10 ms·

25 hours is a good number for average people. I'd say 15-20, even. Ambitious or highly dedicated people will always work more than that, and that's a good thin

25 hours is a good number for average people. I'd say 15-20, even. Ambitious or highly dedicated people will always work more than that, and that's a good thing. What they should have is a lot more freedom in how they spend that time-- working two jobs, one job and school, side projects. The problem is this bullshit conformist fiction in which everyone has to pretend to be ambitious (but only internally) and dedicated (despite mediocre social status and compensation, that fail to justify such dedication). I don't think that such a problem can be legislated away. The best that the law/government can do is to break up the collusions (e.g. among VCs) that keep talent trading at such a dog-low rate against property. The other problem, and one of the main reasons why the 40-60 hour anachronism lives on, is that companies aren't really buying (as they see it) 40 hours of time. They're also buying (in their entitled view of the world) single-minded loyalty. That's why they demand hours at such a level that a person can't possibly hold two jobs, even if she is easily capable of the work. The goal isn't just to get some quantity of the person's work, but to take that person off the market so no one else can hire her.

samstave 14y ago
I think that the title should be: "It should only require 25 hours per week to make a comfortable living" We should all put in the most amount of time to our lives and passions, but to maintain a comfortable life should not consume 100% of our available productive hours. (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week) If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?
- burntsushi 14y ago
  > (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week) Bad assumption. > If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle? What is "subsistence" about it? I understand subsistence living to mean "having just enough to survive."
  - samstave 14y ago
    Jesus, you and ctdonath sound like 20-something morons. Get a fucking life with several mortgages and children. Or, better yet - go live the idolized life of the genius software development hermit you both appear to think yourself to be. What a wonderful life that will be. I am so sick of these douchebag HNers that all think of themselves to be the next rails revolution and have no fucking clue as to what it actually costs to live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids (even when, as I have, you have been living and working in tech for 20 years) Get the fuck out.
    - saryant 14y ago
      People might be more receptive to your argument if you weren't rude to them.
    - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
      > ... what it actually costs to live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids ... By design, the Valley's zoning laws create an artificial shortage of housing units. It costs a lot to live a "normal life" in order to keep out the riff raff.
      - samstave 14y ago
        How does this defen the guys claim "Ill show you how to live well off $10/hr." Every person on HN should realize that they are worth more than $10/hr. Stop defending living in poverty as an exploit of others.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        He wasn't suggesting that you do it; he was suggesting that it is possible.
    - lotharbot 14y ago
      > "Get ... several mortgages and children." > "live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids" It seems to me this is exactly the point being made. You can live on a lot less money than whatever you currently consider "normal", but not necessarily in your current location or at your current level of consumption. Whatever it costs you to live comfortably in SV with kids, it probably costs me half that to live comfortably in Denver with kids. I know of families living on less than half of what I do in places like Japan, who would consider themselves quite comfortable. If financing your current lifestyle leaves you with no free time to enjoy life, you're a slave to that lifestyle -- whether it's on $5k or $500k a year. If "living in Silicon Valley" is non-negotiable, it's going to take a lot more earning power to get out of that type of "slavery" than if you're willing to live in Belize.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  The problem is what constitutes "maintaining a living", both in your own choices and governmental influence. I can show you how to live well on $10/day, but then you'd complain about not having X Y and Z (starting with two cars and a mortgage in a narrow geographic range). If you can't do without what amounts to luxuries to 75% of the world population, discussing how many hours a week you "should" work is a non-starter.
  - samstave 14y ago
    OK - I am your student I live in the bay area, Married, have 2 kids and work in SF. Show me how to live on $10/day. Consider me your student. Unless your comment of "showing me how to live on $10/day" is really titled "show a homeless 15 year-old with no job, family or financial obligations how to subsist on $10/day" If you really can show me how to live on less than the cost it is for me to get to work ($7.10, BTW) then i will accept you as my teacher. (I already ride my bike EVERYWHERE - literally - I do not personally drive at all) If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live.
    - danilocampos 14y ago
      > If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live. Wow. Now why was that necessary? Poster makes a valid point – $10 daily will buy you an existence that looks positively palatial to some, and near a pauper to others. You will be living well, relative to any number of other humans, but lacking the things you want. For example, you probably stop living in the Bay Area.
      - samstave 14y ago
        What? Your argument is to not live in the bay area? OK - Ill move to [WHERE EXACTLY?] to live on a palatial compound for $10/day. N has adopted the reality distortion field, apparently only idiots live here now. Why would I live in the bay area? how stupid of me... *Danilocampos, you're quire renowned here on HN, I find your post to be the lamest thing you have ever said. The replies to my comments have been the lamest I have ever heard. "relative to any other humans" -- seriusly - that is your argument? Sorry - that is not only naive, but also fucking pompous. I CHALLENGE you to live off $10/day. Show me how removed I am. YOU CANT! Get the fark off your idiocy! living on $10/day is NOT going to happen to ANYONE on HN. Jesus!
- Volpe 14y ago
  > We should all put in the most amount of time to our lives and passions Should we? Is that the ultimate goal here? The problem with trying to tell people what their life is about, is that you are wrong as soon as you start. > how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle? Subsistence is 'surviving' (like, not dying, not not unable to pay rent).
javert 14y ago
The best that the law/government can do is to break up the collusions (e.g. among VCs) No, the best that the government can do for startups and the economy is just get out of the way.
- yakiv 14y ago
  I doubt it. If you don't ban monopoly power, people sometimes get it (like Rockefeller sort of did). You don't get all of the nice properties of free markets unless some conditions are met, like the absence of monopolies. Edit: That being said, government can get involved in the wrong ways and cause problems with subsidies and bad regulation.
  - javert 14y ago
    Actually, monopolies come from the government explicitly banning or regulating away competition. Yes, it's true that you can't get the nice properties of a free market without some conditions being met. Specifically, you need the government to be the arbiter of physical force between people. Otherwise, you have gang warfare (anarchism).
    - aharrison 14y ago
      You might be interested in this concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly All economic discussions of free markets that I have ever heard have implicitly or explicitly stated that one of the necessary oversights of government is to break up or regulate natural monopoly-prone industries.
      - javert 14y ago
        It's not like I've never heard of that. It's just that it's a false concept that doesn't actually exist. Take electricity, for example. First, there are many large companies that could raise the necessary capital to build power plants and electric transmission lines. Second, people can always get together and form a non-profit power company if the normal market isn't providing stable, competitive prices. (By "people" I mean, say, the people of an entire US state.) Third, having deregulated electricity systems would open up the field to innovation, such that we'd probably all have small nuclear reactors at our houses, or wireless power transmission, or something. So, in conclusion, a "natural monopoly" is not a true monopoly. It's a false concept.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
In my opinion the biggest problem is not either of these things, it's the labor and tax laws. Today working around 40 hours a week is an important prerequisite for a great many important things such as the traditional suite of full-time employee benefits (health insurance, for example). Additionally, social security and medicare taxes take 14% of income right off the top, and then federal and state income tax adds onto that. Such high tax burdens make it much more difficult for people to build up their own savings, and it's no surprise that savings rates have plummeted over the years. Lack of savings results in greater dependence on employers and less negotiating capability for non-traditional work hours.
- Mvandenbergh 14y ago
  If that were the case then savings rates should have trended upwards over the last few decades as tax rates have come down in the US.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    That change only applied to some. Here's a graph of overall tax burden since 1960 broken down by income group: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/13/opinion/sunday/0415web-leonhardt/0415web-leonhardt-popup.png http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/13/opinion/sunda... Only the top 1% has seen a dramatic change in tax burden over that time frame, for everyone else taxes have either stayed steady or gone up overall. The most important parts of this graph are the middle, second, and top quintiles, who should be the most capable of putting money aside. However, their federal tax burdens all rose substantially. And the recent reduction in tax rates has only occurred during a massive economic contraction so there hasn't been a true opportunity for most people to make use of the lower rates yet.

samstave 14y ago

I think that the title should be: "It should only require 25 hours per week to make a comfortable living" We should all put in the most amount of time to our lives and passions, but to maintain a comfortable life should not consume 100% of our available productive hours. (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week) If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?

burntsushi 14y ago
> (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week) Bad assumption. > If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle? What is "subsistence" about it? I understand subsistence living to mean "having just enough to survive."
- samstave 14y ago
  Jesus, you and ctdonath sound like 20-something morons. Get a fucking life with several mortgages and children. Or, better yet - go live the idolized life of the genius software development hermit you both appear to think yourself to be. What a wonderful life that will be. I am so sick of these douchebag HNers that all think of themselves to be the next rails revolution and have no fucking clue as to what it actually costs to live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids (even when, as I have, you have been living and working in tech for 20 years) Get the fuck out.
  - saryant 14y ago
    People might be more receptive to your argument if you weren't rude to them.
  - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
    > ... what it actually costs to live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids ... By design, the Valley's zoning laws create an artificial shortage of housing units. It costs a lot to live a "normal life" in order to keep out the riff raff.
    - samstave 14y ago
      How does this defen the guys claim "Ill show you how to live well off $10/hr." Every person on HN should realize that they are worth more than $10/hr. Stop defending living in poverty as an exploit of others.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        He wasn't suggesting that you do it; he was suggesting that it is possible.
  - lotharbot 14y ago
    > "Get ... several mortgages and children." > "live a normal life in Silicon Valley with kids" It seems to me this is exactly the point being made. You can live on a lot less money than whatever you currently consider "normal", but not necessarily in your current location or at your current level of consumption. Whatever it costs you to live comfortably in SV with kids, it probably costs me half that to live comfortably in Denver with kids. I know of families living on less than half of what I do in places like Japan, who would consider themselves quite comfortable. If financing your current lifestyle leaves you with no free time to enjoy life, you're a slave to that lifestyle -- whether it's on $5k or $500k a year. If "living in Silicon Valley" is non-negotiable, it's going to take a lot more earning power to get out of that type of "slavery" than if you're willing to live in Belize.
ctdonath 14y ago
The problem is what constitutes "maintaining a living", both in your own choices and governmental influence. I can show you how to live well on $10/day, but then you'd complain about not having X Y and Z (starting with two cars and a mortgage in a narrow geographic range). If you can't do without what amounts to luxuries to 75% of the world population, discussing how many hours a week you "should" work is a non-starter.
- samstave 14y ago
  OK - I am your student I live in the bay area, Married, have 2 kids and work in SF. Show me how to live on $10/day. Consider me your student. Unless your comment of "showing me how to live on $10/day" is really titled "show a homeless 15 year-old with no job, family or financial obligations how to subsist on $10/day" If you really can show me how to live on less than the cost it is for me to get to work ($7.10, BTW) then i will accept you as my teacher. (I already ride my bike EVERYWHERE - literally - I do not personally drive at all) If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live.
  - danilocampos 14y ago
    > If not, then fuck you you smug ass - it costs to live. Wow. Now why was that necessary? Poster makes a valid point – $10 daily will buy you an existence that looks positively palatial to some, and near a pauper to others. You will be living well, relative to any number of other humans, but lacking the things you want. For example, you probably stop living in the Bay Area.
    - samstave 14y ago
      What? Your argument is to not live in the bay area? OK - Ill move to [WHERE EXACTLY?] to live on a palatial compound for $10/day. N has adopted the reality distortion field, apparently only idiots live here now. Why would I live in the bay area? how stupid of me... *Danilocampos, you're quire renowned here on HN, I find your post to be the lamest thing you have ever said. The replies to my comments have been the lamest I have ever heard. "relative to any other humans" -- seriusly - that is your argument? Sorry - that is not only naive, but also fucking pompous. I CHALLENGE you to live off $10/day. Show me how removed I am. YOU CANT! Get the fark off your idiocy! living on $10/day is NOT going to happen to ANYONE on HN. Jesus!
Volpe 14y ago
> We should all put in the most amount of time to our lives and passions Should we? Is that the ultimate goal here? The problem with trying to tell people what their life is about, is that you are wrong as soon as you start. > how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle? Subsistence is 'surviving' (like, not dying, not not unable to pay rent).

javert 14y ago

The best that the law/government can do is to break up the collusions (e.g. among VCs) No, the best that the government can do for startups and the economy is just get out of the way.

yakiv 14y ago
I doubt it. If you don't ban monopoly power, people sometimes get it (like Rockefeller sort of did). You don't get all of the nice properties of free markets unless some conditions are met, like the absence of monopolies. Edit: That being said, government can get involved in the wrong ways and cause problems with subsidies and bad regulation.
- javert 14y ago
  Actually, monopolies come from the government explicitly banning or regulating away competition. Yes, it's true that you can't get the nice properties of a free market without some conditions being met. Specifically, you need the government to be the arbiter of physical force between people. Otherwise, you have gang warfare (anarchism).
  - aharrison 14y ago
    You might be interested in this concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly All economic discussions of free markets that I have ever heard have implicitly or explicitly stated that one of the necessary oversights of government is to break up or regulate natural monopoly-prone industries.
    - javert 14y ago
      It's not like I've never heard of that. It's just that it's a false concept that doesn't actually exist. Take electricity, for example. First, there are many large companies that could raise the necessary capital to build power plants and electric transmission lines. Second, people can always get together and form a non-profit power company if the normal market isn't providing stable, competitive prices. (By "people" I mean, say, the people of an entire US state.) Third, having deregulated electricity systems would open up the field to innovation, such that we'd probably all have small nuclear reactors at our houses, or wireless power transmission, or something. So, in conclusion, a "natural monopoly" is not a true monopoly. It's a false concept.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

In my opinion the biggest problem is not either of these things, it's the labor and tax laws. Today working around 40 hours a week is an important prerequisite for a great many important things such as the traditional suite of full-time employee benefits (health insurance, for example). Additionally, social security and medicare taxes take 14% of income right off the top, and then federal and state income tax adds onto that. Such high tax burdens make it much more difficult for people to build up their own savings, and it's no surprise that savings rates have plummeted over the years. Lack of savings results in greater dependence on employers and less negotiating capability for non-traditional work hours.

Mvandenbergh 14y ago
If that were the case then savings rates should have trended upwards over the last few decades as tax rates have come down in the US.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  That change only applied to some. Here's a graph of overall tax burden since 1960 broken down by income group: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/13/opinion/sunday/0415web-leonhardt/0415web-leonhardt-popup.png http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/13/opinion/sunda... Only the top 1% has seen a dramatic change in tax burden over that time frame, for everyone else taxes have either stayed steady or gone up overall. The most important parts of this graph are the middle, second, and top quintiles, who should be the most capable of putting money aside. However, their federal tax burdens all rose substantially. And the recent reduction in tax rates has only occurred during a massive economic contraction so there hasn't been a true opportunity for most people to make use of the lower rates yet.