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Intriguing blog post, but the analysis appears overly simplistic. I'm going to go with the assumption with that individuals and private companies are rational.

Intriguing blog post, but the analysis appears overly simplistic. I'm going to go with the assumption with that individuals and private companies are rational. Therefore, they do what's best for them. Then the question becomes why a majority of individuals and private companies pick the synchronized schedule? I believe that should be the angle of investigation, rather than creating theories about the grand mistakes the society makes. Everybody has more or less a brain you know :) And they can choose what's best for them. The question is why does the majority of people and firms choose the synchronized schedule? There can be many reasons. I don't claim to know the answers. We can posit some theories, then test them through reasoning. Number one reason might be: society needs a clock so that families can sync up. Drive kids to work. Help them with their homeworks. Cook. Eat family dinner. Both mom and dad go to work at the same time, so that they can be at home at the same time. You cannot delegate your interactions with your spouse or the kids :) Single people and childless people do have more freedom. I remember the days where I used to go to work between 10-12am. Then leave around 7pm. Many of my single and childless friends are on a similar, shifted schedule. So there you go. You can posit many other theories: E.g. market prices may not be dynamic enough for efficient allocation. That too might have a good reason (dynamic prices incur communication costs & may create confusion). So lack of incentives, too, must be a playing a role. Weekday-weekday synchronicity too must have good reasons. Work gets done a lot better when your colleagues are around, you know :) Remote working hasn't caught up with the quality of face to face interaction. Etc etc. The article misses many obvious things, imo.

vorotato 9y ago
That's a huge assumption, people frequently pick irrational solutions due to biases. Frequently people value simple solutions over complex ones, even when that complexity is valuable and necessary. I think the best thing we can say about this is "We haven't tried it, and we haven't thought about the ways it could go wrong".
maxerickson 9y ago
We force children to wake up and go to school at a time that is not best for them. And lots of people have less choice than you imply. They are working the job that they have and work the hours that they get. This is their "rational, best choice", but it isn't likely the one they would make if better options were particularly available.
DontTrustOver25 9y ago
The monkeys no longer go for the banana because they were brought into a world where all of the other monkeys told them going for the banana ends in pain.
emodendroket 9y ago
The work day is mostly set by companies, not workers, and often the people owning the company aren't even showing up to the office, so why would they care about congestion? The fact that many software engineers can waltz in at 10:00 is a sign of the relatively strong market for their work; many workers do not enjoy flexible hours. This seems like a hole in your analysis (though also in the article).
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  Have you read "Micromotive and Macrobehavior"? The entire book is about this phenomenon. It's a great read! Out national political debate could be hugely elevated by everyone having read this.
petermcneeley 9y ago
Do rational self maximizing actors always produce globally rational maximized results? This is a type of efficient market hypothesis. If your in CS, its equivalent to saying that localized greedy elementwise optimizers are globally optimum. There exist games like the prisoners dilemma that produce the worst outcome given rational maximizes. If the original problem in question is that type of game then your comment is actually the overly simplistic analysis.
ThomPete 9y ago
For the same reason that children go to school in classes based on their age rather than based on their progress. Cost and complexity reduction. These can come down in many areas and probably should to give people their own time back to do other things. It's going to change slowly but surely. Already now many of the new generations are used to asynchronous structures it will only increase in the future as new generations appear.

vorotato 9y ago

That's a huge assumption, people frequently pick irrational solutions due to biases. Frequently people value simple solutions over complex ones, even when that complexity is valuable and necessary. I think the best thing we can say about this is "We haven't tried it, and we haven't thought about the ways it could go wrong".

maxerickson 9y ago

We force children to wake up and go to school at a time that is not best for them. And lots of people have less choice than you imply. They are working the job that they have and work the hours that they get. This is their "rational, best choice", but it isn't likely the one they would make if better options were particularly available.

DontTrustOver25 9y ago

The monkeys no longer go for the banana because they were brought into a world where all of the other monkeys told them going for the banana ends in pain.

emodendroket 9y ago

The work day is mostly set by companies, not workers, and often the people owning the company aren't even showing up to the office, so why would they care about congestion? The fact that many software engineers can waltz in at 10:00 is a sign of the relatively strong market for their work; many workers do not enjoy flexible hours. This seems like a hole in your analysis (though also in the article).

ajmurmann 9y ago
Have you read "Micromotive and Macrobehavior"? The entire book is about this phenomenon. It's a great read! Out national political debate could be hugely elevated by everyone having read this.

petermcneeley 9y ago

Do rational self maximizing actors always produce globally rational maximized results? This is a type of efficient market hypothesis. If your in CS, its equivalent to saying that localized greedy elementwise optimizers are globally optimum. There exist games like the prisoners dilemma that produce the worst outcome given rational maximizes. If the original problem in question is that type of game then your comment is actually the overly simplistic analysis.

ThomPete 9y ago

For the same reason that children go to school in classes based on their age rather than based on their progress. Cost and complexity reduction. These can come down in many areas and probably should to give people their own time back to do other things. It's going to change slowly but surely. Already now many of the new generations are used to asynchronous structures it will only increase in the future as new generations appear.