Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks • Hacker News Board

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#361

Post by gunsle » Tue, May 05, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #161

devilsdata wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason people go from work to nothing on retirement is because work fills up the nearly all of the productive hours of a person's life. If it were to take, let's say 4 days, or six hours a day, people would be so bored, they would be making projects, business ventures, or volunteering. And then on retirement, people would still have their hobbies and passion projects they had been working on their entire life. Th…

> they would be making projects, business ventures, or volunteering This is not what actually happens in practice. There is no sudden outbreak of productive activity because people have more free time. If this was going to occur there would be mountains of empirical evidence for it by now because this situation isn't rare. I know many people with a lot of free time. In the vast majority of cases, people spend their f…

Yeah the people that think the world would turn into a magical utopia if we suddenly had to work less hours are just downright ignorant. Every one of them claims they have plenty of hobbies to fill their days. I guarantee by month 3 of no work most of them would be begging for something meaningful to do.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#362

Post by jodrellblank » Tue, May 05, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

csallen wrote: post #87

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #35

The problem isn't retirement per se, it is that people don't have things to occupy themselves with. They retire and they vegetate. I worked with a lady that was in her 70s who was deathly afraid of retiring because she didn't have anything to do. That's beyond depressing to me, to be incapable of even conceiving of doing something that doesn't involve going to a job. We have created people that never develop as human…

I think this is a problem in perspective/framing. Or phrasing, if you will. "Being economic entities in the workforce" could alternatively be phrased, "performing a skilled role or responsibility that's useful for your tribe." That sounds much less sinister. It's something humans have been doing for millions of years. It feels good, it engages our brains, it's helpful to others, and it's helpful to ourselves. And I c…

I don't think the modern "anti-capitalist" trend is disparaging "performing a skilled role that's useful for your tribe". It's disparaging various of these things:

- being arm-twisted to perform a low-skill, low-utility, role because economic weirdness and bad luck makes it the only work that you can get. Your tribe could use your , but it's cheaper to import furniture from China, so tough. Your tribe might like your music, but you aren't as good as Adele, so shut up. You could grow decent fruit but it doesn't pay well enough for you to afford the land to do it, and farms using illegal migrants can undercut your work, so find something else.

- systems parasitically exploiting your desire to provide useful work, to extract maximum value from you beyond what is satisfying and fulfilling, while treating you as disposable waste. You like cooking? Become a chef for 14 hours a day including evenings and weekends, or get out. From Amazon warehouse workers to programmers in the video game industry; intense grind, burnout, fired. Tribes don't tend to do that to people they value.

- systems distorting skills and responsibilities, e.g. not providing good tools, Kafka-esque bureaucracy, firing people in your 'tribe' at will, having your day micromanaged so your skilled work is entirely at the behest of other people, taking away agency from your work, demanding lower quality but faster, demanding higher quality and faster, demanding higher quality and paperwork, so that even if something is using a fulfilling skill, it actually doesn't feel that way.

- removing options to do multiple things; a job is usually a reduced to one role from day start to end. There's not much room for someone who is the local baker, tends the canal lock, sells eggs in the market, and does mountain rescue or whatever.

- taking over your life; e.g. controlling your days off, providing your healthcare, owning all the land so there aren't 'commons' you can opt to live off, lobbying and bribing the lawmakers, mandating 37 pieces of flare, setting your start and finish time, making you justify sickness, demanding you be on-call or available at night.

Consultants with high-demand skills still have some opportunity to avoid this, but huge numbers of people don't.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#363

Post by c22 » Tue, May 05, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #261

globalnode wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think people trying to argue that we would be more productive is a symptom of the productivity disease. where all we value is productivity and thats the only way we can justify more non-work time. i personally just think we should all have more time to do what we want, whether that is being productive on personal projects, talking to people, playing games, or doing nothing. happier people right? why should 10% of t…

I was all with you right up until the class conflict stuff. Nobody's enslaving anybody. Well that's not true, we're mostly enslaving ourselves. There are endless easy opportunities in life. For instance go teach English in Saudi Arabia and you'll earn around $60k a year which doesn't sound like much until you account for the fact you pay 0% in taxes and have a cost of living well under $1k a month. Just live frugally…

If moving to Saudi Arabia to teach English is an option in your life then you are already in the top 10% by wealth.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#364

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 05, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #161

devilsdata wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason people go from work to nothing on retirement is because work fills up the nearly all of the productive hours of a person's life. If it were to take, let's say 4 days, or six hours a day, people would be so bored, they would be making projects, business ventures, or volunteering. And then on retirement, people would still have their hobbies and passion projects they had been working on their entire life. Th…

> they would be making projects, business ventures, or volunteering This is not what actually happens in practice. There is no sudden outbreak of productive activity because people have more free time. If this was going to occur there would be mountains of empirical evidence for it by now because this situation isn't rare. I know many people with a lot of free time. In the vast majority of cases, people spend their f…

[deleted]

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#365

Post by ericmcer » Tue, May 05, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #35

The problem isn't retirement per se, it is that people don't have things to occupy themselves with. They retire and they vegetate. I worked with a lady that was in her 70s who was deathly afraid of retiring because she didn't have anything to do. That's beyond depressing to me, to be incapable of even conceiving of doing something that doesn't involve going to a job. We have created people that never develop as human…

I still play Starcraft 2 & some other games with my friends 1-2x a week when we have time.

We do not fear cognitive decline during retirement.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#366

Post by somenameforme » Tue, May 05, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

c22 wrote: post #363

somenameforme wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was all with you right up until the class conflict stuff. Nobody's enslaving anybody. Well that's not true, we're mostly enslaving ourselves. There are endless easy opportunities in life. For instance go teach English in Saudi Arabia and you'll earn around $60k a year which doesn't sound like much until you account for the fact you pay 0% in taxes and have a cost of living well under $1k a month. Just live frugally…

If moving to Saudi Arabia to teach English is an option in your life then you are already in the top 10% by wealth.

You mean worldwide, by nature of being an English speaker? Probably. But people don't really care about that. They want to keep up with the Jeffersons and Saudi Arabia allows a means to do that, at least relatively. On the off chance you somehow meant something else, relocation costs including airfare/etc are included as well as a return ticket.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#367

Post by AlecSchueler » Tue, May 05, 2026, 5:55 PM UTC

entropicdrifter wrote: post #142

andix wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My claim is, that the market is encouraging segregation less than society. Jobs force people to work together. If nobody forces them, they often just don't work together, and stay in their bubble.

It's kind of a six-of-one half-a-dozen-of-the-other situation IMO. Modern society does tend to have extreme social bubbles, but those are also a product of market forces, which in turn were influenced by previous states of society, etc etc back to the beginning of time.

Back to the beginning of time or back several centuries?

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#368

Post by somenameforme » Tue, May 05, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

wiseowise wrote: post #285

somenameforme wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was all with you right up until the class conflict stuff. Nobody's enslaving anybody. Well that's not true, we're mostly enslaving ourselves. There are endless easy opportunities in life. For instance go teach English in Saudi Arabia and you'll earn around $60k a year which doesn't sound like much until you account for the fact you pay 0% in taxes and have a cost of living well under $1k a month. Just live frugally…

> There are endless easy opportunities in life. For instance go teach English in Saudi Arabia and you'll earn around $60k a year which doesn't sound like much until you account for the fact you pay 0% in taxes and have a cost of living well under $1k a month. Just be born a single male with knowledge of Saudi, English and ability to teach and then lock yourself away for 10 years in Arab world living like a second cla…

You don't need to know Arabic to teach English in Saudi Arabia. And that generalizes to the overwhelming majority of the world. And no you wouldn't be a second class citizen. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest immigrant populations in the world, far higher than e.g. the US as a percent - about 40% of the population.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#369

Post by somenameforme » Tue, May 05, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

dqv wrote: post #280

somenameforme wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was all with you right up until the class conflict stuff. Nobody's enslaving anybody. Well that's not true, we're mostly enslaving ourselves. There are endless easy opportunities in life. For instance go teach English in Saudi Arabia and you'll earn around $60k a year which doesn't sound like much until you account for the fact you pay 0% in taxes and have a cost of living well under $1k a month. Just live frugally…

0% of people will take your advice because it's half-baked and you didn't actually research the requirements (hint: simply knowing English is not enough) to get such a job. Or you purposefully omitted the requirements to make your point that it's "easy". A word of advice: if you want to give advice, at least be realistic.

The requirements beyond being a native speaker, especially for the demographic of a forum like this, are not real show stoppers. And my advice is similar to the path I took with my own life, though not in Saudi Arabia. And it sent me on a journey that ended up way away from teaching English, but that's the nature of life.

The unspoken benefit of doing things like this is that it also exposes you to endless opportunities because the expats you meet half way around the world tend to be an exceptionally interesting batch. It's certainly a path I'd recommend to absolutely anybody who's not content with the typical treadmill of life.

Re: Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

#370

Post by MyHonestOpinon » Tue, May 05, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

kakacik wrote: post #268

nate wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think you'll find that taking care of someone" => I know you were writing this generically. And I'm just replying to this for the sake of all of us who do actually know what it's like taking care of someone. But yeah. Holy shit this is hard. I've been doing this too. Had to move my mom and dad to a place a block from me when my mom was going through her final few months with Alzheimers. That was so hard. So gross.…

Maybe a little consolation but still - you are doing an amazing and wonderful thing that you can be proud of for rest of your life. Extremely hard and taxing, no doubt there. Think about some nice moment from childhood when things are rough. Respect to you and all others doing similar service.

Also. Prioritize taking care of yourself(the caretaker).