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I don't know why is necessary to explain anything. Maybe the explanation is that the Germans work less hours. It would be logic, a richer country, a better lif

I don't know why is necessary to explain anything. Maybe the explanation is that the Germans work less hours. It would be logic, a richer country, a better life. Is that shameful or something?

kjeetgill 8y ago
I think the desire to explain something comes from the data not lining up with expectations. You either want to explain why the data lacks details and reality DOES line up with intuition OR why the intuition was wrong or prejudicial. I get it, stereotypes can suck and make bad null hypotheses but thats how these things go.
- RobertoG 8y ago
  I get it, but there are two ways to solve it. You can accept the data and change your theory or you can ignore the data and keep your theory. The more simple theory here is, obviously, that the Greeks work more. It bothers me that many people in a community of theoretically science orientated people, as HN, choose the more complicated explanation by default. "thats how these things go" is a really low standard, by the way.
  - mmt 8y ago
    I'm a bit confused as to what your thesis is, but perhaps it's because I'm distracted by the fact that there seems to be a misunderstanding of what the data show. FTA: >The concept used is the total number of hours worked over the year divided by the average number of people in employment. (emphasis mine) My understanding is that the stereotypes are about "Germans" and "Greeks", which implies total populations (presumably defined by residency or nationality or something similar), but that data uses, as a denominator, only that portion of the population which is employed. The inclusion of the population at large, or, more importantly, the population that could be employed, is discussed elsewhere in the thread (outside of the notion of stereotypes) as being a more useful indication of something like labor output (at least as compared with potential total output), especially when compared with GDP.

I don't know why is necessary to explain anything. Maybe the explanation is that the Germans work less hours. It would be logic, a richer country, a better life. Is that shameful or something?

kjeetgill 8y ago

I think the desire to explain something comes from the data not lining up with expectations. You either want to explain why the data lacks details and reality DOES line up with intuition OR why the intuition was wrong or prejudicial. I get it, stereotypes can suck and make bad null hypotheses but thats how these things go.

RobertoG 8y ago
I get it, but there are two ways to solve it. You can accept the data and change your theory or you can ignore the data and keep your theory. The more simple theory here is, obviously, that the Greeks work more. It bothers me that many people in a community of theoretically science orientated people, as HN, choose the more complicated explanation by default. "thats how these things go" is a really low standard, by the way.
- mmt 8y ago
  I'm a bit confused as to what your thesis is, but perhaps it's because I'm distracted by the fact that there seems to be a misunderstanding of what the data show. FTA: >The concept used is the total number of hours worked over the year divided by the average number of people in employment. (emphasis mine) My understanding is that the stereotypes are about "Germans" and "Greeks", which implies total populations (presumably defined by residency or nationality or something similar), but that data uses, as a denominator, only that portion of the population which is employed. The inclusion of the population at large, or, more importantly, the population that could be employed, is discussed elsewhere in the thread (outside of the notion of stereotypes) as being a more useful indication of something like labor output (at least as compared with potential total output), especially when compared with GDP.