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> four-day working weeks I don't see how this affects innovation. Labor interests need to be taken care of too in a startup-friendly economy. In fact, I will p

> four-day working weeks I don't see how this affects innovation. Labor interests need to be taken care of too in a startup-friendly economy. In fact, I will probably never work for a startup simply because of the lack of safety net here in the states. That's a risk founders don't seem to consider too thoroughly - the lives they're entangling with their experiment.

mike_hearn 2y ago
People weren't choosing short weeks because they wanted leisure time. It was because there wasn't enough electricity to work five days a week due to Marxist miners unions shutting down the power stations. Also on checking it turns out I misremembered. The UK went to three day weeks during this time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week TV stations were also required to shut down at 22:30 to conserve power. Bodies went uncollected, hospitals shut down, TV stations routinely went dark even when there was sufficient power. It's impossible to overstate the apocalyptic state of Britain in this era. You can read about it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent The government was so left wing any thought of building a high tech ecosystem was out of the question and even keeping existing 1930s era industries was hard. Whilst the Americans were building Intel the British were living through something from a disaster movie. The 1980s were spent partly repairing the damage. By that point the US tech ecosystem was well under way.
- bezier-curve 2y ago
  Thanks, this is interesting. I can appreciate there being a balance of these two economic extremes. I think for the US, it needs more socialist policies so people's lives aren't ruined for things outside their control. E.g., going bankrupt at 24 over medical bills (happened to me).
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    Sorry to hear that! Did the insurers use some trick to get out of paying, or how does that work?

mike_hearn 2y ago

People weren't choosing short weeks because they wanted leisure time. It was because there wasn't enough electricity to work five days a week due to Marxist miners unions shutting down the power stations. Also on checking it turns out I misremembered. The UK went to three day weeks during this time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week TV stations were also required to shut down at 22:30 to conserve power. Bodies went uncollected, hospitals shut down, TV stations routinely went dark even when there was sufficient power. It's impossible to overstate the apocalyptic state of Britain in this era. You can read about it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent The government was so left wing any thought of building a high tech ecosystem was out of the question and even keeping existing 1930s era industries was hard. Whilst the Americans were building Intel the British were living through something from a disaster movie. The 1980s were spent partly repairing the damage. By that point the US tech ecosystem was well under way.

bezier-curve 2y ago
Thanks, this is interesting. I can appreciate there being a balance of these two economic extremes. I think for the US, it needs more socialist policies so people's lives aren't ruined for things outside their control. E.g., going bankrupt at 24 over medical bills (happened to me).
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Sorry to hear that! Did the insurers use some trick to get out of paying, or how does that work?