Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people believe that we'd be more efficient if we work 30 hours a week instead of 40+.
If this were really true, you’d expect to see most people with full freedom to set their own hours gravitate towards that 30-hour mark. Professors working 30-hour weeks would write more papers than their harder-working colleagues. Business owners would show up for 30 hours a week and go home. Fruit pickers, paid by the bucket, would pick more fruit in 30 hours than their colleagues could pick in 50. Professional athl…
Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
51–60 of 77 posts
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been a laborer too so I'm not arguing against laborers' rights. Labor and capital are symbiotic; one without the other would not function as efficiently as they do now. We're doing okay with what we have is all I'm saying. Perpetually being in a state of revolution doesn't help anyone especially when things are going great. 40 hours seems fair to me; 24 hours doesn't. I'm hard pressed to believe work would get c…
Depends on the work. Based on experience I would rather have a happy, well-rested developer working for me who is aching to get to work in the morning and who has the brains to leave for home as soon as he or she feels tired or unfocused. If that happens at 2pm or 4pm, I don't actually care. If people are still at the office at 6pm, or if I see people are tired, unfocused or are only goofing off, I ask them to go hom…
Makes total sense to have a worker well rested and happy (40 hours does that sufficiently well). Your submission works if it is a task such as programming. A programmer can finish their week's tasks in 3 days or less and you'd be fine with that. That's not most programmers though.
Moreover, I have had other businesses where the time you pay for as an employer totally matters if you're to get an ROI.
If I need you for 8 hours a day and there's an amount we've agreed on as compensation, then that's exactly what I need.
It doesn't really work if for instance it is a restaurant and you need to have waiters, dishwashers and cooks round the clock as patrons visit your establishment.
If they'd rather work fewer hours and get less money, who am I to argue? I'm just saying they'll be poorer for it and contrary to what you posited, they won't be too happy about it either.
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people believe that we'd be more efficient if we work 30 hours a week instead of 40+.
If this were really true, you’d expect to see most people with full freedom to set their own hours gravitate towards that 30-hour mark. Professors working 30-hour weeks would write more papers than their harder-working colleagues. Business owners would show up for 30 hours a week and go home. Fruit pickers, paid by the bucket, would pick more fruit in 30 hours than their colleagues could pick in 50. Professional athl…
It's an idea that's only recently begun gathering research:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/294545
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13318990
https://www.brinknews.com/working-fewer-hours-makes-you-more...
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#54When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it. If people work less, especially if eng…
Well up until recently I spent 9-10 hours a day programming machines that turned mountains into countertops and fireplace and such for rich people. Every day I kind of made the world worse to make some rich people happy. I mean there was one day we took a slab of 10 million year old fossils cut from the bottom of the ocean and made it into a counter. This arguably does not improve the world.
4 day weeks or 6 hour days would have been pretty awesome, I could have likely been more productive in life things.
My new job is also nothing world changing, though probably marginally more beneficial to more people and less environmentally damaging, but the lack of 6, nine hour day weeks makes it more appealing in many ways.
Though, I'm kind of torn, because I find the actual work less fulfilling and enjoyable, but having time is nice.
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people believe that we'd be more efficient if we work 30 hours a week instead of 40+.
If this were really true, you’d expect to see most people with full freedom to set their own hours gravitate towards that 30-hour mark. Professors working 30-hour weeks would write more papers than their harder-working colleagues. Business owners would show up for 30 hours a week and go home. Fruit pickers, paid by the bucket, would pick more fruit in 30 hours than their colleagues could pick in 50. Professional athl…
> Professors working 30-hour weeks
This is gated by the fact that teaching even a single class well is almost a 40-hour a week job by itself.
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#56A six hour day is plenty if you actually work and if you have a bit of discipline. Most people don't. They spend much of their day just goofing off - wasting their own time and often the time of their coworkers. I bet most of you reading this do not spend 8-10-12 or whatever number of hours you claim to be at work actually working productively. You goof off often as much as half the time. Possibly more if you work fo…
>They spend much of their day just goofing off - wasting their own time and often the time of their coworkers.
This is why a world where everyone is an independent contractor feels...right.
I don't know how you could implement it properly, but from a high level it works: work when you want to, take holidays when you want to, move around. There's no such thing as "businesses will take advantage of workers though!" because everyone is a business. Screw enough people and no one will work with you.
Of course, for this to work you'd need a universal safety net or UBI...
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#57When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it. If people work less, especially if eng…
Well up until recently I spent 9-10 hours a day programming machines that turned mountains into countertops and fireplace and such for rich people. Every day I kind of made the world worse to make some rich people happy. I mean there was one day we took a slab of 10 million year old fossils cut from the bottom of the ocean and made it into a counter. This arguably does not improve the world. 4 day weeks or 6 hour day…
do you think its possible to find a job so full-filling it does not feel like a job?
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#58I don't think it should be assumed that less time at work is necessarily preferable. What will people do with all their additional spare time? Sure, they might spend their days learning art, history, philosophy. They might take up writing poetry, painting or learning the piano. Or, they might vegetate in front of the TV, take up drinking as a hobby, argue with strangers online and slowly decay into existential nihili…
Yes, we should be working 10 or 12 hour days, you never know when the devil will leap in. What we really need to do is enforce the separation of church and state and keep the religious arguments out of political debate.
It's not a religious argument by any means. It's a common idiom which means that "if people don't have anything to do with their time, they are more likely to get involved in trouble and criminality." (see https://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/devil+finds+wo...).
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#59When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it. If people work less, especially if eng…
[flagged]
Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days
#60I don't think it should be assumed that less time at work is necessarily preferable. What will people do with all their additional spare time? Sure, they might spend their days learning art, history, philosophy. They might take up writing poetry, painting or learning the piano. Or, they might vegetate in front of the TV, take up drinking as a hobby, argue with strangers online and slowly decay into existential nihili…
Well, the devil doesn't exist, but I think I get your allusion. If you go back a century, people in Britain, Europe, USA, Australia etc were probably working 70 hours a week. If you asked a random selection of people in those countries now if they think we should all move back to that figure as a standard work week -- you know, to save society from itself -- I'm guessing you wouldn't get a lot of support.
That's true of course, and I'm not saying that more work is necessarily more desirable any more than I'm saying that less work is necessarily desirable. My point is that the premise of the article assumes that spending less time at work is automatically better, and I would challenge that premise.