Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#351

Post by ailideex » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #350

rubber_duck wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> such as for example the notion that it's somewhat something to be ashamed of for an employee to leave its employer, while it's perfectly OK for the employer to terminate the employee at any time. Your entire post is overgeneralization and dramatizing to prove some poorly thought out hypothesis but this here is the most obvious example. When there is enough choice people change jobs all the time - the demand in my l…

What's your supply and demand explanation for the following norms? - It's considered professional for employees give their employers two weeks notice before leaving. It's considered completely reasonable for employers to terminate employees and not even pay them for the rest of the day. - It's considered unprofessional to talk about what you're getting paid. - It's considered normal for potential employers to do back…

> It's considered completely reasonable for employers to terminate employees and not even pay them for the rest of the day.

Nope.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#352

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:11 PM UTC

Pungsnigel wrote: post #263

lostjohnny wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Expensive medical treatments Again. Universal healthcare solved that in Europe. It is expensive, but it's a shared cost that benefits everybody. > Maybe the biggest lie is pretending to be able to predict the future Maybe, but back then they didn't have the means to care for more than a few days at a time, to think about the future. If they could have done it, they would have done it.

It's not by any means solved in Europe. // Swede

Compared to the system in the US it is. How did one researcher put it? "Every healthcare system has its flaws, but the US somehow manages to have all of them."

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#353

Post by dbingham » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:12 PM UTC

sillyquiet wrote: post #334

flmontpetit wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real. Being a software developer is probably the easiest and safest career you can have without being born into wealth. edit: I should also mention having options is not really a blessing when they're all bad.

`easiest` ?

Yes.

Ever done manual labor? Or something that requires both intense manual labor and intellectual problem solving, like carpentry or many of the building trades?

Or think about all the various fields that require intense intellectual output, with nothing like the rewards and security of software engineering.

We've got it good. Though, really, the ideal would be for all workers to be treated more like we are, and less like replaceable, abusable cogs in a machine.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#354

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

flmontpetit wrote: post #328

noobermin wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have bones to pick out of OP, your post assumes your experience is the norm and not far away from the median.

For real. Being a software developer is probably the easiest and safest career you can have without being born into wealth. edit: I should also mention having options is not really a blessing when they're all bad.

[deleted]

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#355

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #67

BurningFrog wrote: post #34

It's hard to compare, but those who try usually say we have about 30x the income now. So the extra effort is worth it!

...what? Almost all of that 30x is because of better technology, not the number of hours. We could switch to something like 32 hour weeks, 40 work weeks per year, and still have a truly enormous GDP.

Sure.

My point was more that if you choose to work an extra hour, you're vastly more rewarded for it now.

And I guess that's one reason people do it.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#356

Post by sol_remmy2 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

flmontpetit wrote: post #338

sillyquiet wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`easiest` ?

Yes. Being a software developer is easy. It's not necessarily the case, but I can think of no other trade that pays so well and offers so many opportunities for so little ability, effort, accountability, responsibility and stress.

Where do you work? I'm in operations and spent 10pm-3am last night responding to an incident. There's a lady here going bald in her early 30s. Stress is high, responsibility is high, accountability is high, effort is high.

I can think of literally 1000s of jobs that are easier

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#357

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

ailideex wrote: post #351

kerkeslager wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your supply and demand explanation for the following norms? - It's considered professional for employees give their employers two weeks notice before leaving. It's considered completely reasonable for employers to terminate employees and not even pay them for the rest of the day. - It's considered unprofessional to talk about what you're getting paid. - It's considered normal for potential employers to do back…

> It's considered completely reasonable for employers to terminate employees and not even pay them for the rest of the day. Nope.

[deleted]

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#358

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

magashna wrote: post #343

rubber_duck wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> such as for example the notion that it's somewhat something to be ashamed of for an employee to leave its employer, while it's perfectly OK for the employer to terminate the employee at any time. Your entire post is overgeneralization and dramatizing to prove some poorly thought out hypothesis but this here is the most obvious example. When there is enough choice people change jobs all the time - the demand in my l…

Software development is far from the norm. People working menial jobs don't have the luxury of making demands or changing jobs on a whim.

Even many software development jobs don't have that option. It's a bubble within a bubble that gives the employee the power.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#359

Post by macspoofing » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:18 PM UTC

vfc1 wrote: post #114

The 40h a day week and modern-day work contracts come as a direct evolution of medieval servitude, with little modification. This explains the system of values that revolve around it, such as for example the notion that it's somewhat something to be ashamed of for an employee to leave its employer, while it's perfectly OK for the employer to terminate the employee at any time. The servant was not expected to leave it…

>The 40h a day week and modern-day work contracts come as a direct evolution of medieval servitude, with little modification.

You're claiming the opposite of what the article does. Medieval serfs did not work a 40h week.

>This explains the system of values that revolve around it

No.

>such as for example the notion that it's somewhat something to be ashamed of for an employee to leave its employer, while it's perfectly OK for the employer to terminate the employee at any time.

Says who? This is so overbroad that it doesn't actually match reality. Lots of people quit jobs all the time.

>The servant was not expected to leave its master, that was not OK.

Come on.

You have an angle you want to argue but you can't just distort reality to fit your conclusion. Nothing you argued is broadly true, though I'm sure you can find individual examples.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#360

Post by dash2 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

This is from a 1993 book.

There's no mention of the pretty pleasant 16-21 years that most Americans spend in education, compared to preindustrial labourers starting work before age 11. Or of the concept "retirement", which would have been hard for medieval peasants to imagine.

There's also this pertinent commentary from 1995:

https://www.clevelandfed.org/~/media/content/newsroom%20and%...

"The central message of this Economic Commentary is that the presumption of declining leisure is in fact a fallacy. Previous studies purporting to have uncovered such a fact have not adequately disentangled time spent in home production..."