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Men tend to be ok with dying at work. I’m exaggerating a bit but historically, we were doing nothing about safety in 1800s until women started working in factor

Men tend to be ok with dying at work. I’m exaggerating a bit but historically, we were doing nothing about safety in 1800s until women started working in factories too. I’m focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than women in all Western countries, but most of those deaths were in worker jobs, and if we focus on the office workers (and WFH candidates), I’m sure the difference is tighter. But still a multiple. So let’s start somewhere: We love to overwork ourselves to death, sometimes by sexist prejudice (“men are workers!”), sometime by honour (“He died in a battle”), sometimes by ideals (“This startup is the work of my life”), sometimes for money (“Ok we risk high with this robbery, but we might have money in the end”) and often because we have no friends and no other way to be recognized in society. It’s not a fatality, but I’m a bit lost at where to start.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
> Men tend to be ok with dying at work. This isn't quite what you are referring to, but, back in the days when I had delusions of becoming a college professor, I had always thought I would die in front of a blackboard, with a piece of chalk in my hand.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I've often said that I intend to work until they carry me out in a box.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    I know a guy who said he wouldn't retire because he wanted to die at work and make them clean up his mess for once.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Always reminds me of this: > I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done. From Bertrand Russell. The full text is a bit longer, but I really like the sentiment behind these words.
munk-a 5y ago
Getting into gender biases is a touchy subject to many but I would highlight that (and this is all generalities, please don't assume this applies to everyone who identifies as this gender) men tend to be a lot better at single task focus while women tend to be a lot better at multi-task focusing. I'm in an extreme camp here as I'm a man with ADHD and thus tend to hyperfocus on tasks (or be unable to latch onto them) to the detriment of other tasks. But I'd actually disagree about gender being the primary drive of this - I'd instead state that the "young" (vaguely defined) tend to be more willing to invest everything singlemindedly compared to the "mature". With an understanding that gender also seems to contribute this but also contributes to maturity with women tending to mature to the idea of having a family at a younger age then men.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Having a family doesn't make men work less. It's more usual for the opposite to happen. One of my many disagreements with feminism is that it has somehow persuaded itself that this is somehow a privilege for men, and not an intolerable and sometimes literally fatal burden.
  - Yoric 5y ago
    Feminists I know (including myself) consider that the "patriarchal society" is a trap for both gender. There are other brands of feminism, of course.
  - door101 5y ago
    > One of my many disagreements with feminism is that it has somehow persuaded itself that this is somehow a privilege for men, and not an intolerable and sometimes literally fatal burden. It definitely is a privilege, as a whole. People bring up workplace fatalities, and compare the experience of poor or working-class men vs women in general. The experience of a working class woman in this country is absolutely worse than that of a working class man, but both are very bad, because our country is not built for our working class or poor, regardless of gender. If you compare women vs men in the same class, men undeniable have privilege.
SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
> Men tend to be ok with dying at work. I’m exaggerating a bit but historically, we were doing nothing about safety in 1800s until women started working in factories too. > I’m focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than women is all Western countries, but most of those deaths were in worker jobs, and if we include service industry, I’m sure the difference is tighter. But still a multiple. I think you need to qualify those deaths a bit. On a long enough timeline men and women all day at the same rate. If it's while at work that absolutely makes sense given that women didn't "work" like men did until recently.
- hervature 5y ago
  Your argument is “when the human species dies, half the deaths will be men and half the deaths will be women”. That is a silly statement. Life expectancy among men is lower than women in every country except Afghanistan [1]. The necessary imbalance caused is that women spend more of their lives single. Either later in life or some women the entirety of theirs. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    No, they said: > I’m focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than women in all Western countries, but most of those deaths were in worker jobs, and if we focus on the office workers (and WFH candidates), I’m sure the difference is tighter. But still a multiple. I asked that they qualify the deaths - men don't die 11-18x more than women - they die the exact same - 100%. Age range it, provide bounds to that statistic. Because even "while working" doesn't make sense if less women work than men.
    - laurent92 5y ago
      At work. Example: In France, there are about 500 deaths at work, 40 are women. It’s getting lower in general but actually increasing for women until before the Covid, as equality makes progress in worker positions.
devoutsalsa 5y ago
An employee of mine used to be a paramedic. He said is was very common to for men to die at their computers w/ their pants around their ankles. I guess that counts as dying while working...
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I couldn't be a paramedic. Too much sadness. Being an oncologist has to be brutal, too.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Most people only find it brutal because they're not accustomed to it and like to ignore the sad realities, even in their own lives. Most people can get used to it.
- sjg007 5y ago
  Sort of makes you want to have a watch heart beat linked app that clears your browser history.
- netheril96 5y ago
  Can you elaborate? I don't understand why people die at their computers w/ their pants around their ankles.
  - 55555 5y ago
    The implication is that the men were masturbating and had a heart attack at climax. How common is this really? lol
  - devoutsalsa 5y ago
    They were trying to get off watch porn & tried a little too hard.
paxys 5y ago
Men have "worked" professionally for thousands of years. Women have entered the workforce at the same scale for maybe a few decades now. Give it time and they will be socially expected to kill themselves for the corporate good as well. Equality!
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > Give it time and they will be socially expected to kill themselves for the corporate good as well. Equality! I think this is already true if they want to be recognized as a career woman right? Otherwise they’re working, but basically expected to quit at any time to bear children.
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    Companies (and therefore politicians) have a huge incentive to push both men and women to work as much as they can, and for smart white men they already spent lots of effort to optimize the hiring pipeline from childhood, so it makes sense to shift the focus on harder to reach demographics.
whiddershins 5y ago
> they die 11-18x more than women I’m pretty sure, currently everyone dies exactly the same amount. 100%
robocat 5y ago
> men die 11-18x more than women in all Western countries Firstly, your numbers are meaningless without context (we all die eh!?) More importantly, work might be a small factor but other factors are believed to be more important. From https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151001-why-women-live-longer-than-men https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151001-why-women-live-l... are two points: Firstly, testosterone has been implicated as the cause: “A few [institutionalised men] were forcibly castrated as part of their ‘treatment’. Like the Korean eunuchs, they too lived for longer than the average inmate – but only if they had been sterilised before the age of 15.” Secondly: “female chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons also consistently outlive the males of the group”. Additionally, I have read that women having XX chromosomes and either one or the other X chromosome is active in each cell (a kind of chimerism) which has been though to provide more resiliency. Edited: made writing clearer.
dheera 5y ago
> We love to overwork ourselves to death I'm not sure that's true. It's just the system is often set up with the rule of "overwork or be left behind". Common work schedule in China these days is "996" or 9am-9pm, six days a week. It's standard across internet companies. ByteDance and Pinduoduo I believe are "11116", i.e. 11am-11pm six days a week. I don't think anyone actually wants that schedule, honestly. Yes, it destroys families, it wrecks people's lives, it contributes to screwing up everyone's cardiac and mental health, it drives people to depression and worse. But it's not like you can negotiate with them to work 9am-5pm five days a week for slightly less pay. They don't offer that option. This isn't really China-specific either. iBankers in NYC do the same or more hours and they also aren't offered a 9-5 option, it's either work all your waking hours or you're fired.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Most countries do not have ‘at-will’ employment though. So you cannot actually be fired for working your stated hours. No idea about China though.
wisty 5y ago
By "men", I assume you're switching between "male humans" and "whoever controls society". Yes, society has been happy for male humans to work themselves to death. Maybe it's patriarchy, maybe it's their families who benefit from the resources they bring back. It's not entirely unheard of for men to do things for their family. It's not uncommon for women to do this either. If stereotypes have any accuracy, men tend to be willing to do an awful lot to impress women (e.g. "happy wife, happy life").
walshemj 5y ago
cough ever heard of "phossy jaw" which effected match girls in the 19th century And plenty of kids and women worked in cotton mills with horrendous accident rates when compared to today. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is another example here.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

> Men tend to be ok with dying at work. This isn't quite what you are referring to, but, back in the days when I had delusions of becoming a college professor, I had always thought I would die in front of a blackboard, with a piece of chalk in my hand.

WalterBright 5y ago
I've often said that I intend to work until they carry me out in a box.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  I know a guy who said he wouldn't retire because he wanted to die at work and make them clean up his mess for once.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Always reminds me of this: > I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done. From Bertrand Russell. The full text is a bit longer, but I really like the sentiment behind these words.

munk-a 5y ago

Getting into gender biases is a touchy subject to many but I would highlight that (and this is all generalities, please don't assume this applies to everyone who identifies as this gender) men tend to be a lot better at single task focus while women tend to be a lot better at multi-task focusing. I'm in an extreme camp here as I'm a man with ADHD and thus tend to hyperfocus on tasks (or be unable to latch onto them) to the detriment of other tasks. But I'd actually disagree about gender being the primary drive of this - I'd instead state that the "young" (vaguely defined) tend to be more willing to invest everything singlemindedly compared to the "mature". With an understanding that gender also seems to contribute this but also contributes to maturity with women tending to mature to the idea of having a family at a younger age then men.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Having a family doesn't make men work less. It's more usual for the opposite to happen. One of my many disagreements with feminism is that it has somehow persuaded itself that this is somehow a privilege for men, and not an intolerable and sometimes literally fatal burden.
- Yoric 5y ago
  Feminists I know (including myself) consider that the "patriarchal society" is a trap for both gender. There are other brands of feminism, of course.
- door101 5y ago
  > One of my many disagreements with feminism is that it has somehow persuaded itself that this is somehow a privilege for men, and not an intolerable and sometimes literally fatal burden. It definitely is a privilege, as a whole. People bring up workplace fatalities, and compare the experience of poor or working-class men vs women in general. The experience of a working class woman in this country is absolutely worse than that of a working class man, but both are very bad, because our country is not built for our working class or poor, regardless of gender. If you compare women vs men in the same class, men undeniable have privilege.

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago

> Men tend to be ok with dying at work. I’m exaggerating a bit but historically, we were doing nothing about safety in 1800s until women started working in factories too. > I’m focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than women is all Western countries, but most of those deaths were in worker jobs, and if we include service industry, I’m sure the difference is tighter. But still a multiple. I think you need to qualify those deaths a bit. On a long enough timeline men and women all day at the same rate. If it's while at work that absolutely makes sense given that women didn't "work" like men did until recently.

hervature 5y ago
Your argument is “when the human species dies, half the deaths will be men and half the deaths will be women”. That is a silly statement. Life expectancy among men is lower than women in every country except Afghanistan [1]. The necessary imbalance caused is that women spend more of their lives single. Either later in life or some women the entirety of theirs. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  No, they said: > I’m focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than women in all Western countries, but most of those deaths were in worker jobs, and if we focus on the office workers (and WFH candidates), I’m sure the difference is tighter. But still a multiple. I asked that they qualify the deaths - men don't die 11-18x more than women - they die the exact same - 100%. Age range it, provide bounds to that statistic. Because even "while working" doesn't make sense if less women work than men.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    At work. Example: In France, there are about 500 deaths at work, 40 are women. It’s getting lower in general but actually increasing for women until before the Covid, as equality makes progress in worker positions.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

An employee of mine used to be a paramedic. He said is was very common to for men to die at their computers w/ their pants around their ankles. I guess that counts as dying while working...

WalterBright 5y ago
I couldn't be a paramedic. Too much sadness. Being an oncologist has to be brutal, too.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Most people only find it brutal because they're not accustomed to it and like to ignore the sad realities, even in their own lives. Most people can get used to it.
sjg007 5y ago
Sort of makes you want to have a watch heart beat linked app that clears your browser history.
netheril96 5y ago
Can you elaborate? I don't understand why people die at their computers w/ their pants around their ankles.
- 55555 5y ago
  The implication is that the men were masturbating and had a heart attack at climax. How common is this really? lol
- devoutsalsa 5y ago
  They were trying to get off watch porn & tried a little too hard.

paxys 5y ago

Men have "worked" professionally for thousands of years. Women have entered the workforce at the same scale for maybe a few decades now. Give it time and they will be socially expected to kill themselves for the corporate good as well. Equality!

Aeolun 5y ago
> Give it time and they will be socially expected to kill themselves for the corporate good as well. Equality! I think this is already true if they want to be recognized as a career woman right? Otherwise they’re working, but basically expected to quit at any time to bear children.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Companies (and therefore politicians) have a huge incentive to push both men and women to work as much as they can, and for smart white men they already spent lots of effort to optimize the hiring pipeline from childhood, so it makes sense to shift the focus on harder to reach demographics.

whiddershins 5y ago

> they die 11-18x more than women I’m pretty sure, currently everyone dies exactly the same amount. 100%

robocat 5y ago

> men die 11-18x more than women in all Western countries Firstly, your numbers are meaningless without context (we all die eh!?) More importantly, work might be a small factor but other factors are believed to be more important. From https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151001-why-women-live-longer-than-men https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151001-why-women-live-l... are two points: Firstly, testosterone has been implicated as the cause: “A few [institutionalised men] were forcibly castrated as part of their ‘treatment’. Like the Korean eunuchs, they too lived for longer than the average inmate – but only if they had been sterilised before the age of 15.” Secondly: “female chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons also consistently outlive the males of the group”. Additionally, I have read that women having XX chromosomes and either one or the other X chromosome is active in each cell (a kind of chimerism) which has been though to provide more resiliency. Edited: made writing clearer.

dheera 5y ago

> We love to overwork ourselves to death I'm not sure that's true. It's just the system is often set up with the rule of "overwork or be left behind". Common work schedule in China these days is "996" or 9am-9pm, six days a week. It's standard across internet companies. ByteDance and Pinduoduo I believe are "11116", i.e. 11am-11pm six days a week. I don't think anyone actually wants that schedule, honestly. Yes, it destroys families, it wrecks people's lives, it contributes to screwing up everyone's cardiac and mental health, it drives people to depression and worse. But it's not like you can negotiate with them to work 9am-5pm five days a week for slightly less pay. They don't offer that option. This isn't really China-specific either. iBankers in NYC do the same or more hours and they also aren't offered a 9-5 option, it's either work all your waking hours or you're fired.

Aeolun 5y ago
Most countries do not have ‘at-will’ employment though. So you cannot actually be fired for working your stated hours. No idea about China though.

wisty 5y ago

By "men", I assume you're switching between "male humans" and "whoever controls society". Yes, society has been happy for male humans to work themselves to death. Maybe it's patriarchy, maybe it's their families who benefit from the resources they bring back. It's not entirely unheard of for men to do things for their family. It's not uncommon for women to do this either. If stereotypes have any accuracy, men tend to be willing to do an awful lot to impress women (e.g. "happy wife, happy life").

walshemj 5y ago

cough ever heard of "phossy jaw" which effected match girls in the 19th century And plenty of kids and women worked in cotton mills with horrendous accident rates when compared to today. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is another example here.