Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks

nber.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 395 posts

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

#371

Post by MyHonestOpinon »

CydeWeys wrote: post #71
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A reminder that you cannot simply retire FROM something (work, commuting, etc) but must retire TO something (hobbies, social life, second career, volunteering, etc). Yeah, my guess is that someone retiring early to pursue their hobbies and interests is going to be much better off than a blue collar worker made redundant or disabled in his 50's. I always see these sort of studies used to slam the idea of FIRE, but I…

Retiring TO something is important, but ideally it needs to involve a lot of in-person socializing, which many hobbies do not have. Golfing, for example, is pretty much the platonic ideal of a hobby that involves both socialization and old-person-friendly exercise.

Just adding to this. Consider that if you retire to golfing, will you be golfing in the same golf field 5 days a week for 20 years?

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

#372

Post by WalterBright »

globalnode wrote: post #340
WalterBright wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its all about class struggle That's the foundation of Marxist theory. In America, however, anyone can become wealthy.

> In America, however, anyone can become wealthy. its mostly luck, not merit ;)

Nope. It's merit. Jobs, Musk, Bezos, Buffet, all exceptionally hard workers and risk takers.

Saving 20% of your income and regularly investing it is the path to decent wealth for about everyone. See "The Millionaire Next Door".

https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer...

BTW, a couple years ago, I was being driven home from the car repair shop after I dropped my car off. I struck up a conversation with the driver, who turned out to be a refugee from Afghanistan. He had come to the US a year previously with nothing but the clothes on his back. He got a job, saved his money, bought a car and started a car service. He was telling me all about his plans to expand his business.

The fellow was already well on his way to becoming wealthy.

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

#373

Post by WalterBright »

devonkim wrote: post #355
21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marxims is such a lazy evaluation system. Discarding culture altogether, refusing analysis of religion, its basically a Proof Of Non work, when it comes to sociology and analysis

I think it’s unfair to say that it’s “lazy.” Neo Marxists understand the way those factors affect impact economics but because they’re very difficult to quantify in a heavily quantitative focused academic environment you’ll see less focus upon it, even when analyzing standard fare free market capitalism. I consider it a double standard to put burdens of analysis more upon one ideology than another. Sociology and reli…

Why do people focus on things that have never worked? Studying Marxism is analogous to studying astrology. It's the most failed economic system ever tried.

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

#374

Post by gopher_space »

WalterBright wrote: post #373
devonkim wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s unfair to say that it’s “lazy.” Neo Marxists understand the way those factors affect impact economics but because they’re very difficult to quantify in a heavily quantitative focused academic environment you’ll see less focus upon it, even when analyzing standard fare free market capitalism. I consider it a double standard to put burdens of analysis more upon one ideology than another. Sociology and reli…

Why do people focus on things that have never worked? Studying Marxism is analogous to studying astrology. It's the most failed economic system ever tried.

When you study Marxism you're studying an economic point of view, not a form of government. IIRC most of his work is observational and there's just not much to disagree with once you break essays down to a bullet-pointed outline.

The only thing you should be upset about with Marx is his prose.

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

#375

Post by monocasa »

lecor wrote: post #226
monocasa wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medieval serfs typically worked about 150 10 hour days a year. In addition to the winter months there's a lot of gaps where the plants are in the ground, and now just need intermittent maintenance. All of this of course ignores women's work, which was more omnipresent across the year. But it was also pretty social as well, hence the lasting power of phrases like "sewing circles".

FWIW: That 150 hour estimate came from work by Gregory Clark at UC Davis who has since cast doubt on it. “There’s a reasonable controversy going on in medieval economic history,” Clark told (Amanda Mill). He now thinks that English peasants in the late Middle Ages may have worked closer to 300 days a year. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/05/medieval-...

> In an attempt to provide a definitive verdict on the veracity of the claim that medieval peasants worked around 150 days a year, Snopes spoke with multiple scholars including Gregory Clark, the economist most frequently credited with originating the 150-day-a-year estimate, and Juliet Schor, the economist who first popularized the claim in her 1991 book "The Overworked American."

> We also spoke with Jane Humphries and Jacob Weisdorf, two economic historians who currently study the question of the length of the medieval working year and have recently published work supporting a 150-day estimate, at least for certain decades in medieval England.

> In addition to speaking to these scholars, Snopes also conducted extensive research into the online life of the claim in order to determine when it first began to spread online and how it has changed over time. We additionally examined a number of popular debunkings of the claim, with special attention to the evidence cited as proof against the claim.

> Ultimately, we found that the claim that medieval peasants worked around 150 days a year is still largely accepted as a valid estimate by academic economic historians, at least in England for a period starting around 1350 and lasting between a few decades and more than a century, depending on the methodology used to study the data.

~ 2024 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medieval-peasant-only-work...

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

#376

Post by devilsdata »

hcfman wrote: post #257
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…

"I have ADHD and I often struggle with having the energy to do anything outside of work". Ritalin can help tremendously with that.

Am on Vyvanse. It helps, but mostly just covers my work hours.

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

#377

Post by WalterBright »

gopher_space wrote: post #374
WalterBright wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people focus on things that have never worked? Studying Marxism is analogous to studying astrology. It's the most failed economic system ever tried.

When you study Marxism you're studying an economic point of view, not a form of government. IIRC most of his work is observational and there's just not much to disagree with once you break essays down to a bullet-pointed outline. The only thing you should be upset about with Marx is his prose.

The Labor Theory of Value is a basic component of Marxism and is demonstrably false.

The other tenet is looking at everything through the lens of class struggle. The modern incarnation of that is interpreting all of history in terms of race. Social mobility in free countries like the US shows that the class struggle theory is woefully inadequate.

Time would be better spent studying free markets, the law of supply and demand, etc.

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

#378

Post by singpolyma3 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #343
singpolyma3 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FIRE isn't about job market, you can't control that. Though in tech most people are still making quite large incomes which does help. Rather it is about controlling expenses. The thing you can actually control. My sister's family of 5 lives on less than 50k CAD / year, because they simply must (low income) so if one is making a 100k white collar salary (for example) one can live a lifestyle higher than hers while sti…

That would not work well in the US with annual out of pocket healthcare expenses that can be up to $21.2k per year per family, or $10.6k per year for a single person. Plus the monthly insurance premiums. Financial independence without a large sum of money does not make any sense, and a large sum of money comes from either inheritance, or income.

Obviously you need money and obviously you get it from income. But it is easier to reduce your expenses than to increase your income, and reduced expenses also result in excess income even with no income changes.

Yes there is a floor to this strategy. If you are going to the food bank to feed yourself because you don't have enough income you're unlikely to be able to reduce expenses enough to make this happen. But if you're lower-middle-class or above it is possible.

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

#379

Post by spencerflem »

csallen wrote: post #157
spencerflem wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think being anti-capitalist necessitates being anti “perform a skilled role or responsibility that's useful for your tribe”. To me, that’s the big benefit- under capitalism you’re not working for your tribe, you’re working for a tiny few shareholders. I’m pretty sure the world overall and certainly “my tribe” would be better off if the job I’m working just never got done

> under capitalism you’re not working for your tribe, you’re working for a tiny few shareholders The first half of this sentence is false, but the second half is true. I don't know about you, but when I look at my window every day, I see thousands of people working for their job: making delicious food that others can eat, stocking store shelves so others can shop, trimming trees so the city will look nice, driving tr…

The ‘little incentive’ that it you don’t do it you starve to death.

There’s tons of work being done because it feels meaningful, later today I’m cooking a meal for a potluck, etc. but if you want your Job to be meaningful that comes at a huge premium.

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

#380

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

devonkim wrote: post #355
21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marxims is such a lazy evaluation system. Discarding culture altogether, refusing analysis of religion, its basically a Proof Of Non work, when it comes to sociology and analysis

I think it’s unfair to say that it’s “lazy.” Neo Marxists understand the way those factors affect impact economics but because they’re very difficult to quantify in a heavily quantitative focused academic environment you’ll see less focus upon it, even when analyzing standard fare free market capitalism. I consider it a double standard to put burdens of analysis more upon one ideology than another. Sociology and reli…

If they did, why are they constantly surprised, science gives you prediction power- scientific analysis, should make you the one who surprises others. "Eclipse.. now!" is science, not "Why is it suddenly dark! Must be xyzs fault!"
Post reply on HN