Passion and interest can keep you going at a high pace for quite some time. However, you're statistically more likely to eventually burn out with a job that you

Passion and interest can keep you going at a high pace for quite some time. However, you're statistically more likely to eventually burn out with a job that you truly enjoy, than you are with a job that's easy to put down at the end of the day. There's more incentive to eat in to your long-term energy storage in the former case. In the case of 996, it's almost as if the employees are being asked to behave as if they are wildly passionate about what they do, as if it is their destiny and calling. I can only presume that they will burn out all the more quickly. Although I suppose, if, as others have implied, the job is actually a non-complex assembly line-ish thing, then perhaps employees are easily replaceable, and it makes economic sense to use one up until it is empty, and then proceed to the next one. On the other hand, if the job truly is easily represented by some simple algorithm, why not teach a machine to do it cheaper and more consistently? Seems more likely that they are fooling themselves, and that the entire setup is there to give upper management a sense of satisfaction rather than to create actual productivity.