5 ms·

Diminishing returns on productivity is obvious (eg working 80 hours a week outputs productivity somewhere between 1 to 2 times the productivity of 40 hours a we

by j7ake 4y ago

Diminishing returns on productivity is obvious (eg working 80 hours a week outputs productivity somewhere between 1 to 2 times the productivity of 40 hours a week). However, rewards for work is also highly nonlinear, and usually rank based. For example, Usain Bolt is not twice as fast as the second fastest runner but Bolt is rewarded many multiples more than the second fastest runner. What is rational is to think of the payoff or reward space, and think how even a tiny incremental increase in productivity (which compounds) can result in disproportionately large payoffs.

systemvoltage 4y ago
Olympics is an extremely atypical competition. Cooperative culture amongst humans is why we are where we are technologically. Without the spirit of collaboration, we have no MRIs and modern medicine, no transistors and semiconductors, no airplanes and bridges. I wish HN wasn’t so damn depressing. Reading some of cynical stuff here is sometimes harmful for my own mental health.
- j7ake 4y ago
  Maybe I’ll give a tech related example instead. I sometimes browse local shops websites to buy products, but if the page loads too slowly or there are some hiccups, I tend to quickly search on Amazon to see if I can buy with a single click. The total amount of time spent shopping at local website may be only a tiny bit more than if I browsed Amazon, but the improved experience at Amazon is enough to tilt my spending away from local websites. Amazon probably spends multi millions to shave off fractions of seconds off their page loads, and the rewards pay off handsomely.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    Which works until Amazon becomes flooded with second rate product sources from Alibaba boosted by fake reviews, and a "job" means back-breaking work in a warehouse, or a precarious delivery gig with no security. This society only operates because a lot of people don't care to understand how it really works. You get your trinkets more quickly, but the negative externalities for others are huge and damaging. And there's a good chance that sooner or later those negatives will affect you too. Meanwhile the lift from increased efficiency is often temporary anyway.
- derbOac 4y ago
  FWIW, I'm not sure cynicism per se is the problem, or the only problem. It's a certain belief system and acceptance of certain assumptions as true because those justify certain outcomes. The target essay could have stopped in the first couple of paragraphs and there would still be plenty of societal problems to discuss.
Jare 4y ago
> working 80 hours a week outputs productivity somewhere between 1 to 2 times the productivity of 40 hours a week Effort and energy spent will be somewhere between 1 to 2... but as soon as stress and exhaustion set in (which may happen fairly soon) you may find actual productivity tanking well below 1 and even into the negatives, due to all the mistakes and bad decisions you start making.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- b112 4y ago
  I think this is like machine maintenance. Take a delivery truck. Regular maintenance detects, and prevents breakdowns during deliveries. EG, oil changes, lubing, brake pad changes, etc. Scheduled repairs are far cheaper, and take less time than unannounced repairs. If the truck breaks down during deliveries, the repairs are still needed, may be more severe. It also require loads of extra work, a replacement truck must show up and offload deliveries, a tow truck dispatched, someone had to organize this, customers upset and called, etc, etc. As you say, humans are the same. Reduced sleep and leisure time (scheduled maintenance)? Well, it's far more work to deal with in the long run. It takes more maintenance to recover from a lack of it.
  - kochikame 4y ago
    Great analogy
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    This is, by the way, the vicious circle in which the Russian war effort in Ukraine is now. The more tanks, trucks, fighter jets you lose, the more sorties/tasks the remaining fraction has to pull off. Which means more wear and tear, higher risk of failure.
koonsolo 4y ago
Most studies on the topic indicate that >50 hours has <1 factor on productivity. So probably working weeks on end at 80 hours is the same as working at about 20-30 hour workweeks. https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-work-six-lessons-2005/ https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-wo...
- caffeine 4y ago
  What’s true on average might not be true for certain individuals, and power-law mechanics might make those individuals more significant than everyone else who makes up the average. Like imagine Elon Musk works 80 hours a week and he doesn’t suffer any negative consequence, he just becomes the most productive human ever according to the market. And then a bunch of other people work 80 hours and they do suffer burnout and become slightly less productive than if they had worked 40 hours. If you say “What’s the expected value of working 80 hours rather than 40?” in that scenario, it’s extremely positive, because the tiny chance you become Elon and have half the wealth in America offsets the very high probability you become a burnout who does no better than average.
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    I'm pretty smart and a hard worker. I have a Masters degree in computer science. I can do about 4 to 6 hours of concentrated work per day. I never seen anyone do more or better. I know plenty of people who claim to work a crazy amout of hours. But in the end it always turns out they are deceiving themselves. I don't know Elon, so maybe he is different. But in the end, I'll believe it when I see it.
    - caffeine 4y ago
      You are doing solo, technical, concentrated work. I have seen a lot of people do more and better. But different work, not coding. Like leading and managing people is very possible for some elite people to do for say 70 hours a week and mostly involves talking, persuading, answering emails and phone calls, and most importantly making good decisions. The value of good leadership and good decisions is directly proportional to the number and quality of people being led. So that could be a huge value. Doing twice as much of it could way more than double that value with compounding.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
This is absolutely true, which is why people at the tip of the spear are always well-rewarded, but also incredibly stressed. Not everyone can deal with stress, and even those that "successfully" deal with it, often break down, earlier in life than others (Look for old pro football players, or old pro wrestlers, for instance). Congratulations! You're rich! Which is good, because you'll need good nursing care, in your sixties. It's not something that can be applied in generalities. Individual variance is key, until we get to a "Gattaga-style" society, where everyone is "tuned" for maximum performance. This was something that I was thinking about, the other day, in a different context (long story). I can't in good conscience, tell anyone that they "shouldn't go for the brass ring," but the chances are pretty high that they may not make it, and punish themselves for the rest of their lives, as a "failure," or, maybe even worse, get it, and end up regretting it. In my case, I was forced into a situation where I had to eat humble pie, and accept a lower-echelon lifestyle, yet I'm deliriously happy. When I finally accepted the terrain, instead of gazing longingly at the map, things suddenly "clicked." The key is acceptance, discipline, and moderation, for me.
- beepbooptheory 4y ago
  I for one very much hope we don't get to a Gattaca-style society! That movie doesn't leave me with a particularly positive view of such a system, but maybe that's just me.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    I agree. Speaking as one that is far from perfect, I'm almost positive that I would have been flushed down the toilet, rather than be born.
- brandnewaccount 4y ago
  Small nitpick about your argument: equating stress to physical contact sports isn't a very convincing argument. What would be better is looking at the health of CEOs as compared to other relatively wealthy individuals who work much less and are under less stress.

by j7ake 4y ago

systemvoltage 4y ago

Olympics is an extremely atypical competition. Cooperative culture amongst humans is why we are where we are technologically. Without the spirit of collaboration, we have no MRIs and modern medicine, no transistors and semiconductors, no airplanes and bridges. I wish HN wasn’t so damn depressing. Reading some of cynical stuff here is sometimes harmful for my own mental health.

j7ake 4y ago
Maybe I’ll give a tech related example instead. I sometimes browse local shops websites to buy products, but if the page loads too slowly or there are some hiccups, I tend to quickly search on Amazon to see if I can buy with a single click. The total amount of time spent shopping at local website may be only a tiny bit more than if I browsed Amazon, but the improved experience at Amazon is enough to tilt my spending away from local websites. Amazon probably spends multi millions to shave off fractions of seconds off their page loads, and the rewards pay off handsomely.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Which works until Amazon becomes flooded with second rate product sources from Alibaba boosted by fake reviews, and a "job" means back-breaking work in a warehouse, or a precarious delivery gig with no security. This society only operates because a lot of people don't care to understand how it really works. You get your trinkets more quickly, but the negative externalities for others are huge and damaging. And there's a good chance that sooner or later those negatives will affect you too. Meanwhile the lift from increased efficiency is often temporary anyway.
derbOac 4y ago
FWIW, I'm not sure cynicism per se is the problem, or the only problem. It's a certain belief system and acceptance of certain assumptions as true because those justify certain outcomes. The target essay could have stopped in the first couple of paragraphs and there would still be plenty of societal problems to discuss.

Jare 4y ago

> working 80 hours a week outputs productivity somewhere between 1 to 2 times the productivity of 40 hours a week Effort and energy spent will be somewhere between 1 to 2... but as soon as stress and exhaustion set in (which may happen fairly soon) you may find actual productivity tanking well below 1 and even into the negatives, due to all the mistakes and bad decisions you start making.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
b112 4y ago
I think this is like machine maintenance. Take a delivery truck. Regular maintenance detects, and prevents breakdowns during deliveries. EG, oil changes, lubing, brake pad changes, etc. Scheduled repairs are far cheaper, and take less time than unannounced repairs. If the truck breaks down during deliveries, the repairs are still needed, may be more severe. It also require loads of extra work, a replacement truck must show up and offload deliveries, a tow truck dispatched, someone had to organize this, customers upset and called, etc, etc. As you say, humans are the same. Reduced sleep and leisure time (scheduled maintenance)? Well, it's far more work to deal with in the long run. It takes more maintenance to recover from a lack of it.
- kochikame 4y ago
  Great analogy
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  This is, by the way, the vicious circle in which the Russian war effort in Ukraine is now. The more tanks, trucks, fighter jets you lose, the more sorties/tasks the remaining fraction has to pull off. Which means more wear and tear, higher risk of failure.

koonsolo 4y ago

Most studies on the topic indicate that >50 hours has <1 factor on productivity. So probably working weeks on end at 80 hours is the same as working at about 20-30 hour workweeks. https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-work-six-lessons-2005/ https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-wo...

caffeine 4y ago
What’s true on average might not be true for certain individuals, and power-law mechanics might make those individuals more significant than everyone else who makes up the average. Like imagine Elon Musk works 80 hours a week and he doesn’t suffer any negative consequence, he just becomes the most productive human ever according to the market. And then a bunch of other people work 80 hours and they do suffer burnout and become slightly less productive than if they had worked 40 hours. If you say “What’s the expected value of working 80 hours rather than 40?” in that scenario, it’s extremely positive, because the tiny chance you become Elon and have half the wealth in America offsets the very high probability you become a burnout who does no better than average.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  I'm pretty smart and a hard worker. I have a Masters degree in computer science. I can do about 4 to 6 hours of concentrated work per day. I never seen anyone do more or better. I know plenty of people who claim to work a crazy amout of hours. But in the end it always turns out they are deceiving themselves. I don't know Elon, so maybe he is different. But in the end, I'll believe it when I see it.
  - caffeine 4y ago
    You are doing solo, technical, concentrated work. I have seen a lot of people do more and better. But different work, not coding. Like leading and managing people is very possible for some elite people to do for say 70 hours a week and mostly involves talking, persuading, answering emails and phone calls, and most importantly making good decisions. The value of good leadership and good decisions is directly proportional to the number and quality of people being led. So that could be a huge value. Doing twice as much of it could way more than double that value with compounding.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

This is absolutely true, which is why people at the tip of the spear are always well-rewarded, but also incredibly stressed. Not everyone can deal with stress, and even those that "successfully" deal with it, often break down, earlier in life than others (Look for old pro football players, or old pro wrestlers, for instance). Congratulations! You're rich! Which is good, because you'll need good nursing care, in your sixties. It's not something that can be applied in generalities. Individual variance is key, until we get to a "Gattaga-style" society, where everyone is "tuned" for maximum performance. This was something that I was thinking about, the other day, in a different context (long story). I can't in good conscience, tell anyone that they "shouldn't go for the brass ring," but the chances are pretty high that they may not make it, and punish themselves for the rest of their lives, as a "failure," or, maybe even worse, get it, and end up regretting it. In my case, I was forced into a situation where I had to eat humble pie, and accept a lower-echelon lifestyle, yet I'm deliriously happy. When I finally accepted the terrain, instead of gazing longingly at the map, things suddenly "clicked." The key is acceptance, discipline, and moderation, for me.

beepbooptheory 4y ago
I for one very much hope we don't get to a Gattaca-style society! That movie doesn't leave me with a particularly positive view of such a system, but maybe that's just me.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I agree. Speaking as one that is far from perfect, I'm almost positive that I would have been flushed down the toilet, rather than be born.
brandnewaccount 4y ago
Small nitpick about your argument: equating stress to physical contact sports isn't a very convincing argument. What would be better is looking at the health of CEOs as compared to other relatively wealthy individuals who work much less and are under less stress.