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Can we have the day off?

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Re: Can we have the day off?

#461

Post by whiplash451 »

_moof wrote: post #257

Whenever a new way is found to improve efficiency, choices have to be made about how to distribute the new surplus. Choices are made by people who have power and imposed upon people who don't. The people with power under current systems don't care about the people who do the work. They care about getting rich. So if there's an efficiency gain to be had, all of that new efficiency is going to be put towards increasing…

Companies don’t care about it but governments certainly do.

Over the past 150 years, the work week dropped from 70+ to 35h in France.

Granted that’s a long time horizon but still.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#462

Post by radu_floricica »

Buttons840 wrote: post #357
cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

One possibility is once AI becomes profitable and wildly successful, and we all lose our jobs, we vote to nationalize the AI companies, and send some good vibes (but no money) to the VCs who paid for it, and remember that the AI was only built by breaking copyright law at an industrial scale and so it's fair to nationalize it.

[flagged]

Re: Can we have the day off?

#463

Post by madrox »

apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #134
madrox wrote: post #65

The four day work week is a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone did it, then we'd all get a payoff, but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. Thus we all do it and thus we all lose. It's funny how underappreciated it is how the five day work week is powered by norms...at least in the US. People assume there are laws about it. The only laws dictate compensation past certain thresholds, a…

Alright guys, I'm running for president. 4 day work weeks (8 hours each) for employees or prison.

You have my vote. Clearly anyone can do it.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#464

Post by knownjorbist »

polisaez wrote: post #384
xiaoyu2006 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human had all the industrialization and stuff, yet we work 5 days / week now.

I was looking for facts to disprove your point, but it seems we actually work more than our ancestors. Medieval folks and hunter-gatherers had plenty of time off. It wasn't until the industrial revolution that we started extending our workweek. Here's a nice summary of how the workweek looked like, from the AskHistorians subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1rf0lb/comme...

I don't think this is an accurate picture for a number of reasons, first and foremost that these people regularly died from trivially preventable reasons. That luxury today takes a lot of effort from a lot of people.

I'm pretty sure most of white collar HN crowd isn't being ground into dust. It'd be cool to work less though!

Re: Can we have the day off?

#465

Post by radu_floricica »

fg137 wrote: post #296

I never understand why software engineers are so excited about AI as a whole. If you are excited about the technology, sure. But if you are excited about the increase in productivity, unless you are a manager, I don't really understand it. Like, why? You are not working one hour less than before. If anything, it's more likely you'll get laid off and have trouble finding your next job.

Those who are excited are a lot less likely to be out of a job in a year.

I'm not saying that's _why_ they're excited. But it's a great time to be a builder, and a terrible time to be a worker ant.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#466

Post by jppope »

My Dad used to cover a territory in the Northeast where he was on the road for up to 2 weeks at a time. Sometimes we'd see him just long enough for him to grab a haircut and remember everyone's names in the right order. Everyday he showed up to work he needed to be in a full suit and tie. Everyone did. If those suits weren't in good shape, and you weren't on time they were probably picking a different guy for promotion.

The expectation for him was to work 50-60 hours a week, not including commute, getting ready for work, and corporate social events. Time off was strictly 2 weeks until you hit a certain level and then you'd get 3 weeks. He didn't get sick often but if he was he still went to work.

Dad had it good. I used to jump on landscaping crews during the summer in SoCal and watch 60 year old guys break their backs for 12 hours to get ~$250 a day. I'd do it on the weekends for spending money.

I enjoyed the article but reading through all of the comments in this thread I'm genuinely surprised by the lack of appreciation for how good we have it. There's a "demographic" on HN and I'm pretty confident it aint the guys doing concrete work or running vampire hours at the local 7-11.

Moving around some 1s and 0s in between some coffee and meetings even at the bad companies isn't that rough in the grand scheme of things. I get what the article is trying to say - with all the productivity improvements when do the grunts get a little bit of those gains back?Unfortunately thats not how it works. It's "Red Queen Theory"... when something new changes the game you adapt or die - "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

Re: Can we have the day off?

#467

Post by mil22 »

lmm wrote: post #42
krashidov wrote: post #22

> If AI is going to 10x our productivity across the board, that means that I should be able to produce the same amount of output by midday on Monday that, in the before times, would have taken all week. That would be true if you and only you are 10x more productive than anyone else. Since everyone is now 10x more productive it just means you have to work just as much as before since you're competition can outwork you…

> That would be true if you and only you are 10x more productive than anyone else. Since everyone is now 10x more productive it just means you have to work just as much as before since you're competition can outwork you. Why? I don't need 10x more stuff. I'd far rather spend 10x less time working. If we're talking about an actual productivity increase, let's just produce the same amount of stuff in 10x less time.

> Why? I don't need 10x more stuff. I'd far rather spend 10x less time working.

It's a free market - if you can find someone willing to hire you to work 0.5 days a week, and are happy receiving the same income you do today, you can do so.

But your living standards won't improve, while everyone else's will, and by 10x.

And the people you are competing with to buy housing, a car, consumer goods, healthcare, food, and everything else - people who want to work 5 days a week - will have 10x more money than you. Resources like housing, which are supply constrained, will seem to go up dramatically in price relative to your income, and you'll be living in a slum.

Does that still sound like a good idea?

Re: Can we have the day off?

#468

Post by kelnos »

Nearly 100 years ago, John Maynard Keynes said that by now we'd be working just 15 hours a week, because productivity gains would mean we could get a whole work-week of work done in that time.

In reality, higher productivity just means companies can do more with the same amount of time/effort, and so nothing will change. Wage-slaving will still be wage-slaving. We won't move the bar toward more leisure time; we'll move the bar toward more work completed in the same amount of time.

Then again, the labor movement gave us the 5-day work week, and the concept of weekends for resting from work. Maybe a new labor movement can give us more days a week off. Labor movements have been declining of late, of course, but perhaps that sort of thing can be reversed.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#469

Post by Chinjut »

jppope wrote: post #466

My Dad used to cover a territory in the Northeast where he was on the road for up to 2 weeks at a time. Sometimes we'd see him just long enough for him to grab a haircut and remember everyone's names in the right order. Everyday he showed up to work he needed to be in a full suit and tie. Everyone did. If those suits weren't in good shape, and you weren't on time they were probably picking a different guy for promoti…

There's always a comment saying "Don't ask for better, because someone else had worse". Fuck that. I want better and I want everyone else to have it too.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#470

Post by resonious »

cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

It won't get you days off because you (rather, your employer) will fall behind those who didn't opt to take days off.

You'd only get days off if it was only you who got a 10x increase. But it's everybody. So it's status quo: technology advances, and you have to keep up if you want to stay in the industry.

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