustainable pace" rule for Extreme Programming was that people know when they are being pushed to work a lot of hours and either consciously or unconsciously slow down at the outset (with the mind or body shifting out of a sprint-mode and into a marathon-mode).

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#179

Post by the_cat_kittles »

WalterBright wrote: post #167
Rusky wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free market forces don't prevent it from getting close enough to cause a problem (if that's even possible under capitalism- the problem we're talking about is due to the attempt to gain a monopoly, not having one). I couldn't care less what Standard Oil's maximum market share was, you're arguing an irrelevant technicality. My point is, again, that in this case the prospect is what causes the problem.

> cause a problem The "problem" was that kerosene prices dropped 70% under SO. The real problem was that Rockefeller was rich, and then (like today) a lot of people just can't stand the idea that others are rich. If you're really interested in going beyond soundbites and understand what was happening, I really recommend Chernow's "Titan". Chernow actually agrees with you, so you can't argue his book is unfair. Cherno…

> The real problem was that Rockefeller was rich, and then (like today) a lot of people just can't stand the idea that others are rich.

dont you think its kind of upsetting when someone could improve someone's life drastically without any (practically speaking) detriment to their own. obscene wealth is upsetting to me, and i know lots of people who have it, and i dont hate them. so its not about the person, per se. i just find it extremely unfortunate, knowing first hand how things could be different, in an almost pareto improvement way.

right now there is someone who will die because they cannot afford proper medical care. the is almost certainly someone with a lot of money, doing nothing with it, that could fix that at no cost to themselves. thats a little upsetting right?

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#180

Post by [deleted] »

hello_newman wrote: post #155
dheera wrote: post #23

I wonder how they got this curve. A lot of things can be sustained for 1 week cannot be sustained in the long term. I'd say in the long term: * 140-168 hours/week --> almost certain death. * 100-140 hours/week --> at risk of cardiovascular disease and many other serious medical conditions. Possible early death. * 80-100 hours/week --> still super-bad for your body. Forget raising children, dating, getting married, or…

If this is your perception of an hourly break down, that's fine. But just because you think working 100 hours a week results in "Possible early death" doesn't mean it's like that for other people. For example, in your chart, I'm currently in the 60-80 hour a week range, split between a full time job and a side hustle. Personally, I've never been happier, I have a life outside of work, a beautiful girlfriend, time to…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN