this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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That article's perspective sucks IMO. It is not the technology that is the problem in this case. The distance traveled to the meadow on foot versus the suburbs in the car had nothing to do with the technology or lack thereof. The person decided this was the normal they wanted and where they chose to live.
The fact is that this is cultural. You're willing to work a job that is an hour's drive away because you choose to take the job.
The one constant with technology is specialization. Things are going to increase in complexity unless civilization collapses. When noticeable shifts happen like with AI, many people groan at the additional burden of change. This has always and will always be the case, especially for people that are overworked and their livelihood put at risk from a technology they do not understand and struggle to learn. AI is especially troublesome because it is extremely complex and difficult to understand just under the surface of the near useless subscription services and basic publicly accessible tools.
Ultimately, the issue is cultural. You must stop working for free and stop treating corporate social media like a form of self promotion. I expect my job description to contractually state what my responsibilities are. If I answer phone calls for anything off the clock, I have a two hour minimum pay for my time. This culture of responsibility without compensation is a massive problem, as is acceptance of "it's just the way things are" mentality. Unplug from all corporate nonsense and think for yourself. Then push others to do the same. Only take a job that is close by, or move. Find a better job and don't accept abuse. It is a cultural problem.
Have you considered that culture is merely the collective reaction of a group of humans to a given set of environmental conditions? I don't disagree with you, but you're needlessly simplifying the problem.
Why did I choose to take the job? One major reason is that I have an automobile. If I didn't have the automobile, I wouldn't have been able to take the job. Culture comes about as a result of a series of incentives and motivations that shape human decisions. Change the access to technology, and you would change the culture.
You seem to believe that a solution will come from people simply choosing not to do certain things. This is partially true, but its more accurate to recognize that you need to first create the material conditions that enable people to actually have a viable choice.
It's the combination of the technology and the social structures that continually reproduce the culture that you're complaining about. If you think the culture is going to magically change without altering the material conditions first, you're gonna have a bad time.
No it's not. Iceland has a 4-days work-week, average annual working hours in Germany are 1.3k, in France 1.5k, in the US 1.7k
This is like if France had a 4.5-days work-week and Germany a 4-days work-week. Are those countries lacking the level of technological advancement that US has?
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours
The set of environmental conditions is different in each country, and indeed for each individual human. The level of technological advancement only comprises a small piece of that picture.
Because of the recent rapid technological advances in the past century, essentially every society worldwide is struggling to adapt to the new technological landscape. But due to all of the other contributing factors, the struggle is slightly different for everyone.
Just looking at the average work hours is a miniscule people of the puzzle. How much money are people making in exchange for their time? Do they have to pay for Healthcare? What types of jobs are most common? What is the historical context of the population that has led them to this point? Were they working more or less 100 years ago? Did they have more wealth 100 years ago? What is the current rate of mental illness and disability? What is the historical and current prevalence of religion?
You could continue with questions in this vein more or less infinitely. And the answer to each question would vary substantially depending on the nation/community/individual that you chose to focus on. And each answer would potentially have an impact when trying to analyze how the current culture came about.
To answer your single hypothetical question, I think one of the primary contributing factors to the reduced working hours for many wealthy western European countries when compared to the US is the relative level of financial and social inequality along with the taxation rate. For France et all, the tax rate is significantly higher and the level of social support is correspondingly higher.
This reduces some of the necessity of working more hours, because the variability of income is reduced. If low-income people still make enough money and have enough benefits to make a decent life, they don't need to work so many hours just to survive. Also, high-income people will have a reduced incentive to work so many hours because the overall financial benefit is relatively smaller when compared to the US where you can avoid taxation to a much greater extent.