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> Accepting the terms of engagement by your so-called opponent is a basic, rookie mistake in any form of strategic out-maneuvering. Not only is copying the Chi

by tomxor 8y ago

> Accepting the terms of engagement by your so-called opponent is a basic, rookie mistake in any form of strategic out-maneuvering. Not only is copying the Chinese work ethic a rookie mistake as a strategic generalisation, but 996 is a completely flawed strategy for cognitive work - it's a relic passed over from manual labor - treating programmers as cogs in a cotton mill is not a good long term strategy, they will create a world of shit for themselves, I think this fact is probably intuitive to any programmer reading.

brianpgordon 8y ago
996 would completely burn out almost everyone within, say, five years, but if you have teeming masses of desperate job applicants to replace the burnouts then that might not be as much of a problem for management as you might think. Companies like Amazon and Netflix in the US are certainly no stranger to the "chew em up and spit em out" strategy and it seems to work out pretty well for them. It's even basically the same situation, with prestige and money attracting an endless queue of applicants.
- tomxor 8y ago
  That's not what I meant (although an understandable interpretation)... what I mean is this strategy is not sustainable because cognitive jobs are increasingly less about the immediate problem and more about the long term problem, driving people to work long hours addresses short term - but ensuring people have the full power of their faculties available will allow them to make decisions and create solutions that work long term.
pizzazzaro 8y ago
US and western labour are not going to compete with China in terms of scale, even when adopting Chinese 996-icu labor practices. Where the west has always dominated has been in innovation - something sleep/leisure deprived workers are always bad at doing. Now we're giving that up because some venture capitalist who can never wrap their head around what we do says "its a good idea"?! Its the Soviet Nail Factory, all over again.

by tomxor 8y ago

brianpgordon 8y ago

996 would completely burn out almost everyone within, say, five years, but if you have teeming masses of desperate job applicants to replace the burnouts then that might not be as much of a problem for management as you might think. Companies like Amazon and Netflix in the US are certainly no stranger to the "chew em up and spit em out" strategy and it seems to work out pretty well for them. It's even basically the same situation, with prestige and money attracting an endless queue of applicants.

tomxor 8y ago
That's not what I meant (although an understandable interpretation)... what I mean is this strategy is not sustainable because cognitive jobs are increasingly less about the immediate problem and more about the long term problem, driving people to work long hours addresses short term - but ensuring people have the full power of their faculties available will allow them to make decisions and create solutions that work long term.

pizzazzaro 8y ago

US and western labour are not going to compete with China in terms of scale, even when adopting Chinese 996-icu labor practices. Where the west has always dominated has been in innovation - something sleep/leisure deprived workers are always bad at doing. Now we're giving that up because some venture capitalist who can never wrap their head around what we do says "its a good idea"?! Its the Soviet Nail Factory, all over again.