I feel the problem is more in that we are forced to work N hours per day, when realistically, we are not getting any more stuff DONE than if we were working N/2 hours per day. Unnecessary meetings and other bad practices eat up not only our time, but our ONLY time.
We only have one life. WHY are we forced to use 30-50% of our lives to be able to ”enjoy” the rest?
I want to agree, but I feel the context of our human history is missing here. If you go back a mere 150 years, 50% of us were farmers[1] who spent most of our time (winter excluded) being "forced" to subsist.
If I understand the thrust of your argument, though, I think what you're saying is that we have such an abundance of productive capability today that it's possible for most of us not to have to work for subsistence any more, if only the "leisure time" were more evenly distributed? In other words, could your question be rephrased as, "Why is enjoyment of one's time unevenly distributed in a modern high-efficiency economy?"
Field cotton plantation slaves worked 12-16 hour days six days per week. Independent yeoman farmers worked less but there are fewer records so it is harder to make statistical arguments about how much the typical yeoman farmer worked.
There are certain types of farm chores that must be done every day (like milking dairy animals) and cleaning out stalls. Others are more seasonal like weeding and the level of work is very different depending on climate. Another thing to consider is that firewood, charcoal, and dried manure are the fuel sources which are all labor intensive to gather.
So, workdays of sunup to sundown aren't abnormal but there are lots of different jobs to do on a homestead that are on different timetables. It's not the regimented kind of work you would see in a factory or on a commercial plantation. Winter is also a lot of work when you have animals, actually more work because they are just sitting in a building eating and shitting the entire season. Cleaning out shit in the winter is a deeply unpleasant chore. Some kinds of animals are culled for winter but no matter what you are still taking care of at least some of them.
Also it wasn't like winter was free time, but used to make the tools and repair them. Often in poorly lit and cramped indoors. With not so productive tools. Making textiles for clothes was lot of work.
> 50% of us were farmers[1] who spent most of our time (winter excluded) being "forced" to subsist.
Being a hunter-gatherer is the way to go!
"Hunter-gatherers do have to work for a living, and they occasionally encounter periods of want when their efforts yield little, but on the whole it would seem that even the hardest possible life for a hunter-gatherer compares favorably to the most leisured life one can expect in the world’s most wealthy industrialized societies."
> WHY are we forced to use 30-50% of our lives to be able to ”enjoy” the rest?
Never in the history of the world have people had to work fewer hours per week. Something's telling me that we are not any happier than previous generations. We are definitely going to keep reducing the work hours further, and perhaps we will in fact reach the point of no work at all - but will we be happier than today? Just look at all the people who retire and decline quickly.
There's something about work that's natural to the concept of human race, and I, for one, would continue to work even if I didn't have to. But - and that's a big but - I enjoy my work. It allows me to use my brain and express myself in ways that I never would be able to without the support of my team and my company. It multiplies my ability to make an impact on others and to see a meaning in waking up every morning.
This is not going to be a popular opinion, but everyone here has the ability to find themselves in a position of fulfilling work. In my case, it took 20 years of hard work, of which the first year was awful and it gradually got better, leading to where I am today. I don't think I possess any special qualities, and I certainly didn't come from money or any type of privilege (I wasn't even born in the US). But I was willing to work my ass off, and it all paid off.
Assuming you come from a similar background as mine, you cannot escape work. Think of it as a prison sentence of anywhere from 1-20 years. You're in jail now, and you can't get out of it - what do you do? Sit in a corner and feel sorry for yourself, or try to have meaningful connections with your jail mates, exercise your body, read books, learn something new every day. I know which way I would go.
Inequality is at the very core of how the universe operates. We all have different genes, and some of us are stronger, taller, cuter, and/or healthier than others. Some of us are dealt good cards and some are dealt bad ones. Heck, some of us are born on Earth, and there might be other species born on another planet, dealing with a very different climate other circumstances - it's highly unlikely that there's another carbon copy of our planet.
Life is different for everyone, and if you spend your life looking at someone who has to work less, you're going to miss the essence of this universe. From what you wrote, your life will have a heavy dose of work associated with it, and that makes it similar to mine. It's ok, there's a lot of pride, joy and fun to be had. It all starts with realizing that it's about living your best life and not someone else's.
> Never in the history of the world have people had to work fewer hours per week
This is false, medieval workers used to work less than we do[0]. We work less than 1800s laborers, but their life conditions was such an aberration that it gave rise to the socialist movement, mass strikes and bloody revolution attempts, which in turn forced governments and capitalists to reduce the average labor time.
That's a fair comment. In my mind, I have been focusing on the recent history, whereas technically if you go back to the beginning of human civilization, you could argue that people never clocked in and out. But they also had to do every little thing themselves rather than pay someone. Something's wrong with your roof|clothes|body|[anything]? You fix it all by yourself (and God help you if you don't know how to). Does fixing those things count as work? One way or another, we do have to take into account that free time means something different today than way back when.
> socialist movement, mass strikes and bloody revolution attempts, which in turn forced governments and capitalists to reduce the average labor time
The industrial capitalists also discovered that a 40-hour week increased weekly factory output.
Henry Ford instituted a 40 hour week (down from 48) to simultaneously improve productivity and increase the demand for transportation (to food, shopping, and leisure locations.)
He also raised wages in the hopes that workers would buy more cars and spend more to stimulate the economy - and demand for cars.
I think I did. That person was dealt bad cards (assuming they are sufficiently motivated and getting the most out of their set of circumstances), and their mission in life now is to overcome whatever challenges are currently preventing them from having a higher paying job (of which there are plenty).
I see this sentiment posted again and again. Maybe it's correct, but I'm skeptical.
You're always free to consult, plenty of people work 10-20 hours a week and make more money. But I think, for most people, they would earn less. They're not as productive as they think they are. And sure there are absolutely a lot of meetings that could be "look at the Wiki I updated" emails or Slack messages, but a lot of meetings are necessary for the functioning of the business, not just your individual productivity.
I spent a big portion of my career doing this and it's often not as simple as thinking you can cut your hours in half and now you're free to do whatever for the rest of the time.
For example if you did 20 hours a week, that's 80 hours a month at $200 / hour ends up being $192,000 a year. That's a really competitive and great wage but you'll find it unlikely to be able to work only those hours you want without constraint.
You might want to work 10 hours on Monday and Tuesday and take every other day off, but how are you going to get new business? Maybe start writing hundreds of blog posts and making videos, maybe start a podcast and make some courses or write a book. Before you know it you're working 240 hours a week all-in and feeling guilty if you try to peel back the hours because there's no paid time off when you work for yourself unless you're in the top 1% where you're wildly successful and make huge amounts of money for multiple years to the point where you have enough fuck you money to work on anything you want on your own terms for the rest of your life and drop everyone who requests otherwise.
Plus beyond that, a lot of contracts will expect a drip of input and output, not a massive amount of work quickly and then do nothing for weeks. A ton of my 10 hour a week contracts were doing something small every day, or at least most days and generally being available to at least respond to an email within a reasonable amount of time (a day, but ideally within a few hours). This isn't true freedom. It's freedom in the sense that you can decide which contracts you take on but you won't last doing contract work if you make a habit of letting your clients down.
I am aware of this, I consulted full-time for 4 or 5 years and it all but paid for my first house. I was merely responding to the very prevalent - and likely incorrect in most cases - sentiment that being "stuck at work" for 30-50% of your time is what's actually preventing you from getting stuff done.
We must be living in very different universes, because in my country full-time consulting pays off a house in maybe 20 years. Most people never get a second one.
Unnecessary is very subjective. Something unnecessary for one team member may be crucial to another. One might say that the cost of specialization and focus is a growing amount of time not spent on one's area of specialization and focus.
Communication overhead increases as the number of people increases. Due to combinatorial explosion, the number of different communication channels increases rapidly with the number of people.[3] Everyone working on the same task needs to keep in sync, so as more people are added they spend more time trying to find out what everyone else is doing.
I don’t ”just work here”; I could and often do skip extra meetings, but sometimes it’s better to not want to be an asshole towards other people, you know?
You can’t put a dollar value directly on life, creativity or freedom; it is only possible through avoidance of death, parting with the fruits of creativity, and the various binds we put ourselves in.
I don't know what you mean by "be an asshole towards other people" - it sound like you can unofficially skip the occasional meeting, not call them off for being unproductive.
The dollar value of freedom is what it costs. If freedom is painting, the dollar value is painting supplies.
We only have one life. WHY are we forced to use 30-50% of our lives to be able to ”enjoy” the rest?