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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour.

    Read Witold Rybczynksi’s Home when he talks about medieval life, pages 24 - 36 in my copy.

    And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.

    That’s how feudalism worked.

    And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.)

    These are pretty self evident. Unless you think they had chainsaws and washing machines in the dark ages?

    The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.

    This is linked in the source I already provided, you can look at the original study: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html


  • Here were my claims:

    When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour. And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.

    And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.) Or looking after farm animals etc. The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.

    With which of these claims do you disagree?


  • Is this just your way of saying “I refuse to read the article” ?

    They simply point out that the 150 days nonsense comes from a study that ignores large swathes of labour. You are welcome to look at the original study, which they link.

    It’s pretty basic stuff. Yet again, with what specific part do you disagree? I’m not wild about searching through academia for a probable source troll

    When you refuse to engage with the material in a meaningful sense, not just “I dislike the source and that’s enough for me!” It doesn’t really inspire any hope this will be a productive conversation.






  • I really appreciate that response and I think it’s a good example of what I love about Lemmy.

    In my head, the thread was about OP’s addition to the image, which was “whoever invented the 8 hour 5 day work week is Satan.” Where, ehhh, 8 hour work day feels like an improvement on most of history.

    Original image, I more agree with you. I think we do have technological surplus that could be better allocated towards labour/leisure/all our modern conveniences. But, I am keenly aware it is capitalism/civilization/whatever that got us here.



  • That’s mostly a silly meme that’s been seized upon.

    When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour. And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.

    And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.) Or looking after farm animals etc. The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.









  • If you buy a car and don’t use it, you’re in much the same situation. You have an expensive thing gaining you no value. At worst that money could be in your savings. I imagine a company could find more productive uses for that capital. (A decent chunk of capital mind you, Google paid about 10% of its annual profit for a pair of offices in 2018.)

    Sure, you could sell the car but you’re going to take a loss as office vacancy rates are at what I assume are historic highs (in Canada it’s about 17%).

    The more conspiratorial minded may also point out that most CEO level folks or board members are pretty likely to have a lot of their wealth tied into the market, a not insubstantial sum of which is tied to corporate real estate. A significant disruption there could cost those folks and their friends heavily. It’s a little conspiracy minded for me but also not so much so that it feels ludicrous.


  • A few things happened pretty quickly.

    During the pandemic, tech profits soared which led to massive hiring sprees. For all the press about layoffs at the big guys, I think most still have more workers than they did pre-pandemic.

    Interests rates soared. Before the pandemic interest rates were ludicrously low, in other words it cost almost nothing to borrow money. This made it easier to spend on long term or unclear projects where the hope seemed to be “get enough users, then you can monetize.” Once interest rates rose, those became incredibly expensive projects, so funding is now much more scarce. Companies are pulling back on bigger projects or, like reddit, trying to monetize them faster. Startups are also finding it harder, so fewer jobs.

    And of course, AI. No one is quite sure how much that’ll change the game but some folks think most programmers will be replaceable, or at least 1 programmer will be able to do the work of several. So, rather than hire and go through everything severance etc might entail, I think a lot of companies are taking a wait and see approach and thus not hiring.