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Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

bbc.com

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Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#101

Post by 8u23u0893290u »

avcdsuia wrote: post #69
1_800_UNICORN wrote: post #33

Very interesting article, but I was disappointed that the article stated that the millenial only-children of China are "outspoken", "pampered", or "self-centered". I don't believe that any of those terms apply to people who are fighting against working 72 hours per week for low pay. This is a case of basic human rights. The words that come to mind to describe the folks who are fighting this fight are "proud", "resili…

Collectivism is hard coded in Chinese public education, kids are encouraged to hard work and make dedications to their native land in schools. The gov make idols to worship like Jiao Yulu(焦裕禄) way before this working overtime issue (and Jiao died from overwork and liver disease) and making tv shows Touching China，a mandatory learning section for middle school students. With this premise it's not odd to me that critic…

Culture should be defined by the conversations and efforts of people applying their agency when and where they see fit

Not forced by top-down elected officials put in office by wealthy elites

If humanity wants to be lazy and not provide for each other, that's it's prerogative.

And what's the point of doing all that if only other people are benefiting while you're toiling 72 hours?

Nationalist pride "culture" is authoritarianism with a soft touch

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#102

Post by phyller »

jadedhacker wrote: post #72
phyller wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a joke. He was implying that if the workers took hold of the means of production, they could displace the capitalist bourgeoisie that are exploiting them. Then they could set up some sort of People's Republic, with a single, communal political party that represents the people, not the powerful minority. They could call it the "People's Republic of China". That would solve everything, what could go wrong? Commu…

Does it look like the workers own the means of production in China or is it a mix of government and private capitalists? If so, that's state and private capitalism. If the workers own the means of production it means they literally are the managers of the factories in a democratic fashion. You wouldn't see much useless overtime if that happened.

That is the joke. The communist government, that was supposed to liberate the people, created this situation. It didn't work like it was supposed to did it?

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#103

Post by cwbrandsma »

Sangermaine wrote: post #48
1_800_UNICORN wrote: post #33

Very interesting article, but I was disappointed that the article stated that the millenial only-children of China are "outspoken", "pampered", or "self-centered". I don't believe that any of those terms apply to people who are fighting against working 72 hours per week for low pay. This is a case of basic human rights. The words that come to mind to describe the folks who are fighting this fight are "proud", "resili…

It's nice to see that however much America and China might be at odds, they can apparently agree on attacking their young people as lazy and entitled.

it is a right of passage for each generation. In your 20s you are called lazy and entitled, then in your 40s-60s you say the same to people in their 20s.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#104

Post by pizza »

tribune wrote: post #63
Sangermaine wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to see that however much America and China might be at odds, they can apparently agree on attacking their young people as lazy and entitled.

A human universal! http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html

Though that quote in particular is attributable to Kenneth John Freeman's 1907 dissertation at Cambridge University, rather than Socrates (as it is often attributed).

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre...

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#105

Post by s73v3r_ »

tankerdude wrote: post #81

The article references the 996 hours and the title of the article is about UNPAID overtime. If it truly is unpaid, I would walk away in a heartbeat as well. Unless it’s office work, getting tired in a warehouse would mean higher chances of injury and death. Would you in the US be informed that you are getting paid $20/hr but it stops at 8 hours? There is a reason that the US has laws about the minimum that people can…

"There is a reason that the US has laws about the minimum that people can get paid on a salary."

There is no federal law in the US about that. California has such a law, but it requires being reported to be enforced, and as such, is not very often enforced.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#106

Post by ben509 »

ionised wrote: post #64
merpnderp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-preservation is the most selfish thing you can be centered on, and it is absolutely ethically and morally correct. Being self-centered is what makes free markets successful, as in pitting your self interests against others, brings out the most productive aspects of everyone involved.

This is wonderfully ideological. I'm surprised people still believe this stuff. Free markets are successful because people are self-centred? The last 40 years or more should have been enough time to see that humans are not just machine-like self-interested information processors that respond to the market, they do behave altruistically and will co-operate when the purpose is worth it. It's this naive insistence that…

> This is wonderfully ideological. I'm surprised people still believe this stuff.

Since I tend to skew this way, I'd like to see you lay out what some of the ideological assumptions are. Free market views are pretty well backed by economics, and plenty of nations have tried to implement alternative ideas and crashed pretty hard.

> The last 40 years or more should have been enough time to see that humans are not just machine-like self-interested information processors that respond to the market, they do behave altruistically and will co-operate when the purpose is worth it.

This is all true. The other side of that coin that frustrates the Progressive vision is that politicians and other government agents are not just altruistic beings who cooperate, according to public choice theory, they have a significant aspect of being self-interested information processors, to use your terms.

> It's this naive insistence that the market and holders of capital, if left alone, will direct humanity in the right direction...

I'm not sure who is insisting that. I think you have an underlying assumption that the state must provide for the totality of its citizens existence, so you assume that if the government isn't doing this, people must believe that corporations would take over that role.

Free market and small government advocates reject that entirely and believe that social structures can be built from the bottom up. Individualists don't think there needs to be a larger direction for humanity because your individual endeavors have intrinsic value.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#107

Post by s73v3r_ »

kevas wrote: post #28
collyw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me. I think I am underpaid (actually I think most devs in my country are underpaid) so i don't do it with the exception of when I made a major cock up and the team was waiting on me.

Serious question: why do you think you're underpaid? Why do you feel you should be making more. The market has said that you're currently worth/getting paid X. So... why think you're Y?

"The market has said that you're currently worth/getting paid X"

Has it? Seriously, who is this all powerful "market" that one can go ask and get an exact answer? What does "market" have to say about employers simply giving anemic raises, if they give any at all, to employees they believe will have trouble finding new employment?

Someone's current wage is not correlated with the market wages for their current position.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#108

Post by adventured »

adinobro wrote: post #80
ausjke wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gosh this sounds like a revolution in the cooking state, is this totally true? maybe not that bad I hope. the big problems are the debt and the house bubble, one of them blows up will cause serious issues, so far so good it seems.

No it isn't actually true. Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA. Most people don't care about censorship and the ones that do can get around it. From their point of view, it is no different to the NSA or the cameras in the UK (way more than China). Most Chinese people I know own a house (more like a shack) BUT it is out in the countryside. They want to move…

> Roughly 80% of Chinese people are happy with the direction the country is going vs 40% in the USA.

An obviously fraudulent setup. There are very few things you can get 80% of people to agree on unless they feel compelled to agreement. The Chinese people no longer possess the ability to dissent. What little ability they had to do so, briefly, has been wiped out in the last five years under the new dictatorship.

Your China reference is as legitimate as Putin's approval rating.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#109

Post by chaostheory »

This isn't just about human rights and treating people fairly, this is about poor efficiency. There are multiple reasons we have the 40-ish hour work week.

https://medium.com/building-asana/work-hard-live-well-ead679...

"Many people believe that weekends and the 40-hour workweek are some sort of great compromise between capitalism and hedonism, but that’s not historically accurate. They are actually the carefully considered outcome of profit-maximizing research by Henry Ford in the early part of the 20th century. He discovered that you could actually get more output out of people by having them work fewer days and fewer hours."

http://www.bcmj.org/article/impact-sleep-deprivation-residen...

"In US hospitals, 50000 to 100000 patients die annually from medical errors, and inadequate sleep among physicians may be a factor."

I'm sure there's more data from WWII and later sleep studies as well, yet everyone continues to ignore it.

Re: Young Chinese are sick of working long hours

#110

Post by njarboe »

tribune wrote: post #63
Sangermaine wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to see that however much America and China might be at odds, they can apparently agree on attacking their young people as lazy and entitled.

A human universal! http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html

What is universal, evidently, is confirmation bias. From the linked page, "the quotation is spurious."

I clicked on the link expecting the Socrates quote and was not disappointed. But, if you read the page through to the end, it seems that this quote was made up in by William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson and published in "Personality and Adjustment, p. 277" in 1953. It was popularized in the 1960's to trivialize complaints by the older generation against the hippies. I have believed for a long time that this was a true quote from ancient Greece and it has shaped my world view. I have used this quote in many conversations and I still am hoping the quote is authentically from ancient Greece. I'll have to poke around the internet some to convince myself one way or another.

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