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Because of Robots- the whole world may move to a 3 day work week. Here is Larry Page on that. “If you really think about the things that you need to make yours

by nrao123 12y ago

Because of Robots- the whole world may move to a 3 day work week. Here is Larry Page on that. “If you really think about the things that you need to make yourself happy—housing, security, opportunities for your kids—anthropologists have been identifying these things. It’s not that hard for us to provide those things,” he said. “The amount of resources we need to do that, the amount of work that actually needs to go into that is pretty small. I’m guessing less than 1% at the moment. So the idea that everyone needs to work frantically to meet people’s needs is just not true.” “You just reduce work time,” Page said. “Most people, if I ask them, ‘Would you like an extra week of vacation?’ They raise their hands, 100% of the people. ‘Two weeks vacation, or a four-day work week?’ Everyone will raise their hand. Most people like working, but they’d also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, is if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek. And then, if you add slightly less employment, you can adjust and people will still have jobs.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/07/07/googles-larry-page-on-the-40-hour-work-week-jm-keynes-got-there-first/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/07/07/googles-l...

rumcajz 12y ago
I've done a little write-up on the sociology/economics of the work done beyond what's actually useful: http://250bpm.com/blog:44 http://250bpm.com/blog:44
toomuchtodo 12y ago
Whomever develops and owns that automation is going to have to give it away (similar to what Elon did with the Tesla patents) if Page wants to move towards that model. We've already seen wages stagnate for 30+ years because of productivity's decoupling from human capital (with productivity now captured through technology, which would encompass software, robotics, and other various automations): http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/productivity-and-real-wages.jpg http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/producti...
- seanflyon 12y ago
  Wages where? Certainly not in China. Perhaps American wages are stagnating because they are getting closer to the average while at the same time the average wage is skyrocketing.
jiggy2011 12y ago
The problem with that is that the best jobs (such as google) are competitive. Even if two people competing for the same job only want to work 30 hours per week, they both know that they can make themselves more attractive to the employer by offering to work more hours than the other person. This is especially true for immigrant groups competing with domestic labour. The state could regulate the working week to 30 hours, but this will impact GDP and thus the state's ability to provide public services via taxation and also the ability of poor people to get out of poverty by outworking the more wealthy.
- dalke 12y ago
  What does it mean to "outwork" someone? If I have two jobs, one at a fast food restaurant and the other harvesting vegetables, can I outwork someone living off of $50 million in inherited wealth? Can I outwork someone working half-time as a business consultant and making $150K/year? Also, GDP is a proxy, and not an end point. As Paul Samuelson pointed out, if a man marries his maid, then, all else being equal, GDP would fall. By this reasoning, getting married would have the same negative social consequences you pointed out.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    By outwork I mean work for more hours or be willing to. If a rich person with a degree from an elite university has a higher expected per hour productivity than a poor person with no degree then the poor person can sometimes compete for the same job as the rich person by being willing to work for more hours. Or the poor person might be able to get a different job that the rich person would not consider because the hours are too long. I don't think getting married would have the same effect unless one party gives up work or reduces the number of hours that they worked after being married, this doesn't tend to happen anymore.
    - rahimnathwani 12y ago
      > I don't think getting married would have the same effect unless one party gives up work or reduces the number of hours that they worked after being married, this doesn't tend to happen anymore. Dalke's point is that GDP is an imperfect measure. In his example, the maid's work counts towards GDP (because she is being paid a salary) but the homemaker's work does not count (even though it may be identical in nature and extent.)
keypusher 12y ago
Keynes and many others thought the same thing, almost 100 years ago. Guess what? We work more hours now than they did then. http://money.howstuffworks.com/five-day-weekend2.htm http://money.howstuffworks.com/five-day-weekend2.htm
logfromblammo 12y ago
I call that the "Mitochondria Theory of Economics". There is a very, very tiny proportion of the population, certainly less than 10%, and possibly as small as 1%, that does essentially all the work required to support the entire species. They are systematically encysted into vesicles and surrounded by giant masses of inert cytoplasm and various organelles that depend on them completely. The people that drive these economic mitochondria are often completely unaware that the entire burden of Earth's civilization rests upon their shoulders. They only see the needs of their own cell, and the other mitochondria in it, if any. The entire remainder of the economy exists to distribute the output of the productive workers out to the nonproductive people. Much of that transport network consists of creating an artificial need with advertising and then fulfilling it with retail goods and services. Reducing weekly hours would simply slow the distribution network, and possibly decrease the overall output of the mitochondria. The problem is that the entire system is completely built upon the concept that people need to look like they are important to the function of the cell in order to acquire the resources and energy produced by the mitochondria. So everyone has to pretend that they are useful and important, as hard as they possibly can. And the worst possible thing in the world would be to let the mitochondria catch on that they could be independent organisms, and that they don't actually need the cells to survive. Unlike biological cell mitochondria, economic mitochondria have actually been becoming stronger, faster, and more efficient during our recorded history. This bothers the mitochondria not at all. But it stresses the hell out of the cell's resource distribution systems, as the median useless organelle becomes further away from its vital resources. Reducing working hours is not a viable solution, because it does nothing to address the fundamental problem with our resource distribution system. It is still completely built upon pretending to be important, with the best actors and those closest to the real economic producers getting the most resources. Would it be so hard to admit that the majority of humanity is just useless cytoplasm, and put some of the massive and increasing output of the mitochondria into a vascular system to distribute resources evenly throughout the cell, rather than relying upon diffusion and fakery? And it turns out that yes, it actually is rather difficult. Pretending to be important has been so critical to survival for so long that admitting one's uselessness is tantamount to suicide.

by nrao123 12y ago

rumcajz 12y ago

I've done a little write-up on the sociology/economics of the work done beyond what's actually useful: http://250bpm.com/blog:44 http://250bpm.com/blog:44

toomuchtodo 12y ago

Whomever develops and owns that automation is going to have to give it away (similar to what Elon did with the Tesla patents) if Page wants to move towards that model. We've already seen wages stagnate for 30+ years because of productivity's decoupling from human capital (with productivity now captured through technology, which would encompass software, robotics, and other various automations): http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/productivity-and-real-wages.jpg http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/producti...

seanflyon 12y ago
Wages where? Certainly not in China. Perhaps American wages are stagnating because they are getting closer to the average while at the same time the average wage is skyrocketing.

jiggy2011 12y ago

The problem with that is that the best jobs (such as google) are competitive. Even if two people competing for the same job only want to work 30 hours per week, they both know that they can make themselves more attractive to the employer by offering to work more hours than the other person. This is especially true for immigrant groups competing with domestic labour. The state could regulate the working week to 30 hours, but this will impact GDP and thus the state's ability to provide public services via taxation and also the ability of poor people to get out of poverty by outworking the more wealthy.

dalke 12y ago
What does it mean to "outwork" someone? If I have two jobs, one at a fast food restaurant and the other harvesting vegetables, can I outwork someone living off of $50 million in inherited wealth? Can I outwork someone working half-time as a business consultant and making $150K/year? Also, GDP is a proxy, and not an end point. As Paul Samuelson pointed out, if a man marries his maid, then, all else being equal, GDP would fall. By this reasoning, getting married would have the same negative social consequences you pointed out.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  By outwork I mean work for more hours or be willing to. If a rich person with a degree from an elite university has a higher expected per hour productivity than a poor person with no degree then the poor person can sometimes compete for the same job as the rich person by being willing to work for more hours. Or the poor person might be able to get a different job that the rich person would not consider because the hours are too long. I don't think getting married would have the same effect unless one party gives up work or reduces the number of hours that they worked after being married, this doesn't tend to happen anymore.
  - rahimnathwani 12y ago
    > I don't think getting married would have the same effect unless one party gives up work or reduces the number of hours that they worked after being married, this doesn't tend to happen anymore. Dalke's point is that GDP is an imperfect measure. In his example, the maid's work counts towards GDP (because she is being paid a salary) but the homemaker's work does not count (even though it may be identical in nature and extent.)

keypusher 12y ago

Keynes and many others thought the same thing, almost 100 years ago. Guess what? We work more hours now than they did then. http://money.howstuffworks.com/five-day-weekend2.htm http://money.howstuffworks.com/five-day-weekend2.htm

logfromblammo 12y ago

I call that the "Mitochondria Theory of Economics". There is a very, very tiny proportion of the population, certainly less than 10%, and possibly as small as 1%, that does essentially all the work required to support the entire species. They are systematically encysted into vesicles and surrounded by giant masses of inert cytoplasm and various organelles that depend on them completely. The people that drive these economic mitochondria are often completely unaware that the entire burden of Earth's civilization rests upon their shoulders. They only see the needs of their own cell, and the other mitochondria in it, if any. The entire remainder of the economy exists to distribute the output of the productive workers out to the nonproductive people. Much of that transport network consists of creating an artificial need with advertising and then fulfilling it with retail goods and services. Reducing weekly hours would simply slow the distribution network, and possibly decrease the overall output of the mitochondria. The problem is that the entire system is completely built upon the concept that people need to look like they are important to the function of the cell in order to acquire the resources and energy produced by the mitochondria. So everyone has to pretend that they are useful and important, as hard as they possibly can. And the worst possible thing in the world would be to let the mitochondria catch on that they could be independent organisms, and that they don't actually need the cells to survive. Unlike biological cell mitochondria, economic mitochondria have actually been becoming stronger, faster, and more efficient during our recorded history. This bothers the mitochondria not at all. But it stresses the hell out of the cell's resource distribution systems, as the median useless organelle becomes further away from its vital resources. Reducing working hours is not a viable solution, because it does nothing to address the fundamental problem with our resource distribution system. It is still completely built upon pretending to be important, with the best actors and those closest to the real economic producers getting the most resources. Would it be so hard to admit that the majority of humanity is just useless cytoplasm, and put some of the massive and increasing output of the mitochondria into a vascular system to distribute resources evenly throughout the cell, rather than relying upon diffusion and fakery? And it turns out that yes, it actually is rather difficult. Pretending to be important has been so critical to survival for so long that admitting one's uselessness is tantamount to suicide.