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

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

#191

Post by pas »

jakubp wrote: post #141
jonas21 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be missing the author's last point which is that in a competitive field, even a small increase in output can lead to a large increase in payoff. In his example of getting research funding, it's a step function: either you get funded (y=1) or you don't (y=0), and because you're competing with others, even a small output increase can take you from the 0 side to the 1 side.

The point your predecessor was making was that if you make bad design decisions or create bugs, your output isn't growing.

So design while you're fresh, and do the grunt work when you're tired.

And I find (have found) that I'm much more inclined to do the boring things when I've finally exhausted my curious/creative mental faculties.

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

#192

Post by pas »

thinkfurther wrote: post #172
dantheman wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wha…

The US government rules as a big power structure. Now Red happens to be on the pinnacle of that, but that doesn't mean Blue has no say in what happens.

It just means things are a lot more "costly" for Blue and/or Blue things (like climate change policies).

But of course in the primary layer a lot of things become infinitely costly for Blue things. (Because they fall under executive rights.) But there are a lot of other layers. (State legislatures/governors, city level issues, and so on.) And though a higher layer can force things on a lower layer, but it's not zero-cost, so usually things settle into an ugly compromise.

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

#193

Post by kerkeslager »

pas wrote: post #191
jakubp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point your predecessor was making was that if you make bad design decisions or create bugs, your output isn't growing.

So design while you're fresh, and do the grunt work when you're tired. And I find (have found) that I'm much more inclined to do the boring things when I've finally exhausted my curious/creative mental faculties.

Recognizing that a problem is hard enough that you shouldn't solve it tired is hard to do tired.

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

#194

Post by kerkeslager »

WalterBright wrote: post #156
Rusky wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GM could not have been the reason for it ...which, to clarify, was not my point. That is, going back up-thread a bit, it's still clear that capitalism intrinsically encourages monopolistic behavior , and that "government intervention propping up companies" is not the cause. In fact, I would go so far as to say that even if there were no capitalistic tendency toward actual monopolies, it would still have the same wi…

Every company wants to be a monopoly, sure. But free market forces prevent that from happening. It takes government to prop one up. A prospect and an actual problem are two different things. SO was never convicted of being a monopoly, either. A subtle but crucial point, and usually overlooked.

I'm not sure on what basis you're claiming that free markets prevent monopolies, but even if they do, free markets self-destruct. Once corporations in a free market have enough money to start influencing politics they use it to start regulating in their favor and the market ceases to be free. You can regulate to prevent that, but then the market isn't free, yet again.

It's also a bit myopic to view companies as a binary monopoly/not monopoly. A company with 90% market share isn't a monopoly, but has most of the downsides of a monopoly, and likely is a monopoly within subsets of the market.

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

#195

Post by dahart »

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…

Your side project does not count. You are working 40 hours a week, which makes your high horse comment about watching Netflix and not wanting to work harder sound pretty bad.

It's very easy to work on a side project, or side hustle, or whatever you want to call it. I don't doubt that you're happier. Making things yourself is fulfilling and fun. But that is your free time & your social life. That is your choice, not your day job. You are misunderstanding what the 40 hours per week concept is all about.

The parent comment is correct; working 100 hours a week for someone else, for extended periods, is possible early death. That's not an exaggeration, it will compromise a person's health if done for long periods of time. It is definitely like that for many, many people. Have you ever worked more than 40 for a single job? How about 60/80/100 for longer than a week? Do you know what 100 hours at one job feels like?

If you have a life outside of your job and 20-40 hrs/wk side project, with time to meet friends, you might be working less than you think. A real 80 hour week is hard to maintain without any social life, it's enough time for meals an maybe an hour of social or alone time per day, and not much else. 80 hours/week is 11.5 hours per day, 7 days a week, on average, sustained. Factor in eating, sleeping, bathing and travel to & from work, and you have maybe 10 hours left. If you exercise, you're probably down to 5 hours of free time for the week. If you try to drive anywhere in those 5 hours, you'll run out of time before you get there, activities very close to home are the only sane option. At 100 hours a week, you only have time to work, eat, and sleep, there is physically no time left for anything else.

An employer of mine measured how many hours people worked during crunch, and found that almost everyone in the studio overestimated their own hours. I overestimated my own hours, and I've worked a real 80 hours a week multiple times before. It's not fun, and I did not have time for a social life. It's not maintainable for long periods, at 80 hours a week you're trading your entire life for your salary, it's not a good deal.

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

#196

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]

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

#197

Post by dheera »

dahart wrote: post #195
hello_newman wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your side project does not count. You are working 40 hours a week, which makes your high horse comment about watching Netflix and not wanting to work harder sound pretty bad. It's very easy to work on a side project, or side hustle, or whatever you want to call it. I don't doubt that you're happier. Making things yourself is fulfilling and fun. But that is your free time & your social life. That is your choice, not y…

Agree with dahart. Among the things I typically do on nights and weekends:

- Travel to national parks and state parks. Exercise during the day, do photography at sunrise, sunset, and at night

- Build funny robots at home that don't do anything useful but I learn a lot from. Through that I have also gained some ideas for potentially useful robots that I might hack at later that are orthogonal to the robots I'm working on for work

- About 4 software projects I have going, not intending to commercialize, but maybe release into FOSS if they materialize into something useful

- Learn to cook new dishes, especially healthy ones, so I can eat less unhealthy crap outside. Visit farmer's markets to get better-quality ingredients and support local economy

- Practice piano. Occasionally perform locally at meetups and things

- Review things that I spent years learning during my undergrad and PhD that I wish to not forget, for the sake of my future (e.g. quantum mechanics, quantum computing, quantum communication, signal processing, CS). Occasionally re-take past final exams or homework assignments to make sure I don't lose my skills.

- Learn new stuff online, watch lectures, read recent academic papers.

I don't have time for Netflix, and don't have too much time to socialize without purpose (although some of the above things I do with friends).

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

#198

Post by jrs95 »

rhizome wrote: post #173
jrs95 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

Fewer people than what would be reasonable
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