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How did we get so busy?

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Re: How did we get so busy?

#131

Post by enjo »

chris_mahan wrote: post #126
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you work 80 hours a week, meaning that you have almost no time to enjoy life with your kid... so that he can grow up to be like you and do the same thing, and presumably educate their children to do the same as well. So your ideal of how things should be is to have a saga of people working their asses off, in theory for the good of the next generation, but in practice for nothing because the next generation will w…

Well, I don't "work" 80 hours a week. I work 40 hours a week. I commute 8 hours a week. I volunteer (he comes with me sometimes) 2 hours a week. Lunch breaks: 5 hours. (so far 50 hours) Then I do all the routine stuff that needs to be done: Grocery shopping, hardware store, car maintenance, etc. Then I spend another 15 hours a week working on extra stuff (learning, following the news, doing stuff for clients, coding)…

I commute 8 hours a week.

There's an easy way to get a bunch of hours a week back.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#132

Post by chris_mahan »

enjo wrote: post #131
chris_mahan wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't "work" 80 hours a week. I work 40 hours a week. I commute 8 hours a week. I volunteer (he comes with me sometimes) 2 hours a week. Lunch breaks: 5 hours. (so far 50 hours) Then I do all the routine stuff that needs to be done: Grocery shopping, hardware store, car maintenance, etc. Then I spend another 15 hours a week working on extra stuff (learning, following the news, doing stuff for clients, coding)…

I commute 8 hours a week. There's an easy way to get a bunch of hours a week back.

Except my boss isn't happy with that concept.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#133

Post by Litost »

nnq wrote: post #61

> “There is so much to learn and produce and improve that we should not spend more than a dribble of time living as if we were in Eden. Grandchildren, keep trucking.” - Richard Freeman, of Harvard ...somebody shoot this guy. Please. When will we realize that so many great thought were thought because smart people have had free time to "let their minds wonder around". Think Darwin, the leisure-class naturalist with lo…

Thank you, thank you. That Bertrand Russel link is simultaneously one of the funniest and most poignant things i've read in quite a while.

Always seemed odd, this keep everyone so busy working (and consuming), they won't have the time or the inclination to question the reason they're spending so much of their time working.

And your observation about smart people having free time, links into this recent article about Peter Higgs (of Higgs Boson fame) saying "It's difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964." (http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-b...)

Re: How did we get so busy?

#134

Post by ricardobeat »

robotresearcher wrote: post #127
ricardobeat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is working longer hours an evolutionary trait towards survival?

Evolution is reactive to current circumstances only, and not toward anything, not even survival. It's absolutely possible to evolve yourself extinct, and it happens all the time.

And that is one of the points of the 'Red Queen hypothesis' posted above. What I'm asking is how does working longer hours fit that theory.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#135

Post by ovulator »

charlespwd wrote: post #27

Hi, I've been a lurker here for some time now. I rarely ever comment on stories because, well, I have better things to do. But now, I really need to broaden my perspective. I just don't get it. *Disclaimer : I am young (23), broke but happy. This past year, I spent four months in Asia travelling. I rock-climbed for a while, tried bungee, canyon swing, diving, trekking and the motorcycle. I was able to afford all that…

How were you able to do it? I don't condone the 60-80 work week, and myself will never go over 40. (I do have side project of my own though). If I were to take 4 months off to travel to Asia I would have a $0 income when I came back, because I would have been let go. When I was in school I had to work to pay for my tuition and books which meant I wasn't traveling anywhere. I took out loans and had aid, but if I took out more, that would mean that I was just mortgaging my future leisure time that I would have to make up earning that money back at interest.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#136

Post by lastres0rt »

VonGuard wrote: post #56
NDizzle wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works a 40 hr/week job and a 20 hr/week job, (and the extra hours associated with learning various things that apply to each) while also having 3 kids, sometimes people are actually busy. I coach little league, too.

Yeah, I think it's deeper than just being a self-important asshole. It's more about the fact that we are 1000 times more productive, as a species, than we were just 20 years ago, and yet, we all still work just as hard. This, coupled with always being connected means that our work and obligations never end, they just follow us around.

I think the general devaluation of said work is also a factor -- coupled with this idea of all these "money-saving" DIY tips that are severe time sinks.

If you are working two part-time jobs, you're doing just as much work as a full-timer but not nearly as much pay and certainly not as much in benefits (healthcare, time off, stable work schedule, etc.) that could allow you to USE what leisure you have.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#137

Post by logfromblammo »

nlawalker wrote: post #24

Reminds me of this article, which was also here on HN ages ago: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-tra... "Busyness" is a social defense against other people making us do things we don't really want to do and a mechanism for coping with feeling guilty about things we know we should do, but don't. My intuition is that people have had to project themselves as busier and busier over the last couple…

By that theory, we present as more busy because other people are being more demanding of our time. Who are these people? Is it possible to identify and isolate the people who are the root causes of projected busyness and slap some sense into them?

If we translate "I'm busy" as a conversational token with attributes REJECT_INVITATION, TONE:NEUTRAL, RELATIONSHIP:STATIC, BLAME:EXTERNAL, DOMINANCE:INDEPENDENT, HONESTY:FACE_SAVING, there's really nothing better for that niche.

"I don't want to," could possibly be RELATIONSHIP:DOWNGRADE, BLAME:YOU, DOMINANCE:INSUBORDINATE, and HONESTY:BRUTAL, or some combination.

A simple "no," would be TONE:CURT and possibly DOMINANCE:INSUBORDINATE. Upgrading to "no, thank you," takes you back to TONE:POLITE, but still leaves you at possibly insubordinate and still leaves several contexts undefined. That might require futher explanation.

The PREVARICATION:FACE_SAVING attribute is rather important. Anyone trying to dig past that is venturing into TONE:RUDE and BLAME:YOU territory, and a more polite response would be another HONESTY:FACE_SAVING as an honor-preserving disengagement.

On deeper analysis, busyness often turns out to be a defense around selfishness, but we protect it as a blameless social disengagement because everyone has occasion to be a little selfish sometimes. If everyone around you seems busy, it may be that you are too pushy yourself. People may be willing to make more time for you if you make that time more pleasurable or less painful for them.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#138

Post by maerF0x0 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #21

Of course they blame men. Never mind blaming misguided feminism, pushing women to endlessly new heights of perfectionism, elitism and competition both within and across their fairer sex. And strangely its not OK that the man knows how to relax, minimizes extraneous work and does a sufficient job... Hits a nerve for me if you can't tell.

So many downvotes, so few counter points. At least the crazy guy who got banned had the respect to post something.

EDIT: and for anyone hating on the fact that I used the word "Feminism", keep in mind it has "misguided" in front of it. I am referring to feminism that aims to go beyond equality and simply wants to gather unlimited power for women (and oftentimes for all minorities), irrespective of where the pendulum of power currently lies.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#139

Post by 001sky »

ricardobeat wrote: post #134
robotresearcher wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution is reactive to current circumstances only, and not toward anything, not even survival. It's absolutely possible to evolve yourself extinct, and it happens all the time.

And that is one of the points of the 'Red Queen hypothesis' posted above. What I'm asking is how does working longer hours fit that theory.

"must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate not merely to gain reproductive advantage, but also simply to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing organisms"

Where does it not fit?

Re: How did we get so busy?

#140

Post by _archon_ »

vacri wrote: post #68
voteapathy wrote: post #36

My guess is that we as humans tend to look at what we've missed out on rather than what we've gained. During Keynes's time there wasn't quite as much competition for one's time and attention, and whatever they had probably wasn't as cheap. Now we just have so much entertainment at our disposal that we can't feel satisfied with what we have. I'll call it the Deal or No Deal irrationality . Essentially, if you go on th…

$100... for the hours of your time it takes to apply, get accepted, show up, sit around in the green room, partake in the gameshow itself, and make your way back home. It's not free money.

And it's not even close to $100, after taxes.
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