5 ms·

Imagine if we could largely eliminate sleep, it seems like science fiction for now, but what if?

• tablespoon 5y ago
  > Imagine if we could largely eliminate sleep, it seems like science fiction for now, but what if? Our employers would suddenly expect us to spend that time working for them. More realistically: it wouldn't be sudden, but we'd still get to the same result eventually, maybe in a couple decades.
  • tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    Highly doubt it. Historically, working time has gone down, not up. https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours#working-hours-per-worker-have-declined-after-the-industrial-revolution https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours#working-hours-per-w... I see no reason why longer days would reverse the trend. Most countries have legal limits on hours/week, and these would have to be raised, which would be immensely unpopular.
    • heavyset_go 5y ago
      The industrial revolution was an aberration when it comes to how many hours people worked. For example, prior to the industrial revolution, people worked roughly 1,440 hours a year[1]. During the industrial revolution, that shot up past 3,200 hours of working a year. Today, in the US, the number of hours worked per year has stayed relatively stable since the 1970's. People work about 1,800 hours a year which, while lower than during the industrial revolution, is still more than people historically did in the past. [1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...
  • Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    Supply and demand suggest that, laws permitting, the new time per day would be split, some of it going to the workplace and the rest not. That would be entirely due to a labor supply shift, i.e a rise in workwrs' willingness to provide hours. If supply somehow did not rise, there would be no change in hours worked, as employers' demand for labor (which is equivalent to the money they expect to earn by employing someone for another hour) would be unchanged by the new tech.
• missedthecue 5y ago
  It's rather disappointing to think that (if you're living by your doctor's advice), 30 years of your life will be spent unconscious in your bed.
  • klipt 5y ago
    Yeah but if you don't sleep your life will be significantly shorter. Consider Fatal Familial Insomnia.
• Apocryphon 5y ago
  The nightlife would be amazing. Makes me wonder how metabolisms would change. Dining, working out, other biological activities- how would they also be impacted?
  • adrianN 5y ago
    How optimistic of you to assume that you wouldn't just spend another eight or nine hours at your job because if you don't your coworkers will and you'll get fired.
    • Apocryphon 5y ago
      Oh, that's probably true too, but another comment already covered that possibility.
  • after_care 5y ago
    Caloric requirements are higher for someone awake than someone asleep. If the cap allows someone to operate with 20% less sleep you could imagine a small expansion of hours for shopping, venues, restaurants etc, I’d the cap allows for an 80% reduction of sleep the morning bird and night owl crowd would essentially overlap for the majority of the population, and I can imagine morning workout routines that involve dancing at dance clubs that haven’t been closed yet.
    • saltyfamiliar 5y ago
      Finally our first-world ability to consume calories will match our ability to burn them! The problem isn't that we're eating too much, it's that we're sleeping too much.