cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/46305684
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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Still hate that we think we don't work enough. There's so much automation anymore, why are we always pressured to feel like we're behind?
Give me 4 - 8s brother, I'm tired.
Fuck 4-8s
I want 2-4s
I just want the choice. You work 2-4s, they work 4-8s, I want to work 5-5s.
I wonder if instead of retirement age we could just do the gradual reduction of hours. I know I’m at the 5-6s age, but feel like I’m on the cusp of 4-6s. The thing is, my knowledge is more valuable than my labor anymore.
Just today my company tried to move forward on a 200k decision — everyone on board. I came in at 10am. I took an hour to really think through the problem they were trying to solve and came up with a different course of action. I brought it to my boss, forcing them to think about it in a different way. By about 3pm, it had made its way through the C Suite and the original deal was cancelled. They will still spend 200k, but now it will be on the right solution, and they won’t spend another 300k fixing their mistake. I left at 3pm.
I don’t need to be there 40 hours/week to get my job done.
Ia that 0 hour shifts, 12 hour shifts, or 24 hour shifts? 🤔
I think they meant five 5-hour shifts per week.
I don't think we can maintain our standard of living and cut down that much. I think 32 hours is definitely doable, and a huge QoL improvement.
Robots literally stacking boxes in warehouses. Everything is possible already, except getting humans to actually want good for others. We want to build an eternal hell on Earth, devoid of any mercy.
There are a lot of people to bring up from much worse shape.
It's possible we could get down to 24-27 hours a week while maintaining our current standard of living and bringing those people up. Some day.
I don't think 16 hours is reasonable. And I think 32 is a more reasonable short/medium term goal.
We absolutely have an obscene amount of wealth the spread, but it spreads really fast. Walmart made 15.5 billion in profit last year. They have 1.6 million employees in the US. If you take 100% of those profits and divide, that comes out to $9500 per employee. Average Walmart employee makes about $36,000 per year. So after some very rough napkin math, the average employee generates an additional 25% of their salary as profit. If you reduce their productivity by 50%, they're no longer profitable. If they're not longer profitable, they're no longer sustaining themselves at the current rate even if the owners take no profits.
We do have a lot of room to make things better. But we still need people to work. We still need people to deal with ~80% of the crap they deal with now. But that 20% still makes a difference, and we should be working towards that instead of away from it.
One reason is because of old Christian morale. You're born in sin and have to work and obey to repent for that sin, idle hands are the devil's workshop, that kind of stuff. Of course this kind of mentality got co-opted by industrial society to the point that work forms somebody's entire status in society and obligation to the nation. Industry then does what it does best and mercilessly exploits this.
A second reason is because the entire monetary system and economy is built on growth. There always needs to be more goods, more services, more consumption. And if the population isn't growing enough, then the people have to be made to buy more.
What brings us to advertisements, pushing to spend more, to compare yourself with the neighbors, always evaluating the status you're projecting.
nah it's capitalism. endless growth requires every advancement to be the bare minimum.
oh the best we've ever produced was 40 units in a year but this year we managed to produce 60 units? well next year we gotta produce at least 90 units or we will have slowed down.
no, the profit we made from the extra 20 won't be reflected on your paycheck because the shareholders and/or your boss would literally go hungry if they don't horde all of it.
Hands that burn down churches are not idle at all.
The problem is consumables. This photo appears to be an oil worker.
The US burns something on the order of 20 million barrels of oil a day(!)
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6
Up from 19 million not too long ago. 100 million in a work week. 5.2 billion a year.
Someone needs to be out there producing it. Yeah, it would be great if we could wean ourselves off of it, but then we'd still need people producing and managing whatever replaces it.
Bicycles. Very little oil required.
Oil is used in a lot more than just transportation.
there being enough food to feed the world probably doesn’t mean you work less: people outside the imperial core often work far more for far less… if we even out those scales, i reckon we’d probably end up working more; not less!
yeah billionaires are a thing, but distribute the top 10 billionaires’ wealth across the US population and that’s still only about $1000 each… the top 20 to the world and everyone still only gets about $100USD
I do not want 14 hour shifts starting at 4. 9 - 5s are bad enough.