Misaki
Senior Member
- Jul 8, 2011
- 159
- 30
- 46
I'm posting this in the political discussion forum for a change of pace, even though it might seem to belong in the economic forum.
Most of post hidden due to short attention spans:
But the most simplistic reason for why someone would work long hours is that it makes them happy. People generally like to be thought of as being happy; unless there is some hatred in our hearts, we want others to be happy as well, and anyone who has empathy will be unhappy if they know someone else is as well. Are you really happy working long hours? Would you be unhappy if you worked less, earned less money, and spent your money in a different way? Would you be unhappy if other people worked less, affecting you in some positive ways and some negative ways but with the positive outweighing the negative? Are stupid people right to think that you're content with how your life is and how the world is?
I'll respond to replies made within two hours. After that, don't expect a reply for me.
The basic idea can be easily summarized: pay people a higher rate when they work less time. For example, 1.2x their normal pay rate for the first 24 hours of work each week, and 0.7x their normal pay rate for all hours after that, including hours beyond 40.
The key point is that just as someone on a salary does not cost a business more money by staying late, they are not saving a business any money if they leave early.
The key point is that just as someone on a salary does not cost a business more money by staying late, they are not saving a business any money if they leave early.
Most of post hidden due to short attention spans:
This discussion will be about the principle that it is hard to understand why someone smarter than you does what they do.
To illustrate this principle, we can talk about politics. People do many small things, but supporting a political party is a large and obvious thing. Around two-thirds of rich people support the political party that's seen as 'conservative', and it's harder to become rich if you're stupid, but there is also a stereotype of 'liberal college professors'. So there are smart people who support each of the major political parties in the US. A stupid person might ask, why would a smart person support the political party that champions the right to possess deadly weapons such as the ones that led to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, i.e. the Republican Party? A stupid person might also ask why a smart person would choose to support the Democratic Party.
I don't know enough about politics to name a policy the Democratic Party truly supports that it seems a smart person would not support. For example, the Democratic Party is seen as pro-immigration, but it did not try to accept 500,000 refugees from the Syrian civil war, despite that this many people and more would have been glad to enter the US and get free stuff.
The point is that smart people do things that can confuse stupid people. Stupid people may find explanations for these actions, but they are likely to be simplistic and wrong. If stupid people could follow all the thought processes of smart people, they would likely already be acting in the same way.
Now we come to this idea about how to encourage people to work less. 10 years ago, the US and most of the world was in the middle of a recession. People then didn't want to work less; people with jobs actually worked more; because they thought that if the US didn't have jobs, it meant that the US was poor, or it was because the US was poor, and the way to not be poor is to work harder. They may also have equated "the United States" with "the United States federal government", and thought, 'one person who earns $100,000 at a 35% marginal tax rate is paying more taxes than two people who work less and each earn $50,000 at a 25% marginal tax rate, so the one person working is better for the government and therefore the entire country'.
Now, unemployment is low. If people and the country were poor then, then it makes sense to think of people as rich now. If we could not afford to work less then, we certainly can afford to do so now.
If another recession happens and we feel poor again, then people can return to normal working hours. This would actually make things worse and this feedback loop is one of the main causes of recessions, but if there isn't another recession then this type of thinking doesn't matter.
After so many words, we finally return to you. People who are stupider than you don't understand why you do what you do. They assign an explanation that seems to make sense. If you're in the top 10% of income, people say the reason you do it is so you can live in a good neighborhood and get your children into a good college, either through special and expensive lessons and life-enriching trips abroad or through outright bribes to a college. Although some rich people were recently accused of paying bribes or fabricating test scores or athletic activities in this manner, it is still perfectly legal to give a college $100 million for a new building.
To illustrate this principle, we can talk about politics. People do many small things, but supporting a political party is a large and obvious thing. Around two-thirds of rich people support the political party that's seen as 'conservative', and it's harder to become rich if you're stupid, but there is also a stereotype of 'liberal college professors'. So there are smart people who support each of the major political parties in the US. A stupid person might ask, why would a smart person support the political party that champions the right to possess deadly weapons such as the ones that led to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, i.e. the Republican Party? A stupid person might also ask why a smart person would choose to support the Democratic Party.
I don't know enough about politics to name a policy the Democratic Party truly supports that it seems a smart person would not support. For example, the Democratic Party is seen as pro-immigration, but it did not try to accept 500,000 refugees from the Syrian civil war, despite that this many people and more would have been glad to enter the US and get free stuff.
The point is that smart people do things that can confuse stupid people. Stupid people may find explanations for these actions, but they are likely to be simplistic and wrong. If stupid people could follow all the thought processes of smart people, they would likely already be acting in the same way.
Now we come to this idea about how to encourage people to work less. 10 years ago, the US and most of the world was in the middle of a recession. People then didn't want to work less; people with jobs actually worked more; because they thought that if the US didn't have jobs, it meant that the US was poor, or it was because the US was poor, and the way to not be poor is to work harder. They may also have equated "the United States" with "the United States federal government", and thought, 'one person who earns $100,000 at a 35% marginal tax rate is paying more taxes than two people who work less and each earn $50,000 at a 25% marginal tax rate, so the one person working is better for the government and therefore the entire country'.
Now, unemployment is low. If people and the country were poor then, then it makes sense to think of people as rich now. If we could not afford to work less then, we certainly can afford to do so now.
If another recession happens and we feel poor again, then people can return to normal working hours. This would actually make things worse and this feedback loop is one of the main causes of recessions, but if there isn't another recession then this type of thinking doesn't matter.
After so many words, we finally return to you. People who are stupider than you don't understand why you do what you do. They assign an explanation that seems to make sense. If you're in the top 10% of income, people say the reason you do it is so you can live in a good neighborhood and get your children into a good college, either through special and expensive lessons and life-enriching trips abroad or through outright bribes to a college. Although some rich people were recently accused of paying bribes or fabricating test scores or athletic activities in this manner, it is still perfectly legal to give a college $100 million for a new building.
But the most simplistic reason for why someone would work long hours is that it makes them happy. People generally like to be thought of as being happy; unless there is some hatred in our hearts, we want others to be happy as well, and anyone who has empathy will be unhappy if they know someone else is as well. Are you really happy working long hours? Would you be unhappy if you worked less, earned less money, and spent your money in a different way? Would you be unhappy if other people worked less, affecting you in some positive ways and some negative ways but with the positive outweighing the negative? Are stupid people right to think that you're content with how your life is and how the world is?
I'll respond to replies made within two hours. After that, don't expect a reply for me.
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