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Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

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Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#121

Post by pandaman »

coldtea wrote: post #119
pandaman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This what I said, peasants were forced to work in agriculture. They were not forced to work in factories, quite the opposite, they had been prevented from working in factories or anywhere else.

USSR needed both (agriculture expansion and industrilization). So, apart from peasants, million other Russians were forced to work in industry, in horrible conditions, and millions died (and thousands were executed) in the process of increasing industrial production.

The topic of this discussion "if a peasant's life was so sweet why did they run to factories?". You proposed they were forced to do so at gun point. I presented a contradictory fact - peasants were forced to stay peasants at gun point. You go off topic. I concede, there is no way we could persuade each other so you win as you can downvote my posts.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#122

Post by hfsktr »

btilly wrote: post #120
hfsktr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a strange notion recently that if you were to drop the average person (not an Einstein or a Hawking) and dropped them into say the 1500s Europe. Most people think we'd be regarded as super smart and awesome. This comedian explains most people don't know crap[1], we only know the high-level. I think that even if we could find things we understand to teach it would be largely not viable (how much stuff around us…

Thanks to the Flynn effect, it is likely that most of us would be significantly better at abstract thought than the average person 500 years ago. Thanks to diet, we'd also mostly be out of shape giants. We would, however, be sorely lacking on basic survival skills. Also, not knowing Latin would mark us as uneducated and not worth listening to.

I don't disagree with anyone here. It had occurred to me that communication would be difficult (I don't think impossible). Mostly I thought the survival skills is what would be learned and then you'd be just like everyone else trying to survive. Maybe some of the knowledge could make it a bit better (locally) but a lot of what we know is really built on things that would be out of reach.

What someone said about geologists and knowing where resources are hadn't even crossed my mind. I was thinking more of a general high school graduate. Anyone with a specialty (math related especially) might do better (again I assume coping and not freaking out or getting a disease immediately).

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#123

Post by warcher »

lhl wrote: post #98
warcher wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't discount the state of constant warfare most aboriginal societies live in. If you have a neighbor, he wants your mongongo nuts.

Hmm, while this the assumption (in some pretty flawed) early anthropology, I think the modern consensus is that hunter gatherer societies were relatively peaceful, both amongst themselves[1] and between each other[2]. Of course, successful/stable hunter-gatherer societies are pretty geographically isolated, since encounters by tribes w/ more "advanced" (post-agrarian, colonial, modern) societies usually has meant obl…

Not an anthropologist, so take my casual observations with a grain of salt, but I can think of quite a few examples of latter day stone-age societies that are notably bloodthirsty. The few remaining indigenous tribes in the amazon, for one. 'Headhunters' in Indonesia, for another.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#124

Post by tsotha »

lsc wrote: post #106
tsotha wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But that's the big question. The affordable care act is going to make it so that you can get health insurance on your own, even with pre-existing conditions, (though, I think, employer-paid insurance will still be tax-advantaged) - I wonder how this will effect the number of upper middle class people interested in working part-time I would be very surprised if there isn't a rush to the exits from people in their mid…

>I would be very surprised if there isn't a rush to the exits from people in their mid 50s if it looks like health care will be affordable. I know I'll be able to retire a full decade earlier if I can get health care for a few hundred bucks a month. Is the subsidy based on income? or assets? or both? 'cause if you don't qualify for the subsidy, the affordable care act doesn't make it any cheaper, it just makes it pos…

>Is the subsidy based on income? or assets? or both? 'cause if you don't qualify for the subsidy, the affordable care act doesn't make it any cheaper, it just makes it possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get healthcare.

As I understand it the subsidy is based on income. But I'm not sure. Either way, if insurance companies aren't allowed to charge more for preexisting conditions there are a whole lot of people who used to be priced out that will no longer be priced out. In my case $1k per month is a great deal.

>I am postulating that the affordable care act will make it realistic for contractors-without-bodyshops (or just part-time folks) to cover their own healthcare. that vastly reduces the per-employee cost.

Health care is certainly the major cost, but it isn't the only cost. If I hire one guy to do sixty hours of work instead of two who each do thirty there are all sorts of savings - one workspace vs two, management overhead, training, and most importantly communication.

We'll see.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#125

Post by sogen »

Panos wrote: post #114
jjoonathan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] Also, "handsomely" is relative: if the quality of life of peasants plummeted due to enclosure until it was far below the QOL for factory workers and enclosure happened because of the industrial revolution, it would be disingenuous to say that the industrial revolution provided a handsome alternative to peasant life. The freedom of choice can be immensely powerful or worse than useless depending on c…

The initial stages of the industrial revolution were not so good for the workers. However, the mass production phase, did increase the standard of living. The best example is "The five-dollar workday": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

That's the current wage in Mexico!

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#126

Post by lsc »

tsotha wrote: post #124
lsc wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would be very surprised if there isn't a rush to the exits from people in their mid 50s if it looks like health care will be affordable. I know I'll be able to retire a full decade earlier if I can get health care for a few hundred bucks a month. Is the subsidy based on income? or assets? or both? 'cause if you don't qualify for the subsidy, the affordable care act doesn't make it any cheaper, it just makes it pos…

>Is the subsidy based on income? or assets? or both? 'cause if you don't qualify for the subsidy, the affordable care act doesn't make it any cheaper, it just makes it possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get healthcare. As I understand it the subsidy is based on income. But I'm not sure. Either way, if insurance companies aren't allowed to charge more for preexisting conditions there are a whole lot o…

>Health care is certainly the major cost, but it isn't the only cost. If I hire one guy to do sixty hours of work instead of two who each do thirty there are all sorts of savings - one workspace vs two, management overhead, training, and most importantly communication.

I think that a boss has to be a first-class idiot to think that one person working 60 hours a week is going accomplish anything near 2x what that person can accomplish working 30 hours a week.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#127

Post by tsotha »

lsc wrote: post #126
tsotha wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is the subsidy based on income? or assets? or both? 'cause if you don't qualify for the subsidy, the affordable care act doesn't make it any cheaper, it just makes it possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get healthcare. As I understand it the subsidy is based on income. But I'm not sure. Either way, if insurance companies aren't allowed to charge more for preexisting conditions there are a whole lot o…

>Health care is certainly the major cost, but it isn't the only cost. If I hire one guy to do sixty hours of work instead of two who each do thirty there are all sorts of savings - one workspace vs two, management overhead, training, and most importantly communication. I think that a boss has to be a first-class idiot to think that one person working 60 hours a week is going accomplish anything near 2x what that pers…

I must be a first class idiot, then, because I'm pretty sure that's the case.

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#128

Post by lsc »

tsotha wrote: post #127
lsc wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Health care is certainly the major cost, but it isn't the only cost. If I hire one guy to do sixty hours of work instead of two who each do thirty there are all sorts of savings - one workspace vs two, management overhead, training, and most importantly communication. I think that a boss has to be a first-class idiot to think that one person working 60 hours a week is going accomplish anything near 2x what that pers…

I must be a first class idiot, then, because I'm pretty sure that's the case.

Even if you think your developers are supermen who can work all the time, (personally, I believe that is true in the short term, false in the long term.) in this market, why would a good developer stay with you, when they can get more reasonable treatment (often for the same total salary) elsewhere?

the "for the same total salary" bit is interesting. Most of the long-hours software jobs I've seen are salary gigs. Not only no overtime pay, but no extra hourly pay at all. Why would someone stay with an abusive boss when there are plenty of other jobs (with, in fact, a much higher hourly rate?)

My other observation is that the more you increase pressure to keep people at work, the more personal business is conducted at work. And the more the good people in the group negotiate their way out of the group (either to other parts of the organization, or to other organizations entirely.)

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#129

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

sogen wrote: post #125
Panos wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial stages of the industrial revolution were not so good for the workers. However, the mass production phase, did increase the standard of living. The best example is "The five-dollar workday": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

That's the current wage in Mexico!

Isn't five dollars a day more than double the UN poverty line - even today??

Re: Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you

#130

Post by tsotha »

lsc wrote: post #128
tsotha wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be a first class idiot, then, because I'm pretty sure that's the case.

Even if you think your developers are supermen who can work all the time, (personally, I believe that is true in the short term, false in the long term.) in this market, why would a good developer stay with you, when they can get more reasonable treatment (often for the same total salary) elsewhere? the "for the same total salary" bit is interesting. Most of the long-hours software jobs I've seen are salary gigs. Not…

>Even if you think your developers are supermen who can work all the time, (personally, I believe that is true in the short term, false in the long term.) in this market, why would a good developer stay with you, when they can get more reasonable treatment (often for the same total salary) elsewhere?

There are lots of people (mostly young men) who really enjoy the work and are willing to put in those kinds of hours because they live and breath the stuff. That's the way I was in my 20s. It's not "Mistreatment" if you know the score going in and you're getting paid for it.

Of course you can't keep that pace up as you get older, particularly if you have a family.

>My other observation is that the more you increase pressure to keep people at work, the more personal business is conducted at work.

Very few companies increase pressure to keep people at work. They just structure deadlines such that nobody can finish their work in a forty hour week. Usually unintentionally, of course, but not always. When I worked in finance they were pretty up front about it - they expected more than a forty hour week and we were compensated accordingly.

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