The Toxic Grind

I appreciate the idea behind this post, and it's true that chronic overwork is debilitating - but there are a lot of different ways to get things done that don't necessarily conform to the author's ideal conclusion.

For me, the 9-5 routine every single week is a toxic grind, with weekends off and all. My preferred work routine covers about the same hourly total, but it's basically three weeks on nonstop, one week off to recuperate and relax and do other things.

This is clearly not for everyone, but I think it has some similarities to how our ancestors lived. Say you're a Polar Inuit, and the caribou are migrating. You hunt caribou around the clock, then relax, store the product, take it easy for a while. Say you're a simple farmer, and it's harvest time, or planting time - you work around the clock to bring in the harvest/plant the crop, then take it relatively easy for a while.

In the modern world, if you're working on something complicated, there's this 'loading time' factor just to get the situation into your head. If it takes a few hours to get up to speed, and you have to do that every day, it's just wasted time. Get up to speed, work straight through with it all in your head, get some food and sleep, and the next day - you're still up to speed. This is far more productive (for complex work) than the awful 9-5 routine, and weekends surrounded by crowds of people are not that great, either. Much better to have a whole week off afterwards.

Where this goes off the rails is when some boss says, no, you don't get that week off, I need you to work like a slave every single week. This is a problem with the hierarchical nature of most modern human societies, and typically said boss is out at 2:00 every day for that important golf game where the important deals are made and the important cocktails are drunk, can't miss that. The construction boss who shows up at the site to 'oversee' for an hour or two is the classic example of this.

In our current society, the only real option for this kind of approach appears to be self-employment, which has a whole other set of problems.

i don't know why you were downvoted. I mentioned basically the same in another comment, you can't just turn off competition between humans. Competition is a fundamental component of all known life. You can opt out but then complaining that the rest of humanity has not chose to opt out isn't really fair.

maybe if it keeps getting upvoted despite being the 600,000th, there's something that continues to resonate with the audience?

A lot of people who are good in a capitalistic world, you know your finance people, lawyers, software engineers (@ FAANG) are kind of like race horses, they are born with ample intellectual capacity and spend their formative years competing with their peers to try to rise to the top (starting from middle school, high school, top uni, top company, top position etc...), they rarely ask themselves if what they are doing is even worth it for humanity, themselves, or posterity, they just run as soon as they are put in a race. Taking a step back and questioning this stuff is scary, especially if you are brought up to think that if you aren't running then you are falling behind.

You think it was coincidence numerous members of the Fed Reserve resigned ~6 months ago? They need to not be associated with the policies - and the Fed Reserve,as a private entity, knows that it needs alternate reasons / methods for a recession. Blame must always be passed in government. The easiest way to go into recession naturally - is bond market routs and high gas prices.

The Fed is aware that in today's 'cancel culture' a lot of public outcry that finally realizes the Fed's activities weaken it's future if political will becomes too strong. Thus it needs something to 'point to' for those whose brains freeze up when 'numbers' are involved.