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We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

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Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#121

Post by learc83 »

ktgrey wrote: post #118
learc83 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really get any meaningful results from a self selected sample. Since there is no other evidence that a 40 year old in the 90th percentile for mental performance is equal to a 20 year old in the 50th percentile, it seems more than likely that the data is skewed. Perhaps Lumosity.com attracts above average young people and below average older people (given those results, some variation on that theme is the li…

For what it's worth, top chess players decline in skill with age, so it matters for at least one mental activity.

An otherwise almost imperceptible decline in mental function could have have a huge impact on ranking among top chess players simply because at the top levels the margins between players are so small.

If chess Grandmasters dropped in mental acuity as fast as those Luminosity results suggested, a 60 year old Grandmaster could be beaten by any young novice.

Also worth mentioning is that competitive chess is favors very quick thinking and action in a way that most careers don't.

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#122

Post by samstave »

danilocampos wrote: post #112
samstave wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK - I am your student I live in the bay area, Married, have 2 kids and work in SF. Show me how to live on $10/day. Consider me your student. Unless your comment of "showing me how to live on $10/day" is really titled "show a homeless 15 year-old with no job, family or financial obligations how to subsist on $10/day" If you really can show me how to live on less than the cost it is for me to get to work ($7.10, BTW)…

> If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live. Wow. Now why was that necessary? Poster makes a valid point – $10 daily will buy you an existence that looks positively palatial to some, and near a pauper to others. You will be living well, relative to any number of other humans, but lacking the things you want. For example, you probably stop living in the Bay Area.

What? Your argument is to not live in the bay area? OK - Ill move to [WHERE EXACTLY?] to live on a palatial compound for $10/day.

N has adopted the reality distortion field, apparently only idiots live here now.

Why would I live in the bay area? how stupid of me...

*Danilocampos, you're quire renowned here on HN, I find your post to be the lamest thing you have ever said.

The replies to my comments have been the lamest I have ever heard.

"relative to any other humans" -- seriusly - that is your argument? Sorry - that is not only naive, but also fucking pompous.

I CHALLENGE you to live off $10/day. Show me how removed I am. YOU CANT!

Get the fark off your idiocy! living on $10/day is NOT going to happen to ANYONE on HN.

Jesus!

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#123

Post by xtracto »

samstave wrote: post #108
ctdonath wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is what constitutes "maintaining a living", both in your own choices and governmental influence. I can show you how to live well on $10/day, but then you'd complain about not having X Y and Z (starting with two cars and a mortgage in a narrow geographic range). If you can't do without what amounts to luxuries to 75% of the world population, discussing how many hours a week you "should" work is a non-start…

OK - I am your student I live in the bay area, Married, have 2 kids and work in SF. Show me how to live on $10/day. Consider me your student. Unless your comment of "showing me how to live on $10/day" is really titled "show a homeless 15 year-old with no job, family or financial obligations how to subsist on $10/day" If you really can show me how to live on less than the cost it is for me to get to work ($7.10, BTW)…

>If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live.

Wow, HN has dropped this low?

Here were I live the standard household income is around $600 USD a Month. A family of 4 can (parents and two children) can live with that.

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#124

Post by Daniel_Newby »

samstave wrote: post #110
burntsushi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week) Bad assumption. > If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle? What is "subsistence" about it? I understand subsistence living to mean "having just enough to survive."

Jesus, you and ctdonath sound like 20-something morons. Get a fucking life with several mortgages and children. Or, better yet - go live the idolized life of the genius software development hermit you both appear to think yourself to be. What a wonderful life that will be. I am so sick of these douchebag HNers that all think of themselves to be the next rails revolution and have no fucking clue as to what it actually…

> ... what it actually costs to live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids ...

By design, the Valley's zoning laws create an artificial shortage of housing units. It costs a lot to live a "normal life" in order to keep out the riff raff.

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#125

Post by Daniel_Newby »

tossacct wrote: post #115
eriksank wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any modern economy, you can redefine a business plan that requires capital into one that does not. The problem is rather what will you live off while the business is still taking off? That is where you may need savings. But then again, it is possible for approximately anybody to cut their expenses to less than 25% of what they are today. (1) Move to a cheaper area (2) get rid of everything you can do without. And…

>>>It is possible for approximately anybody to cut their expenses to less than 25% of what they are today. I will strongly agree for consumer purchases by people at or above the median household income in America. Strongly disagree for medical purchases , since if you try to save money you may die. I'd love to see some numbers or studies to prove your claim as it applies to Americans in poverty. Even some anecdotal m…

> 20% of American children live in poverty

The poverty numbers are cooked to drum up support for the socialist welfare apparatus. For example, if a 17 year old's family moves and they stay behind with a friend's family, they are classified as a "homeless child".

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#126

Post by yakiv »

javert wrote: post #111
michaelochurch wrote: post #42

25 hours is a good number for average people. I'd say 15-20, even. Ambitious or highly dedicated people will always work more than that, and that's a good thing. What they should have is a lot more freedom in how they spend that time-- working two jobs, one job and school, side projects. The problem is this bullshit conformist fiction in which everyone has to pretend to be ambitious (but only internally) and dedicate…

The best that the law/government can do is to break up the collusions (e.g. among VCs) No, the best that the government can do for startups and the economy is just get out of the way.

I doubt it. If you don't ban monopoly power, people sometimes get it (like Rockefeller sort of did). You don't get all of the nice properties of free markets unless some conditions are met, like the absence of monopolies.

Edit: That being said, government can get involved in the wrong ways and cause problems with subsidies and bad regulation.

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#127

Post by samstave »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #124
samstave wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, you and ctdonath sound like 20-something morons. Get a fucking life with several mortgages and children. Or, better yet - go live the idolized life of the genius software development hermit you both appear to think yourself to be. What a wonderful life that will be. I am so sick of these douchebag HNers that all think of themselves to be the next rails revolution and have no fucking clue as to what it actually…

> ... what it actually costs to live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids ... By design, the Valley's zoning laws create an artificial shortage of housing units. It costs a lot to live a "normal life" in order to keep out the riff raff.

How does this defen the guys claim "Ill show you how to live well off $10/hr."

Every person on HN should realize that they are worth more than $10/hr. Stop defending living in poverty as an exploit of others.

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#128

Post by jseliger »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #114
jseliger wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the 1950s, there was the great promise of "the leisure society" - a future of such material abundance that most people would hardly need to work. That society became possible, but we systematically rejected it in favour of more consumption. I'm not convinced this is true: there are also intense coordination costs and learning costs. Two programmers working 20 hours a week, for example, are way less productive tha…

Sorry, I must disagree. Two people working 20 hours a week are refreshed, not burned out, have time for educationally side projects, etc. I am in my early 60s and for my whole life I limited my work hours to 32 hours per week, even working for large companies. I had lots of time for educational side projects, exercise, extra time with family and friends, and mediation. My only regret was not perhaps cutting this to l…

>Sorry, I must disagree. Two people working 20 hours a week are refreshed, not burned out, have time for educationally side projects, etc.

Take a look at Brooks' The Mythical Man Month for data that demonstrates the opposite, at least in programming; I haven't followed the field closely, but education and industrial organization researchers have done similar work in other professions.

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#129

Post by lotharbot »

samstave wrote: post #110
burntsushi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week) Bad assumption. > If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle? What is "subsistence" about it? I understand subsistence living to mean "having just enough to survive."

Jesus, you and ctdonath sound like 20-something morons. Get a fucking life with several mortgages and children. Or, better yet - go live the idolized life of the genius software development hermit you both appear to think yourself to be. What a wonderful life that will be. I am so sick of these douchebag HNers that all think of themselves to be the next rails revolution and have no fucking clue as to what it actually…

> "Get ... several mortgages and children." > "live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids"

It seems to me this is exactly the point being made. You can live on a lot less money than whatever you currently consider "normal", but not necessarily in your current location or at your current level of consumption.

Whatever it costs you to live comfortably in SV with kids, it probably costs me half that to live comfortably in Denver with kids. I know of families living on less than half of what I do in places like Japan, who would consider themselves quite comfortable.

If financing your current lifestyle leaves you with no free time to enjoy life, you're a slave to that lifestyle -- whether it's on $5k or $500k a year. If "living in Silicon Valley" is non-negotiable, it's going to take a lot more earning power to get out of that type of "slavery" than if you're willing to live in Belize.

Re: We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor

#130

Post by jlgreco »

samstave wrote: post #122
danilocampos wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live. Wow. Now why was that necessary? Poster makes a valid point – $10 daily will buy you an existence that looks positively palatial to some, and near a pauper to others. You will be living well, relative to any number of other humans, but lacking the things you want. For example, you probably stop living in the Bay Area.

What? Your argument is to not live in the bay area? OK - Ill move to [WHERE EXACTLY?] to live on a palatial compound for $10/day. N has adopted the reality distortion field, apparently only idiots live here now. Why would I live in the bay area? how stupid of me... *Danilocampos, you're quire renowned here on HN, I find your post to be the lamest thing you have ever said. The replies to my comments have been the lame…

You do realize that the bay area's cost of living is astronomical, right? He's not slagging on the area or anything...

Regardless, if you actually have an interest in low cost living, hit up Joey Hess. He, in this country, pays something around $4-5 a day in rent/utilities. Using the remaining money frugally for food and other needs is fairly trivial.

source: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154371

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