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'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

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Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#171

Post by nojvek »

lm28469 wrote: post #142
retrac wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real cost of food has steadily decreased for the last 200 years. (Much of the decrease was before 1980, though.) Here in Canada, one hour of labour at minimum wage, will buy you a 10 kilogram bag of flour, or 4 litres of cooking oil. That's enough calories for days . That is insane buying power compared to the historical norm, right into the 20th century. This is the cost of food as % of household income in the U…

Ok but again, housing is the exact opposite: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr... and worker productivity vs income: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tobias-Arbogast/publica... I'm 200% positive that both my grandparents and great grandparents had it better in pretty much every aspect (job security, housing, future perspectives) than we currently do. We have unlimited bread and circuses…

Housing is insanely expensive. in US, healthcare costs are through the roof as well.

The only way I see long term housing becoming affordable is heavy taxes on single family homes as investment properties. Also open up zoning and allow builders to build.

Also naturally less kids, means less humans, means less demand.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#172

Post by barfbagginus »

After that we've got to work on the 3-day work week, and the 2-day work week, the 1-day work week, and 0-day work week.

The AI Legacy Code - an AI-UBI inherited collectively by all humans - can make that happen.

Let's work to end work!!!

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#173

Post by lm28469 »

ndriscoll wrote: post #162
lm28469 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can live on half the space as average people and eat half as expensive food, that lets you FIRE on an average wage Not even close, unless your version FIRE is retiring at 63 instead of 67 and still get 80% of your pension Average salary in germany: 42k gross, 23k net Renting a small place : 500 euros (let's say it includes heating, electricity/gas) Let's say you only eat potatoe and drink rain water: 3 * 1kg *…

I don't know about Europe, but in the US, there are various social safety nets that work perfectly with early retirement with some planning (a topic which comes up in "povertyFIRE" circles). There's been a shift (especially in Democrat-run states) over the last decade or two toward getting rid of asset tests for subsidies, so with planning you can get things like free healthcare, reduced electricity bills, free inter…

"free" health care and other benefits aren't free though, they're paid by taxes on working people, if everyone (or even 10%) retires early and ask for them it doesn't work

I'm not saying it's impossible but it certainly isn't "anyone at anytime". In France for example 48% of people earn bellow 2000 euros per months. If you play the game you have an OK life with health care, a good flat, a car, whatever... but if you want to retire before the legal age it's next to impossible, you just can't build enough savings. If you work in a big city you'll never be able to afford a flat there, if you buy cheap property far away you'll need to pay rent in the city + mortgage.

Best case scenario you'll need a 20 years mortgage, most likely 30. You cannot be in debt to more than 30% of your net income, meaning 2k net per month gives you a 600 euros mortgage, assuming 0% mortgage you can't even afford a 150k euros property over 20 years

https://fr.statista.com/infographie/25111/distribution-des-s...

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#174

Post by hinkley »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #154
hinkley wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What overlap? You asked for a one day work week. You’re either idling your equipment and space or you have employees who mostly don’t meet each other.

> You asked for a one day work week. You’re either idling your equipment Why? An automated factory that has a team come in once a week to monitor and maintain isn't beyond our current capabilities for several simple products. It's simply uneconomic. It's not unfeasible to imagine that changing in the future.

You’re having a very, very basic failure of logic.

The set of all coworkers who work the same day as me is disjoint to the set of all employees who work on days when I do not work. Because anyone who works on Monday by definition of a one day work week does not work on Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. if I see them at work today they will not be at work tomorrow.

The best I can do is if there are split shifts on the same day, where someone shows up to work a few hours before I leave. But if for instance the problem is that a requirement for my work won’t show up until tomorrow, now I have to communicate with them.

There are three options I see. The most likely is that my communication is one-shot through a computer system, where I can try to tell someone who works tomorrow what needs to be done, in which case the task will have a bimodal completion time of either 2 days or 8 days with very little in between. Second option is I can tell the late shift person who will have to play telephone with two or three more split shifts to make it around to tomorrow morning.

And the last option is that I’m communicating to my fellow coworkers on my days off. Which means I’m working multiple days a week. Which only counts as one day a week to managers who are touched in the head.

In summary, there are many, many things one can do with a >1.5 day work week that simply stop once you reach 1.0.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#175

Post by tasuki »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #38
qiqitori wrote: post #36

Just the other day I asked my boss if I can reduce my hours a bit, essentially giving me a 4-day workweek, just that even those days have slightly reduced hours (8->7 hours, though the lunch break is 1 hour, so really it's down from 9->8 hours. Subtext: I don't consider the forced 1 hour lunch break a good thing in my position BTW. It's okay when working from home because you can actually relax, but working from home…

Fuck the money, I wish I could get this schedule. Dont want to speak for you, but I make more than enough money

Do it! It's worth it! You seem to have the right mindset :)

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#176

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hinkley wrote: post #174
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You asked for a one day work week. You’re either idling your equipment Why? An automated factory that has a team come in once a week to monitor and maintain isn't beyond our current capabilities for several simple products. It's simply uneconomic. It's not unfeasible to imagine that changing in the future.

You’re having a very, very basic failure of logic. The set of all coworkers who work the same day as me is disjoint to the set of all employees who work on days when I do not work. Because anyone who works on Monday by definition of a one day work week does not work on Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. if I see them at work today they will not be at work tomorrow. The best I can do is if there are split shifts on the same day…

> You’re having a very, very basic failure of logic

Good sign you’re missing something.

> anyone who works on Monday by definition of a one day work week does not work on Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.

Why are they coming in so much? Everyone comes in on Monday, does some work, tasks the machines and then fucks off.

> most likely is that my communication is one-shot through a computer system

You’ve never heard of a West/East team handing off that never meet? It used to be quite common in trading.

Hell, I’d venture Tarsnap could run today with less than a day of work on Colin’s part each week.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#177

Post by fulafel »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #130
fulafel wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Productivity has skyrocketed, we crossed ~ 20% of current GDP per capita around middle of the last century and we would be able to get by quite well with that. There would need to be many policy and cultural changes to do it but it's definitely collecitively a choice today more than anything else.

It's not "collectively a choice", the gains are accumulating at the top, and the fat cats have no reason to tell people they can work less now.

How we distribute the surplus of production is decided democratically even with the current main knobs (taxes, income transfers, regulation, etc). And of we're not limited to existing tunables. Exercising this choice would need to start by citizens becoming active with this of course.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#178

Post by unsigner »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #147
unsigner wrote: post #98

Let me offer an intentionally shocking counterpoint: The 4-day workweek only appears possible due to the peace divident, and the peace is rapidly coming to an end. We'll need the fifth, and maybe the sixth day of the week to produce shells, missiles, trucks, tanks, ships, planes, and to make up for the lost productivity of those who are on the battlefield.

What we really need to do is find a way to get the large nations to go to perpetual war with each other so that we can all live in miserable poverty and spend that beautiful economic output on mutilating random teenagers for no reason!

or you can submit to Putin and Xi and see if they grant you your four-day work week

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#179

Post by wtetzner »

machomaster wrote: post #158
bluesign wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me personally, when no commute, even 6x4 hours is much better than 4x8 hours ( 1 hour spent at lunch etc, effectively 4x7 maybe 4x6 anyway )

Of course for you personally 6x4=24 hours of work is better than 4x8=32 hours of work. The math is so simple, obvious and scewed that I don't understand why you wrote your comment, what is the informational value.

I think the intention was to convey that 6x4 is more productive than 4x8.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#180

Post by machomaster »

wtetzner wrote: post #179
machomaster wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course for you personally 6x4=24 hours of work is better than 4x8=32 hours of work. The math is so simple, obvious and scewed that I don't understand why you wrote your comment, what is the informational value.

I think the intention was to convey that 6x4 is more productive than 4x8.

Ok, this explanation might actually be plausible. Thank you for writing.
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