I have strictly limited overtime with high bonuses and mandatory rest days, afternoon/night shift bonuses, 20 days minimum fully paid vacation, fully paid maternity leave, fully paid sick leave, healthcare paid through taxes, all written into law. Feels nice to live in a place where workers have rights. Sometimes I don’t even know what to do with all this legally mandated freedom. Anyway, how’s that deregulation going, America?
The post still applies to you in its entirety except for the 1h unpaid overtime. And yes, socialist ideas are good, that’s the entire point of the post.
Real and straight. This is all of us.
We should rise up, and unionize.
“And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death”
-Pink Floyd
This exact line brought a chill down my spine back in high school that got me really depressed about my life.
That whole album deserves the recognition it gets.
And if you want even more existential dread and less metaphysical understanding, The Division Bell does it.
One hour commute each way 💀 Bruh that is brutal, waste of life. My commute takes 15 mins
Out here in Maine it’s pretty common to have to travel for work. All of the jobs are in or around Portland, but you can’t fucking afford to live where you work so many people have to live further north and travel south for work everyday. It’s the ideal environment for remote work, but fucking boomers run everything so they expect you in the office everyday.
Work from home is the best. Apparently the office that I used to work in has been closed down and I’m not actually sure where in the town the new one is, so I couldn’t go into the office even if I wanted to.
In Asia it’s even worse. Standard work day in China for example is 9-9-6 which 9am to 9pm six days a week - remember that next time you see China living in 2070 propaganda. Six days a week is still de facto standard in most Asian countries.
The best part is that the actual work output is actually worse than five day 9-5 but I guess you have to keep the masses too busy for self awareness even if it costs economically. I’d remote contract with many teams in Shenzen, Tokyo and Hochiminh city and its incredibly how little actual work they get done with these crazy hours and its not due to lack of employee skill. It’s stupid.
The 996 in China is far from standard, it’s prominent mainly in the informatics/electronics sector, and it doesn’t exist in the public sector as it’s technically illegal afaik, just not prosecuted. Also, there’s increasing pushback in China against it, and it’s diminishing in scope.
WFH has been a blessing.
You easily eliminate almost 2h from there, no commute, and some workdays no showerp/getting ready to go out. Even when I shower I try my damnest to do it between meetings in company time.
I also do zero overtime, you’d be surprised that there are actually decent consultancy companies in that regard.
This is why I demand work from home.
I hate commuting.
From 2020 to 2025 I worked maybe two hours a day while remote. Made millions for my company but I didn’t have to work continuously through out the day. It was a nice existence. Went through two layoffs in that time but I finally had to take a job in an actual work environment.
I think people are confused by seeing influencers and/or rich people and thinking what they have is normal.
In the 1500s it was sun-up to sun-down, 6 days a week for the work outdoors. Once the sun set, nothing could really be done. If you were a typical peasant you couldn’t even afford to keep a candle lit. So, people went back to their one-room huts with their livestock in the same room and slept and/or waited for morning. They didn’t have to work Sundays, but they were absolutely required to attend church on Sundays, so it wasn’t a free day. There were other days off, but many of them were days where you had to do a certain prescribed activity.
In the early 1800s it was 12 hours of work, 6 days a week. Industrial era lighting technology meant that work could continue after the sun had set, so there were no winter days where you only worked 8 hours. Also, because this was the era of the factory, people had to commute to the factory and back, so if you were lucky you had a full 10 or 11 hours when you weren’t working or commuting. If you wanted to sleep for 8 hours, you’d have 2-3 hours to do your cooking, eating, cleaning, bathing, mending, socializing, etc.
Thanks to tireless and bloody protesting by labour unions, 6 days of 12 hours each was shortened to 5 days of 8 hours each. It started in Chicago. The “Haymarket Affair” was a protest that led to a riot which led to public hangings. But, eventually, as a result of that, the work day was shortened to only 8 hours. Then, in the years that followed, a 2 day weekend became standard.
It might not feel like it, but your ancestors would be jealous about how much free time you have these days. Your distant, peasant ancestors might actually have had fewer work hours. But, they only stopped working when it was too dark to do anything, and then they basically sat or slept in a tiny, drafty, stuffy, one-room hut along with their livestock until the sun came up.
If we kill and eat the rich and use their bones as decorations, it would be possible to keep a bit more of the value of our labour. But, we’re nowhere near a situation where we can all live like the rich. Someone does still need to plant the food, harvest the food, pump the oil, cast the iron, smelt the aluminum, keep track of the shipping, etc. Life is hard, and has always been hard.
But, they only stopped working when it was too dark to do anything, and then they basically sat or slept in a tiny, drafty, stuffy, one-room hut along with their livestock until the sun came up.
This is not entirely true though; people have lived up in the north for ages, and they certainly did not just sleep up to 24h per day for several months. “Just sitting” isn’t how I’d describe it either, since those were the times for handcrafts, storytelling… etc. Expensive candles were were not the only source of light, for example around here people used specific wood chips they burned to get some light - obviously it’s nothing like modern day lighting, but it wasn’t just total darkness either.
Someone does still need to plant the food, harvest the food, pump the oil, cast the iron, smelt the aluminum, keep track of the shipping, etc. Life is hard
This is only true because capitalism is limiting technology to the point where all these mundane tasks can’t be automated or improved with tech so that it can be possible for all to self-maintain. Yes, not that simple and yeah someone would need to program things and maintain things, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to believe that humanity can waste so much time and money on something as unethical as AI but somehow can’t come up with technology to let people maintain crops without having every piece of the puzzle we have now.
They can do it. Everybody talks about how crazy it is about how in such a short time span we’ve gone from flying planes to landing on the moon and it is ridiculous. It’s not that inconceivable to believe that we can come up with tech to better maintain society beyond what we have now. People want to keep the status quo because they limit their minds to what has been.
Capitalism dictates that profit means everything. We don’t need pot holes to be filled every other year just because people get a job. People shouldn’t be dependent on such a system to survive. Pot holes can be filled with a solution that will not dissipate over time but capitalism doesn’t want that. It wants to make sure there’s a demand to pay someone despite the penalty of the many.
This is only true because capitalism is limiting technology
Capitalism is trying as hard as possible to replace people with machines, but there are a lot of jobs that machines simply can’t do.
to landing on the moon
Hundreds of millions of people paid the equivalent of thousands of dollars each for a dozen men to be able to walk on the moon. “Walking on the moon” isn’t some activity that anybody can do now. It was effectively a stunt to show that it could be done
Capitalism dictates that profit means everything.
Only in the eyes of communists.
Capitalism is trying as hard as possible to replace people with machines, but there are a lot of jobs that machines simply can’t do.
This is not absolutely true. I’ve seen and worked manual jobs that could absolutely be automated by a fairly simple machine. There isn’t much reason to automate low-paying jobs away.
There are also a lot of pointless “bullshit jobs.” ~20% of people think their own jobs are pointless.
I’ve been around the tech startup scene for a while now, and they often do a lot of pointless work that everyone knows isn’t useful, just because they know that’s what’s “hot” right now with investors.
There isn’t much reason to automate low-paying jobs away.
Ok, fair enough.
There are also a lot of pointless “bullshit jobs.” ~20% of people think their own jobs are pointless.
How many of them are right? Maybe some of them. But, a lot of people don’t appreciate the whole system they’re part of.
do a lot of pointless work that everyone knows isn’t useful, just because they know that’s what’s “hot” right now with investors.
I doubt it’s truly pointless. Sure, it might not end up working, but maybe the investor actually knows more than the workers. There are a lot of successful companies that I saw in their early stages and thought “nobody’s ever going to pay money for that”, and I was completely wrong.
To your last point - do you believe that profit is not valued above all else in our current society?
I’d like to understand your view here further if you’re happy to elaborate
do you believe that profit is not valued above all else in our current society?
Of course not. Just look at a typical commercial. You’re supposed to drink coke because it’s an activity you can do with friends. You’re supposed to buy a truck because it lets you get outdoors and go fishing. You’re supposed to buy makeup so that you can look glamorous for your friends and eligible men.
If profit were the most valued thing, these commercials would be all about how drinking coke makes you more focused so you can earn more money, and how your truck allows you to take on a side hustle to make more money.
The advertisers don’t give a shit about all that stuff, you’re supposed to buy things to make the company money. If there was no money to he gained, they wouldn’t sell and advertise it. They’re just trying to convince you you need product x for activity y
The advertisers don’t care. But, the people they’re advertising things to do care. For them, profit is not valued above all these other things, thus the advertisers need to target things they do care about: friends, family, status, leisure activities, etc.
I agree with that. But the claim was that capitalism puts profit above all else, not necessarily that individual people do that.
Someone does still need to plant the food, harvest the food, pump the oil, cast the iron, smelt the aluminum, keep track of the shipping, etc.
and herein lies the paradoxy. how is that compatible with there being an unemployment crisis at the same time?
Because illegal immigrants were willing to work under conditions and for pay that American citizens would never put up with.
I think it’s more likely that people saw their parents or grandparents living on a single income, so between two people there was a lot more “free” time. When one adult is managing the home, and the other is making money, both get to be more off duty after work. The grocery shopping, meal prepping, social calendar finagling, and cleaning were happening simultaneously with the money making job.
Managing a household is a whole ass job and a lot of people are expected to do it on top of their day job and that’s why we feel like we have no time. I don’t think we’re comparing ourselves to celebrities, just our own family members.
I think it’s more likely that people saw their parents or grandparents living on a single income
If their parents were white and American and this was just after WWII, that’s possible.
Just after WWII the US was basically the only advanced economy in the world that hadn’t been flattened by war. While European and Asian states had had all their factories and cities bombed, the only attack on the US was an attack on strictly military targets in a far-off place that wasn’t even a state yet. In addition, during the Great Depression FDR put into place all kinds of New Deal policies that blunted the power of the ultra rich and strengthened the power of workers. So, when WWII ended a lot of workers benefited from strong unions and weak rich people. In addition, there were now modern grocery stores, running water, electrical appliances, etc. so a housewife had a much easier time of it than her great-grandmother might have in the early 1900s.
That period wasn’t typical though. It definitely wasn’t like that in the Gilded Age, the 1920s. The 1930s had the Great Depression. The 1940s of course had WWII. Before that, in the 1800s and early 1900s it was often common for a woman to stay home while her husband worked. But, she had a pretty gruelling job. She had to get groceries (or garden (which was closer to farming than the hobby people have today)) and cook, but without any modern appliances, including a refrigerator. That also meant creating a lot of preserves or canning. She had to do laundry with a washboard and soap. Cleaning meant a broom, mop and bucket. Cleaning also meant making your own cleaning supplies from scratch. Clothes were expensive, so a lot of time was spent either sewing new clothes at home, or mending old ones. So, even though it was 1 income for 2 adults, both adults were doing a really gruelling day of work, not like the nicer version of that from the 1950s.
So, while it’s true that some women today “manage a household” on top of a 9-5 job, modern appliances and stores mean that they do a fraction of the work that their great-great-great-grandmothers did.
Oddly, though the work type has changed, there’s only about 5 hours less a week of housework than there was in 1900. Heck that’s less then 45 minutes a day difference, even with everything you mentioned.
I agree the work is far less physically demanding, but modern standards dictate about the same amount of time burden, the difference lies mainly in that men have picked up 13 more of those hours a week, and that it’s more rare for only one adult to work outside the home.
That seems extremely hard to believe to me.
Looking at the actual study, something suspicious is this, from Table 3:
1920s farmwives reported spending only 3.9 hours per week taking care of children and adults. That’s less than an hour a day. Does that really sound reasonable? A child can be ignored except for a brief, less than 1 hour period each day? My guess is that in the 1920s tthere was a lot of X+childcare. Like, making a meal while also keeping tabs on the children, maybe holding one on the hip if it was too young, or having them help out if they were old enough. Or, something similar while cleaning or mending clothing. This wouldn’t show up in extra hours of work done. But, it would make the work more challenging and less fun. It’s often fun to cook for people. It’s much less fun to cook for people while also wrangling multiple kids at the same time.
Another big difference between 1920 and 1965 is that time spent “Purchasing, management, travel, other” went way up. Purchasing, i.e. shopping, is clearly something that has to be done. But, it is also sometimes a leisure activity. If you just purely count it as housework, then mindlessly scrolling for things on amazon.com is a household chore.
The paper is really short on details. I’d like to see what the breakdown of tasks actually was. If “housework” includes things like reading a kid a bedtime story, scrolling for deals on amazon, and going to a kid’s soccer game, then sure I can imagine that “housework” hasn’t really gone down. But, I think the reality is that the true “work” part of housework really has gone down.
In Table 3, the only one that actually breaks down activity by time and compares different time periods, the latest date mentioned is 1965, 60 years ago. I think even by 1965 the amount of drudge work was down by a lot. But, I imagine that it has also gone down much, much more in 2025.
The hours taking care of children thing seems very small to me as well, but there was a lot less to raising kids back then.
Parents weren’t expected to participate in educational or self-esteem raising play specifically for their kids. Sure, playing blocks with my daughter is better than scrubbing on a washboard, But it’s not something I would pick to do without her. Parents are spending way more time with their kids than they were in the '70s, so I can’t imagine how much of what we would consider neglect today was happening in 1900. It’s still a chore. This is about time, not difficulty. I’m not arguing that things aren’t better now. I’m just arguing that we don’t have a lot more time.And I don’t know if you manage your household, but scrolling on Amazon for the thing you need sucks. I don’t like doing it, and it absolutely counts as a chore. I wish it was someone else’s job. I’m not saying it’s hard, but it is not leisure. Emptying and filling the dishwasher are both very easy tasks, but they’re not leisure. Our chores are way easier, but they still occupy a crazy amount of time considering how little time we have. Part of that is because our houses are bigger which is definitely nicer, but part of why our houses are bigger is because our communities are smaller/ non-existent.
It’s all trade-offs, but frankly I’m pretty sick of the argument that because things are better than they were in the past. We should all just be happy and satisfied with things that are crappy.
Immediate edit: And saying that shopping is a leisure activity so it’s not work… I don’t think they’re talking about going out window shopping downtown in the chore section. Pretty sure they’re just talking about household management shopping. I’m surprised that has gone up, except for when you add travel… That’s commute. I’m 0% surprised that has gone way up.
In the 1500s
(I assume amerikkka)
AND with no supplemental information offered… Off to the races!
love me some internet.
*sources plz don’t apply
