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This is one of the reasons I hate the eight-hour work day. Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc

This is one of the reasons I hate the eight-hour work day. Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life. I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour weeks), but I think our culture needs to change before we can really put the onus on people to improve their sleeping habits. I'd love to get 7-9 hours of sleep, but I just don't have the time.

lutorm 9y ago
Actually, studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do. It's just recent history that's an anomaly...
- ksk 9y ago
  Why is it important that studies have shown a particular result?
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Because only well designed studies can show a truth. It is obviously the case that when you drop a big rock and a little rock at the same time the big rock will hit the ground first. Because we have a study we know this to be false even though it is obvious.
    - Cyph0n 9y ago
      Well, that particular scenario is false only when there is no air resistance (nowhere on this planet?). More importantly, it wasn't just a "study" that figured out the law of gravitation.
      - dctoedt 9y ago
        > no air resistance (nowhere on this planet?) In 1971, Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott repeated the experiment on the lunar surface with a hammer and a feather. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_P... (includes a link to a video clip; jump to about 0:35).
        Cyph0n 9y ago
        I am aware of that famous experiment on the moon. However, my point was that the law of gravitation was developed centuries before such an experiment could possibly be performed.
    - ksk 9y ago
      I understand the thrust of your comment and generally agree with your broad sentiment. But, most scientific studies present a model that fits data. While you are right that they can show a truth, that is not their aim, and often they are contradicted with newer data and models. Studies are only valuable when they form a scientific consensus over repeated experiments or provide some predictive power that can be confirmed through other experiments. To use a studies as a prescriptive guide to base your life on, or change of habits is an error IMHO, and ironically, quite unscientific. I guess you could say its a pet peeve of mine. 9 times out of 10 when I investigate a "studies have shown" comment, it turns out to be half-true or based on weak science, or too new to be replicated by other scientists, or sometimes the context is completely different from its use in an argument.
    - eeereerews 9y ago
      There was no such study. Galileo showed this was false with the following famous thought experiment: Suppose it were true. Join a heavy rock and a light rock by a cord and drop them from a tower. If the light rock falls slower, eventually the cord will be pulled taut and retard the fall of the heavier, so this system falls more slowly than the heavy rock alone. But the system is heavier than the heavy rock alone, so it should fall faster, a contradiction.
      - Thiez 9y ago
        And yet a human with a parachute falls more slowly than a human with a parachute. I remain unconvinced of this thought experiment...
        vkou 9y ago
        We don't strap parachutes to people because we think that heavier objects fall faster then lighter ones.
      - bluGill 9y ago
        Maybe Galileo did not, but others have. The gold standard is a model that explains that behavior, and experimental studies that work as the model predicts. The model that big ricks fall faster makes sense, but it isn't backed by experiences. Many studies have seemed to show something but in fact the authors just didn't realize they had to control for something important (sometimes an accident, sometimes outright scientific fraud)
        dctoedt 9y ago
        > Maybe Galileo did not, but others have. "The experiment did take place in Delft in 16th century the Netherlands, when the mathematician and physicist Simon Stevin and Jan Cornets de Groot (the father of Hugo de Groot) conducted the experiment from the top of the Nieuwe Kerk." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_P...
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Some people feel that humans have evolved over millions of years to do well in hunter-gatherer tribes and we have not genetically adapted yet in 6,000? years of civilization. If we think returning some habits of hunter-gatherer tribes would be beneficial, then we need to know what they are/were and not just wild-ass guess based on the Nobel Savage myth.
    - ksk 9y ago
      Right, its good to present a model of what their habits were, if that was your area of interest. To use them as a prescriptive guide to base your habits on, requires further explanation and reasoning.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      Many of the habits of hunter-gatherers would likely be absolutely unacceptable in today's culture. They were likely violently clannish/racist, completely male-dominated, hierarchical based on physical strength and appearance, and believed in gods/supernatural phenomenon.
      - bjshepard 9y ago
        What evidence is there to suggest that this is the case? It seems, instead, that those behaviors arose at a later point -- you need a certain level of captivity to have institutions like the patriarchy, bands can't enforce coercive structures....
      - ambentzen 9y ago
        So basically they where American? You're right, absolutely unacceptable by modern standards. BTW, the first sentence is about 50% a joke.
      - gyrgtyn 9y ago
        You assumptions are completely backwards.
      - irrational 9y ago
        Wait... violently clannish? So... Democrats vs Republicans? Violently racist? I think I remember something about that from the recent news. Completely male-dominated. Lets see, how many politicians, movie directors, CEOs, etc. are filled by males? Hmmm. Hierarchical based of physical appearance? Um... calling all pop stars and Kardashians. Believe in God. Something like 80+% of Americans. I'm super confused on what part of this is supposed to be absolutely unacceptable in today's culture. You have some serious blinders on or an unbelievable amount of naivete if you believe that.
- wmil 9y ago
  Not only that, but the 40h/week ignores commutes. For some people that's an additional 15h/week. Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize.
  - mietek 9y ago
    > Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize. Outside of what, the ministry of hunting and gathering?
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Outside of their tents/caves/etc homes.
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    > with friends to socialize Or, sometimes, rival tribes to fight with and kill -- not everything is (necessarily) hunky-dory in every tribal society.
    - jahaja 9y ago
      Well, the history of killing each other (and others!) in western civilization is nothing to brag about.
      - jff 9y ago
        If you think it's just western civilization, you haven't spent much time looking at non-western civilizations.
    - jasonmp85 9y ago
      I have little knowledge about the truth here but I'd heard that this sort of warring stuff only ramped up after agriculture became common, no? Why kill other tribes' members unless they have a hoard of food? I suppose "to reduce competition" is one answer, but if everyone can hunt/gather for enough food, the motivation seems reduced. OTOH if I can ignore preparation for winter and just raid your village for grain stores, the calculus changes.
- ztjio 9y ago
  Studies on same people suggest 6-6.5 hours of sleep per day was the norm, though. It questions the recent claims that adults "need" more.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    For long periods of time humans were malnourished, didn't wear proper shoes, didn't have proper beds, and didn't bathe properly. Just because it was done in the past and people survived doesn't mean it's necessarily the best way to go about things.
- jhgjklj 9y ago
  As the technology advances we should be working less but its the opposite. Here's an essay by Bertrand Russel http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Great essay. Bertrand Russel never ceases to amaze. For others, the essay is titled In Praise of Idleness, but is about using your idle (non-working time) for pursuits. Not to turn this into something else, but pursuing things during "idle" time is another reason why if reasonably possible, basic income could be great alongside more advancements like automation occurring.
- wolfram74 9y ago
  I think the people GP was referring to were early industrial age folks before labor unions pushed for humane working conditions.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
  What studies? This is the internet, use that fancy hypertext. I'm not very familiar with this particular area, but I do know from books like The Better Angles Of Our Nature (and criticisms thereof) that this is a contentious statement. There are many myths about ancient humans, some that overly indulge in 'savagery' and others that are too idyllic. The evidence for either interpretation is fairly fraught and I'm deeply skeptical of any affirmative claims one way or another.
  - ianai 9y ago
    I've heard it elsewhere in books. Forgetting where exactly.
  - kixiQu 9y ago
    Later, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, where as people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_charact...) Sackett, R. 1996. "Time, energy, and the indolent savage. A quantitative cross-cultural test of the primitive affluence hypothesis". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Angles.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      Thanks. Not about humans of the past, but still a relevant study.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Yeah getting some studies and info on this would be great.
- GhostVII 9y ago
  Hunter gatherer societies also weren't paying for cell phones, and internet, and mortgages/rent. I'm sure you could get by working part time for 15 hours a week if you gave up all of your modern conveniences and lived outdoors in a tent, but it wouldn't be very enjoyable.
  - fish_fan 9y ago
    > I'm sure you could get by working part time for 15 hours a week if you gave up all of your modern conveniences and lived outdoors in a tent, but it wouldn't be very enjoyable. It’s interesting you’d say that. I agree on average, but the enjoyment in that lifestyle would be hard to imagine in ours. I don’t think it’s hard to see our perception of pleasurable things is different from frequency. Frankly I think there are only small, incremental improvements to happiness possible after modern healthcare and plumbing. Which are, granted, still extremely expensive where I live.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      Can you explain what you mean by "is different from frequency"?
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    I would love to work, say, 20-30 hours a week for 50%-75% of my base salary. Buy stuff on sale, cook for myself instead of eating out, I think I could live quite happily that way. But unless you're good enough (and social enough) to find work as a consultant, there aren't many skilled jobs that will let you do that. If you're not willing to work at least 40 hours a week, they're not interested.
- taneq 9y ago
  Yeah, their leisure time sucked pretty badly though. And they lived a precarious existence with none of the nice things we take for granted. I wouldn't swap.
- kamaal 9y ago
  >>hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" Looking at it purely in terms for food and survival requires very little energy to get by life. But that comes with its own problems. Actually Hellenistic period in many ways was a far better time to live in than now.
ashark 9y ago
Four sixes or three eights feels like about the right balance, to me. It'd be the point at which a working professional could plausibly and in a non-trying-to-make-a-point way respond with something other than their job to the question, "so, what do you do?" It also might be just enough time off to let a working couple also homeschool their kids (they'd still need a daycare or some kind of parent-free activity or something some of the time, though) without running themselves entirely ragged.
Xeoncross 9y ago
> people used to work 100 hour weeks Many people still work +100 hour weeks - just not all for their primary paying jobs. Raising children, side projects, home repair, etc..
- freehunter 9y ago
  Well if we're defining it like that, literally everything is a job so people work 24/7.
  - Xeoncross 9y ago
    I don't think we have to get out of hand. The average American watches 2hours of TV a day (Nielson). I don't think we would say that was "a job". There are plenty of leisure and other activities one could forgo to actually "work".
ako 9y ago
Wait till you have kids, then you realize how much time you had to just have a life...
- eduren 9y ago
  So then why would I have kids?
  - irrational 9y ago
    Millions of years of biological imperative. The fact that you are here is proof that your ancestors were successful at procreating. Its in your genes (and your jeans).
    - Antrikshy 9y ago
      Except I'm human and I can consciously decide not to have kids.
      - fiblye 9y ago
        Humans can decide a lot of things. We're all still dumb animals driven primarily by instinct, although we like to think the levels of abstraction we put on top of those instinctual actions makes us somehow enlightened. It's a matter of what instincts are stronger: the desire to reproduce, or the desire for pleasure and comfort.
  - andy_adams 9y ago
    Because the loss of some of your social life is a small price to pay for the joy of family life.
  - onychomys 9y ago
    So you have somebody to pay for a nice nursing home when you're old.
- onychomys 9y ago
  No kidding. Mine are 4 and 1.5, and my hobbies now include watching Paw Patrol, being the starting gun for pee races, and picking up toys in rooms that were clean an hour before. I think back on the days where I could play video games or practice the guitar with such fondness.
mlcrypto 9y ago
Do something about it bro. If you want something you gotta take it. Nobody is gonna come offering you a dream work week. But the catch 22 is you gotta lose some sleep to find time to develop some systems to make passive income
- gph 9y ago
  That might work for the OP or someone who is capable of earning enough to set up systems to make a passive income. But that's not a global solution to the problem. We can't all be lazy rent seeking drains on society.
  - ambicapter 9y ago
    Its not "rent seeking" if you solve a problem that others have in a way that is repeatable and low margin for you. It does favor software solutions a LOT though.
    - gph 9y ago
      Hmmm, I get what you're saying but I still don't feel like that can be a global solution for everyone. At least not until we live in a post-scarcity society of some sort where we can all get paid from some software we wrote.
  - jdavis703 9y ago
    You can make passive income from things besides software. Try writing a book, selling stock photography, making evergreen Youtube videos, etc.
mxuribe 9y ago
I'm with you all the way! I hear people talk about optimizing one's day to be more productive and "get more done in your day" so often...but honestly, between work, family responsibilities, working out a little in the gym, getting involved in side projects (either "working on the car", or working on side dev project), maybe some civic community involvement, social visits (the occasional beer with a buddy), etc...it just feels like something has to give...and in my case, its the number of hours of sleep. Perhaps i'm naive or too idealistic, but will the coming hordes of robots and associated automation help society by giving us all more time to ourselves - either for more/appropriate hours of sleep, or to spend on the activities i noted above? Or...maybe society - or should i say our capitalistic society - will "see" the unused bandwidth of our days made available by these robots, and insert more commitments to "fill our days"? Sorry, i didn't get enough sleep last night, so am a little cranky. ;-)
- nradov 9y ago
  Increased automation allows for more leisure time for those who own the robots.
  - randcraw 9y ago
    And the unemployed...
    - tzakrajs 9y ago
      "leisure time"
      - mrhappyunhappy 9y ago
        I'm in a constant state of leisure ;)
- foobarian 9y ago
  In my case, it's the exercise :-)
- 9y ago
ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
for me personally the bigger issue is the actual 9-5ish work hours. I'm way more productive later in the day, so if the schedule would allow something like a Noon-4 pm/break/8 pm -midnight type breakdown I'm all for that. this is sometimes possible with telecommuting arrangements, whenever I'm able to do that I'm more productive, more rested and feel like my personal work/life balance is better.
- eric_h 9y ago
  I was having a conversation with my boss at lunch today - and he made a joke how the difference between our respective sleep/activity schedules is basically the same as the difference between our schedules on the east coast of the USA and our team overseas (he's a morning person, I'm not and have never been). I told him I'd never again work at a job that required me to be there at 9am, because I'm effectively useless before 11am, completely independent of how much sleep I've had the night before. The only plus side, I joked, was that even though I'd only gotten 4-6 productive hours of work done, no one batted an eye when I left at 5pm, since I'd been there since 9.
- TheGrassyKnoll 9y ago
  I used to be kind of the 'leader' in flex hours where I worked, and I worked a lot (too much I think). Then I got layed off. Remember, its not how many hours you work, its how many hours you work when the boss is there.
- arvinsim 9y ago
  I more of a 6-3 kind of person. But that just strengthens the argument that one size does not fit all.
schmidty 9y ago
commute - work someplace closer. or get remote work. chores - have less stuff to maintain. eating - not sure what can be done here. exercise - look into tabata or hiit. you can workout 2x20min a week. you can also find way to be more efficient with your activities to cut off time on each one, even if you keep it. sure none of these suggestions is without cost. but these suggestions can be enacted to the end goal of more time (for sleep or whatever)
- miranda_rights 9y ago
  eating - I think that's why Soylent was so popular. People liked the idea of drinking a meal while working/multi-tasking. I'm not 100% into it, especially since I'd prefer something with a better ratio of protein, but I see the appeal.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  * You can collapse your commute and exercise in to one activity. * You either pre-cook meals on the weekend, or utilize a meal substitute like Soylent (or both) * Most chores involve cleaning things that just get dirty as part of their normal use, if you shower and spend most of your "toilet time" at work, you automatically have someone who's going to clean up after you.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    This lifestyle sounds unbelievably dreary and sad.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      In what possible way? Biking or walking to work is "dreary and sad"? Spending less time cooking so you can spend more time doing exciting and fun activities is "dreary and sad"? Pooping at the office is "dreary and sad"? What kind of life do you lead where being stuck in traffic, daily meal preparation, and shitting on your own toilet is a constant thrill ride?
      - 9y ago
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
You nailed it! Everybody expects something from us - our partners, bosses, children... We also have needs and expectations - we need to exercise etc. How should we find time for all this working eight hours a day (realistically - at least 10 hours as most people are commuting. You wake up, go to work, get back, try to do your best at whatever you need to do... No wonder people sacrifice their sleep.
coldtea 9y ago
>I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour weeks) People also used to work much less back in the day -- well, except sharecroppers, slaves and the very poor. This changed with the advent of the industrial age. Farming work is (or used to be, before modern farming techniques) seasonal, and can be quite very light for the better part of the year. Professions like doctor, store owner, merchant etc didn't require anyone to sit 8+ hours straight in some cubicle. Shops (in 19th century Paris or Chicago or London etc) weren't optimized to serve tons of customers as fast as possible like a modern chain. Small towns and villages -- where most of the population (the rural) in any country lived before 19th century -- were far more leisurely too. And as somebody already pointed "studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do". Heck, to Romans and Ancient Greeks being hard at work was only fit for a slave -- not a citizen.
- naravara 9y ago
  >Farming work is (or used to be, before modern farming techniques) seasonal, and can be quite very light for the better part of the year. Professions like doctor, store owner, merchant etc didn't require anyone to sit 8+ hours straight in some cubicle. Shops (in 19th century Paris or Chicago or London etc) weren't optimized to serve tons of customers as fast as possible like a modern chain. Small towns and villages -- where most of the population (the rural) in any country lived before 19th century -- were far more leisurely too. You can kind of see this transition happening if you visit currently-industrializing countries like India or China.
leekyle333 9y ago
I think the most annoying part of the 8 hour work day is that a vast majority of people aren't actually working close to 8 hours. There's a lot of talking and looking at mindless stuff. My friend worked for IBM in the finance department and he streamed every world cup game. Got a promotion too.
sp527 9y ago
You’re not imagining it. With 8 hours of sleep and a 9 hour work day plus all the other things that are effectively ‘required’, we are left with about 4 free hrs per weekday in a very optimistic scenario (commute is 30 minutes each way, you’re really fast with your bathroom routine, you down breakfast super quick, dinner and lunch are 30 mins each, etc). The upper limit of achievable ‘free’ time per week is about 25% of total time (42 hrs). Most people don’t get nearly that much. In that 25%, you need to fit: socialization, child care, parental care, leisure, events, learning, hobbies, planning, physical activity, non-essential shopping, medical care, etc. What’s amazing is that we’ve collectively inflicted this state of affairs upon ourselves. Generally speaking, no one’s boss has it any better than their subordinates (usually they have it worse) - if you keep iterating by that logic, you end up in a loop because you eventually get to shareholders, investors, and customers. And then the picture gets even more bleak when you realize people are averaging something like 3-4 hours per day on waste like TV and social media.
vacri 9y ago
> Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life. It's a cultural marker that you define 'eating' as 'not part of having a life'.
sbarg 9y ago
Totally on board with this. I'm currently looking for a 1/2 time contract gig, mostly because that's about all I want to work in conjunction with running a household and raising two kids.
megy 9y ago
Also why I think people who do long commutes are missing out majorly.
scandinavegan 9y ago
> (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.) I agree with you completely, but you didn't even mention kids. The other stuff, chores, eating, exercise, and so on, can be moved around in time, but kids require constant attention in the moment even when they are a few years old. I'm lucky to get an hour in the evening for me time efter the kids go to sleep, not even enough to watch a full movie if I want 8 hours of sleep. This is every day of the week, since they don't sleep in on weekends but wake up even earlier. If I don't get to to stuff I enjoy every day I'm miserable, so I usually play video games past bed time and pay for it by walking around in a fog at work. A day with doing something fun feels like a wasted day, like a day closer to the grave with nothing to show for it. It's not healthy living like this, but the only way I see doing anything different is by skipping doing anything just for fun. I look forward to when the kids are teenagers and I can relax again. /s
hellofunk 9y ago
Many advanced nations outside the United States (talking mainly about Europe) have learned long ago that the eight hour workday is too much. But in many places in the United States, an eight hour workday would be considered quite short. The other issue is annual vacation time; it's surprisingly short on average in United States compared to most other places.
uoaei 9y ago
>it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life Sleep is a vital part of life. You are not missing out on life if you sleep--you are living.
xtrimsky1234 9y ago
Working remotely has helped me a lot (cutting commuting). I work 8 hours, eat, exercise and get 8 hours of sleep. My wife who isn't working does more chores than I do (although I help a lot during the weekend). My only complain is that outside of exercising I have very little freetime, but that's mainly because I spend lots of time with my kids.

lutorm 9y ago

Actually, studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do. It's just recent history that's an anomaly...

ksk 9y ago
Why is it important that studies have shown a particular result?
- bluGill 9y ago
  Because only well designed studies can show a truth. It is obviously the case that when you drop a big rock and a little rock at the same time the big rock will hit the ground first. Because we have a study we know this to be false even though it is obvious.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    Well, that particular scenario is false only when there is no air resistance (nowhere on this planet?). More importantly, it wasn't just a "study" that figured out the law of gravitation.
    - dctoedt 9y ago
      > no air resistance (nowhere on this planet?) In 1971, Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott repeated the experiment on the lunar surface with a hammer and a feather. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_P... (includes a link to a video clip; jump to about 0:35).
      - Cyph0n 9y ago
        I am aware of that famous experiment on the moon. However, my point was that the law of gravitation was developed centuries before such an experiment could possibly be performed.
  - ksk 9y ago
    I understand the thrust of your comment and generally agree with your broad sentiment. But, most scientific studies present a model that fits data. While you are right that they can show a truth, that is not their aim, and often they are contradicted with newer data and models. Studies are only valuable when they form a scientific consensus over repeated experiments or provide some predictive power that can be confirmed through other experiments. To use a studies as a prescriptive guide to base your life on, or change of habits is an error IMHO, and ironically, quite unscientific. I guess you could say its a pet peeve of mine. 9 times out of 10 when I investigate a "studies have shown" comment, it turns out to be half-true or based on weak science, or too new to be replicated by other scientists, or sometimes the context is completely different from its use in an argument.
  - eeereerews 9y ago
    There was no such study. Galileo showed this was false with the following famous thought experiment: Suppose it were true. Join a heavy rock and a light rock by a cord and drop them from a tower. If the light rock falls slower, eventually the cord will be pulled taut and retard the fall of the heavier, so this system falls more slowly than the heavy rock alone. But the system is heavier than the heavy rock alone, so it should fall faster, a contradiction.
    - Thiez 9y ago
      And yet a human with a parachute falls more slowly than a human with a parachute. I remain unconvinced of this thought experiment...
      - vkou 9y ago
        We don't strap parachutes to people because we think that heavier objects fall faster then lighter ones.
    - bluGill 9y ago
      Maybe Galileo did not, but others have. The gold standard is a model that explains that behavior, and experimental studies that work as the model predicts. The model that big ricks fall faster makes sense, but it isn't backed by experiences. Many studies have seemed to show something but in fact the authors just didn't realize they had to control for something important (sometimes an accident, sometimes outright scientific fraud)
      - dctoedt 9y ago
        > Maybe Galileo did not, but others have. "The experiment did take place in Delft in 16th century the Netherlands, when the mathematician and physicist Simon Stevin and Jan Cornets de Groot (the father of Hugo de Groot) conducted the experiment from the top of the Nieuwe Kerk." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_Leaning_Tower_of_P...
- njarboe 9y ago
  Some people feel that humans have evolved over millions of years to do well in hunter-gatherer tribes and we have not genetically adapted yet in 6,000? years of civilization. If we think returning some habits of hunter-gatherer tribes would be beneficial, then we need to know what they are/were and not just wild-ass guess based on the Nobel Savage myth.
  - ksk 9y ago
    Right, its good to present a model of what their habits were, if that was your area of interest. To use them as a prescriptive guide to base your habits on, requires further explanation and reasoning.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Many of the habits of hunter-gatherers would likely be absolutely unacceptable in today's culture. They were likely violently clannish/racist, completely male-dominated, hierarchical based on physical strength and appearance, and believed in gods/supernatural phenomenon.
    - bjshepard 9y ago
      What evidence is there to suggest that this is the case? It seems, instead, that those behaviors arose at a later point -- you need a certain level of captivity to have institutions like the patriarchy, bands can't enforce coercive structures....
    - ambentzen 9y ago
      So basically they where American? You're right, absolutely unacceptable by modern standards. BTW, the first sentence is about 50% a joke.
    - gyrgtyn 9y ago
      You assumptions are completely backwards.
    - irrational 9y ago
      Wait... violently clannish? So... Democrats vs Republicans? Violently racist? I think I remember something about that from the recent news. Completely male-dominated. Lets see, how many politicians, movie directors, CEOs, etc. are filled by males? Hmmm. Hierarchical based of physical appearance? Um... calling all pop stars and Kardashians. Believe in God. Something like 80+% of Americans. I'm super confused on what part of this is supposed to be absolutely unacceptable in today's culture. You have some serious blinders on or an unbelievable amount of naivete if you believe that.
wmil 9y ago
Not only that, but the 40h/week ignores commutes. For some people that's an additional 15h/week. Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize.
- mietek 9y ago
  > Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize. Outside of what, the ministry of hunting and gathering?
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Outside of their tents/caves/etc homes.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  > with friends to socialize Or, sometimes, rival tribes to fight with and kill -- not everything is (necessarily) hunky-dory in every tribal society.
  - jahaja 9y ago
    Well, the history of killing each other (and others!) in western civilization is nothing to brag about.
    - jff 9y ago
      If you think it's just western civilization, you haven't spent much time looking at non-western civilizations.
  - jasonmp85 9y ago
    I have little knowledge about the truth here but I'd heard that this sort of warring stuff only ramped up after agriculture became common, no? Why kill other tribes' members unless they have a hoard of food? I suppose "to reduce competition" is one answer, but if everyone can hunt/gather for enough food, the motivation seems reduced. OTOH if I can ignore preparation for winter and just raid your village for grain stores, the calculus changes.
ztjio 9y ago
Studies on same people suggest 6-6.5 hours of sleep per day was the norm, though. It questions the recent claims that adults "need" more.
- freehunter 9y ago
  For long periods of time humans were malnourished, didn't wear proper shoes, didn't have proper beds, and didn't bathe properly. Just because it was done in the past and people survived doesn't mean it's necessarily the best way to go about things.
jhgjklj 9y ago
As the technology advances we should be working less but its the opposite. Here's an essay by Bertrand Russel http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Great essay. Bertrand Russel never ceases to amaze. For others, the essay is titled In Praise of Idleness, but is about using your idle (non-working time) for pursuits. Not to turn this into something else, but pursuing things during "idle" time is another reason why if reasonably possible, basic income could be great alongside more advancements like automation occurring.
wolfram74 9y ago
I think the people GP was referring to were early industrial age folks before labor unions pushed for humane working conditions.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
What studies? This is the internet, use that fancy hypertext. I'm not very familiar with this particular area, but I do know from books like The Better Angles Of Our Nature (and criticisms thereof) that this is a contentious statement. There are many myths about ancient humans, some that overly indulge in 'savagery' and others that are too idyllic. The evidence for either interpretation is fairly fraught and I'm deeply skeptical of any affirmative claims one way or another.
- ianai 9y ago
  I've heard it elsewhere in books. Forgetting where exactly.
- kixiQu 9y ago
  Later, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, where as people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_charact...) Sackett, R. 1996. "Time, energy, and the indolent savage. A quantitative cross-cultural test of the primitive affluence hypothesis". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Angles.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Thanks. Not about humans of the past, but still a relevant study.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Yeah getting some studies and info on this would be great.
GhostVII 9y ago
Hunter gatherer societies also weren't paying for cell phones, and internet, and mortgages/rent. I'm sure you could get by working part time for 15 hours a week if you gave up all of your modern conveniences and lived outdoors in a tent, but it wouldn't be very enjoyable.
- fish_fan 9y ago
  > I'm sure you could get by working part time for 15 hours a week if you gave up all of your modern conveniences and lived outdoors in a tent, but it wouldn't be very enjoyable. It’s interesting you’d say that. I agree on average, but the enjoyment in that lifestyle would be hard to imagine in ours. I don’t think it’s hard to see our perception of pleasurable things is different from frequency. Frankly I think there are only small, incremental improvements to happiness possible after modern healthcare and plumbing. Which are, granted, still extremely expensive where I live.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Can you explain what you mean by "is different from frequency"?
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  I would love to work, say, 20-30 hours a week for 50%-75% of my base salary. Buy stuff on sale, cook for myself instead of eating out, I think I could live quite happily that way. But unless you're good enough (and social enough) to find work as a consultant, there aren't many skilled jobs that will let you do that. If you're not willing to work at least 40 hours a week, they're not interested.
taneq 9y ago
Yeah, their leisure time sucked pretty badly though. And they lived a precarious existence with none of the nice things we take for granted. I wouldn't swap.
kamaal 9y ago
>>hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" Looking at it purely in terms for food and survival requires very little energy to get by life. But that comes with its own problems. Actually Hellenistic period in many ways was a far better time to live in than now.

ashark 9y ago

Four sixes or three eights feels like about the right balance, to me. It'd be the point at which a working professional could plausibly and in a non-trying-to-make-a-point way respond with something other than their job to the question, "so, what do you do?" It also might be just enough time off to let a working couple also homeschool their kids (they'd still need a daycare or some kind of parent-free activity or something some of the time, though) without running themselves entirely ragged.

Xeoncross 9y ago

> people used to work 100 hour weeks Many people still work +100 hour weeks - just not all for their primary paying jobs. Raising children, side projects, home repair, etc..

freehunter 9y ago
Well if we're defining it like that, literally everything is a job so people work 24/7.
- Xeoncross 9y ago
  I don't think we have to get out of hand. The average American watches 2hours of TV a day (Nielson). I don't think we would say that was "a job". There are plenty of leisure and other activities one could forgo to actually "work".

ako 9y ago

Wait till you have kids, then you realize how much time you had to just have a life...

eduren 9y ago
So then why would I have kids?
- irrational 9y ago
  Millions of years of biological imperative. The fact that you are here is proof that your ancestors were successful at procreating. Its in your genes (and your jeans).
  - Antrikshy 9y ago
    Except I'm human and I can consciously decide not to have kids.
    - fiblye 9y ago
      Humans can decide a lot of things. We're all still dumb animals driven primarily by instinct, although we like to think the levels of abstraction we put on top of those instinctual actions makes us somehow enlightened. It's a matter of what instincts are stronger: the desire to reproduce, or the desire for pleasure and comfort.
- andy_adams 9y ago
  Because the loss of some of your social life is a small price to pay for the joy of family life.
- onychomys 9y ago
  So you have somebody to pay for a nice nursing home when you're old.
onychomys 9y ago
No kidding. Mine are 4 and 1.5, and my hobbies now include watching Paw Patrol, being the starting gun for pee races, and picking up toys in rooms that were clean an hour before. I think back on the days where I could play video games or practice the guitar with such fondness.

mlcrypto 9y ago

Do something about it bro. If you want something you gotta take it. Nobody is gonna come offering you a dream work week. But the catch 22 is you gotta lose some sleep to find time to develop some systems to make passive income

gph 9y ago
That might work for the OP or someone who is capable of earning enough to set up systems to make a passive income. But that's not a global solution to the problem. We can't all be lazy rent seeking drains on society.
- ambicapter 9y ago
  Its not "rent seeking" if you solve a problem that others have in a way that is repeatable and low margin for you. It does favor software solutions a LOT though.
  - gph 9y ago
    Hmmm, I get what you're saying but I still don't feel like that can be a global solution for everyone. At least not until we live in a post-scarcity society of some sort where we can all get paid from some software we wrote.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  You can make passive income from things besides software. Try writing a book, selling stock photography, making evergreen Youtube videos, etc.

mxuribe 9y ago

I'm with you all the way! I hear people talk about optimizing one's day to be more productive and "get more done in your day" so often...but honestly, between work, family responsibilities, working out a little in the gym, getting involved in side projects (either "working on the car", or working on side dev project), maybe some civic community involvement, social visits (the occasional beer with a buddy), etc...it just feels like something has to give...and in my case, its the number of hours of sleep. Perhaps i'm naive or too idealistic, but will the coming hordes of robots and associated automation help society by giving us all more time to ourselves - either for more/appropriate hours of sleep, or to spend on the activities i noted above? Or...maybe society - or should i say our capitalistic society - will "see" the unused bandwidth of our days made available by these robots, and insert more commitments to "fill our days"? Sorry, i didn't get enough sleep last night, so am a little cranky. ;-)

nradov 9y ago
Increased automation allows for more leisure time for those who own the robots.
- randcraw 9y ago
  And the unemployed...
  - tzakrajs 9y ago
    "leisure time"
    - mrhappyunhappy 9y ago
      I'm in a constant state of leisure ;)
foobarian 9y ago
In my case, it's the exercise :-)
9y ago

ChemicalWarfare 9y ago

for me personally the bigger issue is the actual 9-5ish work hours. I'm way more productive later in the day, so if the schedule would allow something like a Noon-4 pm/break/8 pm -midnight type breakdown I'm all for that. this is sometimes possible with telecommuting arrangements, whenever I'm able to do that I'm more productive, more rested and feel like my personal work/life balance is better.

eric_h 9y ago
I was having a conversation with my boss at lunch today - and he made a joke how the difference between our respective sleep/activity schedules is basically the same as the difference between our schedules on the east coast of the USA and our team overseas (he's a morning person, I'm not and have never been). I told him I'd never again work at a job that required me to be there at 9am, because I'm effectively useless before 11am, completely independent of how much sleep I've had the night before. The only plus side, I joked, was that even though I'd only gotten 4-6 productive hours of work done, no one batted an eye when I left at 5pm, since I'd been there since 9.
TheGrassyKnoll 9y ago
I used to be kind of the 'leader' in flex hours where I worked, and I worked a lot (too much I think). Then I got layed off. Remember, its not how many hours you work, its how many hours you work when the boss is there.
arvinsim 9y ago
I more of a 6-3 kind of person. But that just strengthens the argument that one size does not fit all.

schmidty 9y ago

commute - work someplace closer. or get remote work. chores - have less stuff to maintain. eating - not sure what can be done here. exercise - look into tabata or hiit. you can workout 2x20min a week. you can also find way to be more efficient with your activities to cut off time on each one, even if you keep it. sure none of these suggestions is without cost. but these suggestions can be enacted to the end goal of more time (for sleep or whatever)

miranda_rights 9y ago
eating - I think that's why Soylent was so popular. People liked the idea of drinking a meal while working/multi-tasking. I'm not 100% into it, especially since I'd prefer something with a better ratio of protein, but I see the appeal.
jdavis703 9y ago
* You can collapse your commute and exercise in to one activity. * You either pre-cook meals on the weekend, or utilize a meal substitute like Soylent (or both) * Most chores involve cleaning things that just get dirty as part of their normal use, if you shower and spend most of your "toilet time" at work, you automatically have someone who's going to clean up after you.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  This lifestyle sounds unbelievably dreary and sad.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    In what possible way? Biking or walking to work is "dreary and sad"? Spending less time cooking so you can spend more time doing exciting and fun activities is "dreary and sad"? Pooping at the office is "dreary and sad"? What kind of life do you lead where being stuck in traffic, daily meal preparation, and shitting on your own toilet is a constant thrill ride?
    - 9y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

You nailed it! Everybody expects something from us - our partners, bosses, children... We also have needs and expectations - we need to exercise etc. How should we find time for all this working eight hours a day (realistically - at least 10 hours as most people are commuting. You wake up, go to work, get back, try to do your best at whatever you need to do... No wonder people sacrifice their sleep.

coldtea 9y ago

>I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour weeks) People also used to work much less back in the day -- well, except sharecroppers, slaves and the very poor. This changed with the advent of the industrial age. Farming work is (or used to be, before modern farming techniques) seasonal, and can be quite very light for the better part of the year. Professions like doctor, store owner, merchant etc didn't require anyone to sit 8+ hours straight in some cubicle. Shops (in 19th century Paris or Chicago or London etc) weren't optimized to serve tons of customers as fast as possible like a modern chain. Small towns and villages -- where most of the population (the rural) in any country lived before 19th century -- were far more leisurely too. And as somebody already pointed "studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do". Heck, to Romans and Ancient Greeks being hard at work was only fit for a slave -- not a citizen.

naravara 9y ago
>Farming work is (or used to be, before modern farming techniques) seasonal, and can be quite very light for the better part of the year. Professions like doctor, store owner, merchant etc didn't require anyone to sit 8+ hours straight in some cubicle. Shops (in 19th century Paris or Chicago or London etc) weren't optimized to serve tons of customers as fast as possible like a modern chain. Small towns and villages -- where most of the population (the rural) in any country lived before 19th century -- were far more leisurely too. You can kind of see this transition happening if you visit currently-industrializing countries like India or China.

leekyle333 9y ago

I think the most annoying part of the 8 hour work day is that a vast majority of people aren't actually working close to 8 hours. There's a lot of talking and looking at mindless stuff. My friend worked for IBM in the finance department and he streamed every world cup game. Got a promotion too.

sp527 9y ago

You’re not imagining it. With 8 hours of sleep and a 9 hour work day plus all the other things that are effectively ‘required’, we are left with about 4 free hrs per weekday in a very optimistic scenario (commute is 30 minutes each way, you’re really fast with your bathroom routine, you down breakfast super quick, dinner and lunch are 30 mins each, etc). The upper limit of achievable ‘free’ time per week is about 25% of total time (42 hrs). Most people don’t get nearly that much. In that 25%, you need to fit: socialization, child care, parental care, leisure, events, learning, hobbies, planning, physical activity, non-essential shopping, medical care, etc. What’s amazing is that we’ve collectively inflicted this state of affairs upon ourselves. Generally speaking, no one’s boss has it any better than their subordinates (usually they have it worse) - if you keep iterating by that logic, you end up in a loop because you eventually get to shareholders, investors, and customers. And then the picture gets even more bleak when you realize people are averaging something like 3-4 hours per day on waste like TV and social media.

vacri 9y ago

> Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life. It's a cultural marker that you define 'eating' as 'not part of having a life'.

sbarg 9y ago

Totally on board with this. I'm currently looking for a 1/2 time contract gig, mostly because that's about all I want to work in conjunction with running a household and raising two kids.

megy 9y ago

Also why I think people who do long commutes are missing out majorly.

scandinavegan 9y ago

> (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.) I agree with you completely, but you didn't even mention kids. The other stuff, chores, eating, exercise, and so on, can be moved around in time, but kids require constant attention in the moment even when they are a few years old. I'm lucky to get an hour in the evening for me time efter the kids go to sleep, not even enough to watch a full movie if I want 8 hours of sleep. This is every day of the week, since they don't sleep in on weekends but wake up even earlier. If I don't get to to stuff I enjoy every day I'm miserable, so I usually play video games past bed time and pay for it by walking around in a fog at work. A day with doing something fun feels like a wasted day, like a day closer to the grave with nothing to show for it. It's not healthy living like this, but the only way I see doing anything different is by skipping doing anything just for fun. I look forward to when the kids are teenagers and I can relax again. /s

hellofunk 9y ago

Many advanced nations outside the United States (talking mainly about Europe) have learned long ago that the eight hour workday is too much. But in many places in the United States, an eight hour workday would be considered quite short. The other issue is annual vacation time; it's surprisingly short on average in United States compared to most other places.

uoaei 9y ago

>it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life Sleep is a vital part of life. You are not missing out on life if you sleep--you are living.

xtrimsky1234 9y ago

Working remotely has helped me a lot (cutting commuting). I work 8 hours, eat, exercise and get 8 hours of sleep. My wife who isn't working does more chores than I do (although I help a lot during the weekend). My only complain is that outside of exercising I have very little freetime, but that's mainly because I spend lots of time with my kids.