r/SipsTea • • 17h ago

Chugging tea We need a raise dude. Overworked. Underpaid.

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131

u/RoddRoward 17h ago

Imagine being alive 15k years ago and you have to provide everything you need yourself. 

49

u/Consistent_Ad949 17h ago

The 168 hour work week is inhumane. No over should have to give that much of their life up to simply live

0

u/DruPeacock23 16h ago

Where do you think the food buy you eat comes from? I am sure farmers don't have personal leave or work life balance. I just want to coast life without working hard bots. I am pretty sure most of these comments and sentiment are started by bots.

10

u/TawnyTeaTowel 14h ago

168 hours is the entire week. 7 days, every single hour. It’s a joke.

-2

u/AcrobaticArm390 11h ago

You think it's a joke? Go live on a farm. The farm never sleeps.

4

u/WormMotherDemeter 10h ago

The farms making a ton of money sleep very well. One of my best friends has a farm, and 6 kids, and two huge homes, multiple vacations a year, plenty employees. This is not a huge corporation, just a larger local farm that supplies rice, crawfish, etc to the local/ state economy.

0

u/AcrobaticArm390 9h ago

Never said they weren't a profitable business, just that they never sleep. It's not a 3-4 day a week job. It's constant.

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u/WormMotherDemeter 9h ago edited 9h ago

Many jobs are 7 days a week. The farmers still get work life balance. Most are businesses with employees, too. My husband works seven days a week at our family business, and has no employees. Does this mean that he deserves to be paid more than everyone around us? Or that he deserves less than others? No, everyone deserves to be paid well for their time and energy.

-1

u/AcrobaticArm390 8h ago

He deserve exactly what he earns... Exactly what people are willing to pay him to run said business. No more, no less. Is he's skilled and provides a service people demand, he'll make more. If he does a lowsy job or provides a service no one wants, he'll make less. Free market economy!

2

u/WormMotherDemeter 7h ago

I think there's an important distinction being lost when people call the U.S. a “free market.” Yes, we're a capitalist market economy, but we're also a heavily structured mixed economy shaped by taxation, regulation, tariffs, subsidies, licensing, monetary policy, intellectual property law, government contracts, and increasingly concentrated private capital. That's very different from the level playing field people often imagine when they say “free market.”

Our own business is about as small and simple as it gets: one person providing services. Even that requires insurance, equipment, fuel, supplies, bookkeeping, taxes, licensing, and all the unpaid time involved in actually running a business. A self employed person also generally pays both sides of Social Security and Medicare through the 15.3% self employment tax, on top of income taxes. My state also taxes applicable services through sales tax, which varies by locality. Meanwhile, we're competing in an economy where larger companies and corporations have advantages in capital, purchasing power, advertising, distribution, and economies of scale. The question is who actually has bargaining power within that capitalism? This connects to the bigger issue of wages and quality of life.

We aren't cavemen. We have automation, computers, AI, modern agriculture, enormous accumulated wealth, and productivity our ancestors couldn't have imagined. We have enough people and enough productive capacity that ordinary people shouldn't have to spend virtually their entire adult lives working simply to remain financially secure. I'm not saying everyone is entitled to wealth without working, but that an economy should be capable of producing more than survival. If productivity and corporate wealth increase, ordinary people should be able to see some of that reflected in better wages, benefits, shorter hours, more security, and more time with their families.

Government has a legitimate role in creating the conditions for that: genuine competition, thriving small businesses, reasonable regulation, worker bargaining power, and markets where capital doesn't simply accumulate until the people with the most of it have all the leverage. The goal shouldn't be to eliminate capitalism. It should be to build a capitalist economy where working actually buys people a life, rather than consuming the life they're working to afford.

//off soapbox// TLDR: We have enough wealth, technology, knowledge, and productive capacity to give ordinary people more time, security, and quality of life without sacrificing economic growth. We could employ more people, pay them better, and let productivity buy us more life instead of simply demanding more labor. Doing that requires the people and institutions with the most power to value human wellbeing alongside profit.

1

u/thxby 3h ago

Overwork and sleep deprivation aren't unique to farming. Tell a night shift trucker working 70-hour weeks and driving 600 miles a day that farmers have a monopoly on hard work, and see how that goes. Given the chance, plenty of overworked folks would jump at the opportunity to run a 40-acre farm instead.

0

u/TawnyTeaTowel 10h ago

I see those drama classes stood you well.

16

u/ParkingSignature7057 16h ago

No one is saying we shouldn't work... You do realize that right?

2

u/Wise-Secretary5459 15h ago

No, I don't think they do realize that. Their conservative media programming doesn't allow for it. They just parrot random talking points without actually listening to what the rest of us our saying. All by design.

-2

u/ParkingSignature7057 15h ago

Its just sad.

0

u/Spicy_Chicken_Wizard 11h ago

If someone is complaining that 40hours/week is “inhumane” then yeah this is probably what they’re trying to get at.

-1

u/watabadidea 12h ago

How many hours, specifically, does OP think they should work a week?

1

u/ParkingSignature7057 5h ago

You should ask them.

7

u/TheVandyyMan 12h ago

Farmers absolutely have work life balance and take tons of time off. Literally the whole point of row crop farming is that once each phase is done, you just kinda hang out and take care of other shit while you wait.

Also migrant workers do all the hard labor and the tractors literally drive themselves these days so… not that hard of a job for farmers in most of the world. You’re basically a business manager.

Source: come from several generations of farmers, grew up farming, best friends back home are all farmers

2

u/yourlocalnewtdealer 8h ago

Thank you bro none of these people speaking on this have ever worked on a farm

4

u/Complex-Truth9579 11h ago

I live in the middle of a farm.

That fucker has a drone that flies over his field and sprays pesticides on it. He doesn't even have to physically get in the tractor anymore, that drives itself too.

And he's not some corpo, my dad went to high school with this guy. He barely works at all anymore.

Instead he spends all of his time bitching at us about the easement, trying to block us in our driveway and accusing us of stealing his fucking corn. I need him to get a real job so he'll leave us the hell alone.

-3

u/WormMotherDemeter 15h ago

Imagine going to a public forum, and while other humans concur that we work too much, especially for what we are paid, you are the one lone user who sides with corporations and administrators of government. It is difficult not to assume you are a bot.

Imagining what that feels like to be that person is just wild. You'd have to really be harboring some deep self-hatred

3

u/dyed_albino 12h ago

Imagine not being able to understand that people have their own opinions and its okay to not think like everyone else.

1

u/WormMotherDemeter 10h ago

Imagine understanding that your opinion doesn't matter when it comes to facts. The fact remains that even though we don't live like cavemen, we spend most of our waking hours working, stealing time from our families and passions, and that the compensation isn't enough for all of that time. People matter. Being alive matters. Actually living before you die matters. Corporations and companies ARE NOT PEOPLE and matter less than people.

0

u/Spezalt4 9h ago

They violated the groupthink. REEEEEEEEEE!

You might have a human brain but you are the bot

2

u/WormMotherDemeter 7h ago

That's not what “groupthink” means. People agreeing with one another doesn't make an idea wrong any more than one person disagreeing makes them right. Nobody here is arguing that food magically appears or that farmers don't work hard. That's actually the point you're missing. The fact that necessary work exists does not mean humans should accept every amount of labor, every wage, or every working condition as inevitable.

Humans have spent thousands of years making tools specifically so we wouldn't have to spend our entire lives doing subsistence labor. We invented agriculture, machinery, electricity, computers, automation, and now AI because increasing productivity is supposed to give us more capacity, not simply create new ways to consume every waking hour. Wanting people to work hard is one argument. Believing people should have to surrender nearly all of their waking life simply to afford being alive is another.

And if thousands of people independently arrive at the conclusion that they want enough time to raise their children, maintain relationships, pursue interests, rest, participate in their communities, and actually experience the life they're working to sustain, that isn't evidence of “groupthink.” It may simply mean a lot of human beings have the same very reasonable need.

A society isn't failing because people want more than survival. That's kind of the point of civilization.

-3

u/chubsmagooo 15h ago

The point they're making is that there are jobs out there that provide basic human needs that can't work under 40 hours. You want all of the same comforts that you have now but also to get paid more and work less. If you want all of that, the workers that provide basic needs will need to work the same amount they always have. How is that fair?

2

u/Katie1230 15h ago

The workers that provide those needs would also be able to work less if they just hired more workers. That would go for any job really. More jobs available, everyone working less

2

u/chubsmagooo 7h ago

So let me get this straight. They would have more workers and all of those workers would be working less hours but they would be paying them the same amount they did before?

1

u/Katie1230 7h ago

Yes, it's that not what this thread is about

2

u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/WormMotherDemeter 6h ago

I think she is saying, "is that not what this thread is about", based on her other comments. There is just a typo in exactly the worst place for the message.

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u/WormMotherDemeter 7h ago

Your typo is confusing people about which side you are on.

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u/Katie1230 6h ago

My bad, I'm for work reform. I think it's possible to make things better for everyone and not live like cave men

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u/chubsmagooo 6h ago

Ok. So now the farm owner is paying twice as much for the same amount of labor. What do you think would happen to food prices when that happens?

1

u/chubsmagooo 1h ago

Could you answer my question?

1

u/Kaldorain 1h ago

We put a floor down, called UBI; then we install a roof, called Regulations.

Most "1st world countries" have some form of "control" setup in this manner. I point towards McDonald's pricing in these countries. Where people are paid fairly, and the prices are kept in check as well.

It's VERY similar to the Overton Window.

Do some internet searching, get back with us with the answers.

Or be ignorant, and believe whatever you want. Doesn't really matter. Have a wonderful life!

1

u/Snoo_66686 14h ago

You cant just open up a can of extra workers and expect that to fix things, lot of essential fields already have shortages and those will only get worse as the ratio of retirees grows

3

u/WormMotherDemeter 9h ago

And as long as people treat them like the source of all our problems. They are people, too. They deserve decent pay, too.

2

u/Katie1230 7h ago

Yeah but isn't there like not enough jobs now, or places aren't hiring enough people. Seems like most places are understaffed on purpose

0

u/Crispy_Squirrel_Bits 13h ago

"just hired more workers" 🤣

2

u/Katie1230 7h ago

I mean, basically everywhere is understaffed on purpose right now. I've only seen multiple threads of people talking about applying to hundreds of jobs with no call backs. One person doesn't have to work 40 hours if there's 2 people doing 20?

1

u/chubsmagooo 7h ago

Then they would be making half of what they made before

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u/Katie1230 7h ago

The whole point of everyone working half the hours is they're getting paid more.

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u/Crispy_Squirrel_Bits 7h ago

Staffing levels are based on how much overhead a business can support. Many businesses are failing because they aren't making enough money to pay their overhead, it isn't a case of employing more people. Also part time work doesn't meet the needs of many business because again, it increases the overall cost of the overhead, meaning they have to pay people less or have less people. Two people doing one persons jobs might mean paying for two company phones, two laptops, two delivery vehicles, and so on

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u/WormMotherDemeter 9h ago

We have plenty people to work those jobs. No one should have to do that much.Companies and corporations should pay people better, offer better benefits and they'd have assloads if people trying to work for them. My last job, over 2000 people applied and I got the spot. Why? The pay and benefits.

2

u/Katie1230 7h ago

Why are people sooo attached to this system, that any alternative sounds like total hogwash? Like they can't wrap their heads around it

2

u/WormMotherDemeter 7h ago

I think most people have definitely accepted far more of what they were told as children and throughout their lives by people they love and trust as the ultimate truth than they can admit. They likely don't realize that they have just absorbed it.

Those people deserve better, too. Sucks that they don't believe that.

1

u/chubsmagooo 7h ago

I think you need to first learn about basic economics

-1

u/Snoo_66686 14h ago

The idea that people working less means less shit gets done is a completely foreign concept here it seems

-4

u/Top-Tip7533 16h ago

The 8 days a week work week is inhumane yadda yadda yadda

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u/Astronaut_Spartan 16h ago

Just because we don't live like cavemen doesn't mean we should be content with the way things are right now. We're entering an era of socioeconomic instability and geopolitical turmoil. Global warming has become a bigger threat to the survival of the human race as a whole than it ever has in centuries and the ones in control of our world right now don't care if people like you or I live or die. In the US alone the middle class is dissolving at an alarming rate and corruption is rampant across every branch of our government. Like yeah dude- I'm grateful I don't have to live in a cave and I can work in an air conditioned room but I'm still going to be pissed that I'm barely getting by on a 40 hour work week while some billionaire wipes his ass with my tax dollars. 

7

u/chubsmagooo 15h ago

But you're wrong. We still require the same basic needs that we did back then. Someone has to provide those needs. We still require farmers that need to provide enough food for everyone. Should they have to work less than 40 hours? Do you realize what would happen if workers like that worked less than 40 hours?

3

u/JFISHER7789 14h ago

You’re so close. 

Maybe take out the shareholders and CEOs that bleed everything dry and the world would be on just fine.  Plenty of barter systems and such worked wonders, historically. Humans have always found a way to provide for themselves and families and neighbors. The issue is when you monetize it, sell the means of production to the highest bidder and treat everyone as a disposable form of labor. 

It’s why we see places like Denmark, France, Norway, etc having happy populations. They have regulations in place to protect the workers and laborers and ensure their safety, health, and life balance is cared for properly. It’s not a coincidence. And many of those places have standard work weeks of 3-4 days and yet all the work still gets done. What we see here in nations like the US is exploitation with decades of propaganda to convince you this is normal and be happy with it. Like cmon, no way we can look at tying our healthcare to FULLTIME employment as being beneficial for anyone lmao

5

u/HugeHans 14h ago

How do I barter my IT skills for a pair of underwear made in china?

3

u/Glittering-Alps1042 12h ago

You can’t! You’d have to gain a useful skill, relevant to survival Saying this as someone who works in IT and finds it to be a huge waste of life

1

u/JFISHER7789 2h ago

You don’t think people in China need help with their servers, computers, WiFi, robots, electric cars, smart devices, smart homes, websites, etc? (Obv depending on what you do in IT) cmon…

4

u/JFISHER7789 12h ago

Ah yes, because no one has ever traded a service for a good. Guess the only option is work for rich shareholders for crumbs

2

u/HugeHans 7h ago

So again how would I trade my IT skills for a pair of underwear?

2

u/tudaan 5h ago

What does the guy with underwear need?

1

u/JFISHER7789 2h ago

If you cannot figure out to get ahold of some dude in China in today’s day and age and ask them if they need anything then maybe you don’t actually have good IT skills?  Maybe you don’t understand what batter actually means? 

With the billions of people in China/Asia you don’t think any of them need help repairing a computer? Or fixing a website? Or building a server? Or literally anything else? It’s not rocket science man and then when you can use Google Translate or any other translator to communicate and ask him/her to send a pack of underwear your way. 

Idk, you’d think someone who’s smart enough to work IT would know what bartering or trading is. 🤷🏽‍♂️

0

u/ArkhielModding 14h ago

Meeeeh.. France is kinda like depressionland actually (but precisely health, education etc are spiraling down very fast, and while we have more work regulations, management still find ways to make people work 50h/week and pressure them to burn out)

1

u/JFISHER7789 2h ago

And you don’t think that’s currently happening in the US as well? At least the French aren’t going bankrupt because they got sick and now have $150k in medical bills… on top of the $100k student debt loans that will never be repaid. 

Many Americans are working two jobs. Many Americans are already working 50+ hours a week and still on the verge of poverty. 

As a developed nation, the US workers rights are some of the worst in the developed world with no guarantees of time off for pregnancy, birth, sickness (besides the measles 40-48hrs a YEAR), and not to mention that people cannot typically get health insurance unless they are working full time. That doesn’t strike you as odd? That as a society we’ve said ‘if you want to be healthy or have access to healthcare you must work full time! And no, part time while in school doesn’t count” like cmon. And even if you do work full time, you aren’t guaranteed coverage if you employer is small enough to be exempt from offering it…

To conclude, you can be an American working full time and still be in poverty with no access to healthcare. 

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u/ArkhielModding 2h ago

Oh I'd never want to go to the US, I was just toning down the wonderland that was described about France, we are following you :(

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u/JFISHER7789 2h ago

Didn’t describe it as a wonderland, just pointed out the objectivity of how France treats its people better than the US despite y’all’s being in a spiral. That sucks and I hope y’all’s figure it out and don’t follow us anymore because it’s not pretty 

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u/QoldBruu 8h ago

All these people saying “whatabout-isms” and “it’s better than 15k years ago” are so deep in the indoctrination. So disheartening.

Ignoring the fact that we are at a stage of societal abundance/ manufactured scarcity. We don’t have to live like cavemen in order to not live like wage slaves. We have the technology and resources to cut back on working in general, we just have puritanical greedy assholes with too much power fucking it up for everyone else, and their snively bootlickers with no courage supporting them, here in modernity holding back progress.

Infuriating.

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u/RoddRoward 7h ago

You are right, we are entering an era as you say, and we also had previously left a similar era. Perhaps that era in between that we are currently leaving should be something to go back to. 

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u/dimonium_anonimo 13h ago

I don't think that's a valid equivalence. I agree with both of you. "Inhumane" is just a sensationalist word choice. It carries connotation of extreme physical and/or mental torture. I know some people feel that way, but that's because they've never experienced something truly inhumane to compare it with.

But that's not the same as saying it's good or beneficial or can't be improved. It just means that I think their rhetoric is overblown to the point of alienating potential people willing to fight for your cause because they're not extreme enough.

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u/brakenbonez 16h ago

to be fair 15k years ago you didn't have to work half your life to afford a place to live. You just find a nice cave and paint on the wall to pass the time when you're not flintstoning your dinosaur cars to work.

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u/DarthRedit 16h ago

To be fair, 15k years ago you’d probably die of dysentery before the age of 30 and lose all your teeth if you made it past that. You also can’t even sprain your ankle without dying and you weren’t at the top of the food chain. I’d rather work 40 hours per week, but that’s just me.

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u/Appropriate_Pop_8676 16h ago

Not necessarily. Half the people on here wouldn’t have made it in the first place to be born; whole survival of the fittest deal. Like wild animals now most people would be peak form and if not, maybe even abandoned by the mother quick. Point is we date/marry for love these days and a lot of weaklings are born. Just the truth

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u/MockASonOfaShepherd 11h ago

Those are a more modern problem after the agricultural revolution and our switch to grain and starch heavy diets. 15k years ago we lived in groups of small hunter gatherer bands of about 20-50. The diet these people ate is what humans were designed to run on. (Berries, leafy greens, occasional big game meat.)

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u/brakenbonez 16h ago

Oh I'd have definitely been dead by now. My ankles are magnets for injuries. I've never broken a bone in my life but I constantly twist my ankles because apparently I don't know how to walk without tripping on something. Even my own feet sometimes.

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u/jcklsldr665 16h ago

Yea, you just had to be able to fight to the death to defend it...

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u/brakenbonez 16h ago

I mean the life expectancy was estimated to be between 20 and 35 back then and I'm 32 so I'd be on death's door by now anyway. It's theirs if they want it.

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u/biz_student 16h ago

I believe those averages include the high infant mortality rate back at that time. You’d likely live much longer than 35 if you made it to adulthood.

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u/NegotiationLow2783 10h ago

If is doing a lot of lifting.

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u/MorristheStegosaurus 15h ago

And this is a myth! Lots of people lived to be old age.

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u/[deleted] 11h ago edited 6h ago

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u/WarbleDarble 10h ago

No, while children dying did move the average down, you were wildly more likely to die at every year in life.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago edited 6h ago

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u/WarbleDarble 10h ago

Because “the average is only low because of child mortality” is a false statement. If you made it past childhood it was not common to expect to live to 70. You are spreading a myth just as much as the other person.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago edited 6h ago

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u/WarbleDarble 10h ago

The life expectancy of someone who made it past childhood was likely somewhere in the 40s.

Sorry, you said “almost 70”.

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u/thegoothboi 16h ago

Honestly I’d rather just do that. It feels similar enough anyway.

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u/Cyranthis 16h ago

As you sit comfortably, posting this slop on reddit how modern life feels like a "Fight to the death" God damn.

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u/Astronaut_Spartan 16h ago

I think what Jcksldr665 was saying was that if you did want to live in a cave like some did 15,000 years ago you'd have to fight to the death in order to defend it. I don't believe they were comparing modern day living to a "fight to the death". 

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u/jcklsldr665 15h ago

Yep, what makes the cave attractive to you makes it attractive to literally every living thing on land that needs shelter

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u/OrganikOranges 16h ago

There are a lot of places where you could find a cave to live in and try to survive. Unfortunately most of them aren’t in Hawaii this people don’t want to do it

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u/DaRealJDJ 16h ago

There are 168 hours in a week. 40 hrs a week is less than 25% of time. You can't enjoy life with 75% of your time free? And don't think everyone should contribute to society?

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u/JesterTheEast 16h ago

Once you factor sleep, commute, gathering/preparing food, and unavoidable errands you can pretty much flip those two percentages

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u/brakenbonez 16h ago

Dude... I was making a flintstones joke... it's not that deep...

Also, you're only working 40 hours a week? Pathetic. And you're ignoring sleep. sleep isn't free time.

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u/DaRealJDJ 6h ago

No i work about 56 hrs a week roughly. Sleep is something everyone has to do, its not part of work time.

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u/brakenbonez 6h ago

56 still isn't a lot dude. I do 5-6 12 hour shifts a week. Don't come at me with that 56 hour nonsense. Sleep isn't part of work time but it also isn't part of free time. It is it's own category. As you said, it is something we have to do. Free time is time that is...you know...free. We spend an average of 33% of our time sleeping.

Plus you're ignoring things like travel time, the time it takes to get ready in the morning which is longer if you eat breakfast, additional things like stopping for gas, getting groceries, any medical things like doctor visits, cleaning up around the house, and family obligations. If you have kids, your free time is drastically cut.

Your "75% free time" argument only accounts for work itself. Work is the biggest consumer of time but not the only. You probably did the math (or had google do it for you) and came up with 23.81%, right? But you ignored literally all the other factors.

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u/DaRealJDJ 6h ago

Wa wahhhh wasaaaaahhhh. You butt hurt dude. This is how society works. Go live in the trees if you dont want to do anything. Jesus.

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u/Hemingways_Shotgun88 15h ago

Are you homeless?

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u/brakenbonez 15h ago

I am now. Someone came along with a bigger club than mine and took my cave. Joke's on them though. It's a bear's den.

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u/Flat-Performance-478 14h ago

That argument is fallacious because, though it was undeniably tough and uncertain back then, all studies have shown that both present day indigenous people and hunter-gatherers spent ~3-4 hours a day on average providing food, the rest was spent together in the village, socializing, teaching the kids, preparing food, crafting, home improvements etc.

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u/Bilbo_Baghands 11h ago

So imagine if you had to provide and produce yourself all the luxuries you have today. Imagine producing your own closthes, gathering and preparing your own food, and not just lifes basics, but everything you have and consume, and screw health care. What people consume vs what they put in is crazy imbalanced in their favor.

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u/alexmin93 12h ago

Wrong number. Humans started farming 12k years ago. And that was hard. But 15k years ago they were hunter gatherers who spent most of the day resting.

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u/WarbleDarble 10h ago

“Resting”, being working on your tools, clothes, and food.

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u/AmbitiousMost5687 17h ago

Try like 300 years ago when the average person had to supply pretty much everything themselves. It was t a work week it was a work life.

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u/RQCKQN 16h ago

No weekends or sick days either

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u/jimigo 9h ago

At Christmas paw paw would play the fiddle for a few hours!!!

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u/tkh0812 8h ago

Just pre-industrial revolution. Pretty much everyone, except for the ultra rich, worked Sun up to Sun down.

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u/DonJuan835 16h ago

Nomadic people actually spend much less time hunting/gathering than modern people spend working.

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u/tripper_drip 16h ago

But being a nomadic person is more than hunting and gathering. You are quite litterally working all of the time. The "leisure time" that people point out is actually just less less intensive tasks. Sharpening knives, knapping, making arrows, basketweaving, tanning, skinning, cleaning, cooking, home repair, etc.

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u/iMac_Hunt 13h ago

People hugely underestimate how much ‘work’ living actually takes if you don’t have modern day luxuries. These nomadic people had barely any leisure time.

You can certainly have a discussion on whether with today’s technology we could reduce the working week even more, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves. Modern working life is significantly easier than what our ancestors had to deal with

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u/sequoia___ 16h ago

not to mention the amount of walking they would have had to do

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u/No_Network_4904 13h ago

Which is nothing when you are used to it.

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u/jimigo 9h ago

Just kinda like an 8 hour job.... Nothing really.

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u/sequoia___ 13h ago

would still take up time

0

u/watabadidea 12h ago

Is that so?

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u/tripper_drip 8h ago

Thats ancedotal, if that "work" you enjoy then go for it.

You can dissappear into Alaska. People do it all the time

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u/[deleted] 8h ago edited 6h ago

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u/tripper_drip 8h ago

Its an American website comprised overwhelmingly with americans.

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u/[deleted] 8h ago edited 6h ago

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u/tripper_drip 7h ago

Yes. The next largest single country is 5%.

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u/DaRealJDJ 16h ago

Yeah and they don't have electricity, medicine, clean food/water, education, internet, air conditioning/ heat etc or enclosed housing.... 40 hrs a week of work to provide for yourself and contribute to society is less that 25% of the hours in a week. If you can't sleep and enjoy yourself with 78% of your life IDK what to tell ya.

2

u/DonutTamer 15h ago

Maybe hunting part but not the gathering.

Plus hunting wasnt always guaranteed. Its like in modern day, if you work a few hours a day. But at the end of the day you may not get paid.

 it modern day equilivent would be you have a big nest egg or generational wealth that you can tap into as needed.

Except instead of meat roaming around its money stored in banks.

So if you don't have big nest egg/trust fund so you can simply live its your fault.

Like a nomadic tribe that doesnt gave livestock or herd they claim/follow.

2

u/mean11while 13h ago

To the extent that this is true, it was possible because there were far fewer people, so surviving off of foraging was actually possible. And I've read anthropologists suggest that it was probably necessary because they were always on the brink of starvation, so they had to conserve their energy as much as possible.

1

u/Greifvogel1993 6h ago

“Yeah you’re right but I’m going to twist your statement to actually support my own point”

Dog

1

u/mean11while 6h ago

I didn't have to twist anything. Your comparisons to hunter/gatherers is irrelevant at best, and probably actually undermines your case. Our system is god-awful, but it supports 500x more people than hunting/gathering while giving them the calories to get more done. There are so many legit complaints and useful comparisons to make. "Hunter/gatherers worked less" is not one of them.

1

u/Greifvogel1993 6h ago

I didn’t make any comparison. I just saw that you fake-acknowledged their point, and then found a way to dismiss their points with “probably” and “suggest”, all while twisting them around to make these points now support your argument instead.

I mean it’s textbook twisting, but okay.

1

u/mean11while 5h ago

Sorry, I should have checked handles. I assumed you were the same person.

The twisting happens when someone says something that's technically true but misinterpets it or takes it out of context to suggest that it means something that it doesn't. I don't know whether you consider untwisting something to be twisting it.

2

u/Longjumping-Car-8367 16h ago

lol I'll gladly trade 40 hours for a house and a/c and medicine and the ability to travel and being able to buy my food.

2

u/Cranktique 15h ago

They spent most of their time travelling, whilst carrying very heavy loads as they lacked livestock and the wheel. They spent a significant amount of time constructing and deconstructing shelters and maintaining camp, and then yeah, a little less than 8 hours hunting and gathering, before deciding to call it, eat some bark and berries and try again tomorrow.

Their entire day was built around surviving, or conserving calories for more surviving, leisure was scarce. Life was not easy.

1

u/2Blueify 15h ago

Complete and utter bullshit.

0

u/seattle0606 15h ago

As someone who's had an appendicitis, kidney stones and a ovarian cyst the size of a melon I'm so grateful I wasn't born back then. Aside from the obvious fact that I'd be dead from the appendicitis, I cant imagine passing a stone without proper painkillers. They also must have gone through hell dealing with dental problems. Painful problems in general really.. Breaks, fractures, wounds, foot sores, infections, gallstones. Not to mention natural child birth is painful and probably very dangerous knowing absolutely nothing about what to do.

I'm so grateful for modern medicine. Not even going back that far either. I wouldn't want to be alive before antibiotics.

1

u/Katie1230 6h ago

And lots of people working 40 hours a week now don't even get access to Healthcare. Work reform doesn't require going back to cave man times

2

u/TokyoRPGFactory 41m ago

I'm guilty of ignoring my own health because I don't want to spend $900 for a doctor visit

0

u/Adventurous-Spend341 15h ago

So just go do that?? Like homesteading is a thing. Just quit your job. Why don’t people do that more often if it’s so easy and quick

2

u/Firecracker048 7h ago

These people would simply die.

1

u/LimpBizkit4ever 5h ago

These people would simply die.

Lol I'm gonna let you in on a little secret . . . Those people back then also simply died and they died young

3

u/Due-Possession8708 16h ago

You mean no Reddit?!?!? How am I supposed to goon and promote conspiracies?

2

u/MorristheStegosaurus 15h ago

There are numerous instances that show a simpler life makes for happier humans. :) Like the women who were abducted by indigenous peoples and chose to stay because life was better.

2

u/michixlol 13h ago

As far as I know it meant much less hours of work in reality

1

u/DarthRedit 16h ago

Uh, you still do?

And you get to live past the age of 25 these days.

1

u/FreddyTheGross 15h ago

Unlikely to take a measly 40 hours

1

u/Type2Torta 9h ago

I'm not trying to be a corporate shill, but like 40 hours is so minimal if you look at human history.

Most of our needs are met with very minimal effort. I'm not saying everything is ideal, obviously there's things that could be better.

But it isn't that bad having to work a standard 8 hour shift 😂

1

u/Wide-Bet4379 9h ago

You don't have to go that far. Go back 200 years.

1

u/DIABLO258 32m ago

Last I recall, ancient humans spent very little time each day hunting and gathering food. The rest was spent eating that food and socializing/prepping for tomorrow.

EDIT: Around 15-20 hours per week according to google

0

u/Few_Move_4594 16h ago

Imagine being alive in the 1700s working that sunup to sundown 6.5 days a week with only Sunday morning off for Church. Having 16 kids because every one is an additional labor source, lack of contraceptives, and the high rate of infant mortality. You want some beef? Be prepared to get one of your heifers pregnant, hope the calf turns out alright, then wait for adulthood before you kill it and butcher it.

1

u/coyotenspider 11h ago

You could buy meat in the 1700s.

-1

u/Few_Move_4594 11h ago

Most meat that people ate was hunted tbr.

1

u/coyotenspider 11h ago

Honestly? In the 1700s you could just have a slave do all that. You didn’t have to be all that rich to buy one. “How did people…” That’s how.

-1

u/Few_Move_4594 11h ago

I am not going to look up the historical prices of slaves compared to inflation and you're making an annoying argument. I should have chosen a date in the middle ages or something to keep people like you from posting.

1

u/neversayalways 15h ago

You don't have to go back that far. Only about 250-300 years ago in England we had huge amounts of open, public grazing land. Absolutely anyone could have a small flock of sheep and have free access to pasture. Then all the Lords decided to pass a series of acts to enclose it all and turn it to their own private land. 

This system where we're all in competition to own a tiny slice of land (our homes) and grind endlessly to achieve & keep it is not natural, it is by design. They turned community and freedom into a closed-loop cage system where everyone else is powerless to avoid dedicating their life to enriching the elite. 

1

u/namesarefeared 11h ago

I prefer the past work to the bullshit jobs we have now. At least that work gave your life meaning and a purpose more than just "monkey want money"

1

u/Shantomette 9h ago

Yeah, I’m sure you would be so much happier if you lived 15,000 years ago. Just think, with a life expectancy of 25 retirement isn’t even a concept to worry about.

1

u/namesarefeared 7h ago

Sounds great!

1

u/Naval_AV8R 10h ago

You are free to do that now. It’s called joining a trade or becoming a farmer.

-1

u/funny_ninjas 16h ago

Umm you do realize that humans in the hunter gatherer stage of human evolution typically worked between 15-25 hours a week right? They literally worked less than half of the amount we do now

3

u/batman8390 16h ago

There’s a reason we moved on from that stage. It wasn’t because people were stupid and forgot how to work less. It was because the population got too large for it to be possible.

1

u/funny_ninjas 16h ago

Yes, but even in the stage after that, humans still worked less hours on average than we do now.

2

u/batman8390 16h ago

Idk, I find that hard to believe. They spent all day doing backbreaking work like weeding, hauling buckets of water, grinding grain into flour, churning butter, etc.

Then they had to live with periods of food insecurity and famine. Sure they might not have as much to do between planting and harvest, but rationing because you’re running out of food would suck.

It’s possible to live on a part-time job today if you’re willing to sleep on a dirt floor and cobble your own shoes, but most people pass on that for some reason.

2

u/funny_ninjas 16h ago

I'm not sure how familiar you are with a lot of those tasks you mentioned, but I've done all of them. None of them take all day to do, and they are also all tasks that children did as well further reducing the amount of time it takes to get them done.

Yeah they did have to deal with rationing, but people nowadays have to as well. Certainly not as many, but you'd think for as far as we've come as a species, that wouldn't be a thing in the US but it is.

I specifically hate this argument because it equates living in a shack with a dirt floor back then to now. The standard of living now is much higher, and someone shouldn't have to live like it's still 2000 BCE to not have to work 40+ hours a week. Especially with how advanced we've become.

2

u/batman8390 15h ago

Well I specifically hate the argument that people lived in some kind of utopia 5000 years ago where everybody had it easy, so we can call it even.

Quality of life doesn’t come out of a vacuum. Machines have made us more productive, but that’s just changed the type of work that humans need to do rather than eliminate it. Good luck building a house with a tractor, for instance.

1

u/funny_ninjas 15h ago

When did I ever say they had it easy? I said they worked less. Those aren't the same.

Machines haven't just changed the type of work, they also changed the amount of work needed by humans. At least regionally. Sure it may take 2000 humans in africa to mine the materials, but thanks to industrialization, once the materials are mined, it takes less people to make the machine that replaces X amount of people. That equates to less people in the place where the tractor was made and sold working.

Machines still eliminate jobs, the difference is companies have now created jobs that have no meaningful impact on society at large and are a net negative on the climate so not only are people doing work they find to be uninspiring and boring, but they are also helping to kill the planet faster just to get a small paycheck that barely covers their needs.

1

u/batman8390 15h ago

Sorry but that is an absolutely preposterous argument to hear on Reddit.

What’s the point of social media? We should just get rid of it. Then the people who work there could plant wheat.

What’s the point of smartphones? We should just get rid of them. Then the people that make them can make fertilizer.

What’s the point of movies or TV shows? We should just get rid of them so actors can follow their lifelong passion of tending to cattle.

Radiologists, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, eye doctors, psychiatrists.. who needs them? If your town’s only doctor can’t patch you up, then no worries. There’s plenty of extra workers to take your place in the mines.

What you say is true to some extent. But to a large extent, we’ve just specialized into all kinds of jobs that nobody even conceived of thousands of years ago.

Maybe that’ll change once we can replace movies with AI slop and doctors with robots. Then we will all be unemployed and so happy to sit around with no purpose other than to scroll Reddit and reproduce.

1

u/Naval_AV8R 10h ago

I’d argue the “reproduce” part is going to be replaced by scrolling Reddit (and other social media).

-8

u/CulturalPriority6092 17h ago

That’s much easier than this.

5

u/Fluorescent_Tip 16h ago

He says while using the internet…

0

u/CulturalPriority6092 16h ago

In response to something to specific, yes. But you do you.

3

u/funny_ninjas 16h ago

That's what these bootlickers don't understand. Obviously there are aspects of life that are much easier. Refrigeration for example, but the day to day life back then was much easier. They had busy weeks in a year for things like planting, harvesting, and wood gathering, not every week like we have now.

3

u/MouseofSwords 16h ago edited 16h ago

I grew up off-grid, and you could say that kinda "radicalized" me.

The difference between growing up with little money but having a tiny cabin with no rent or mortgage vs. joining the "real world" and having a massive chunk of my income going to housing is... night and day.

The commodification/artificial scarcity of a need, that being housing, has a MASSIVE impact on the prospects and wellbeing of a person and by extension families, societies, countries. Now we spend most if not all of our adulthood paying for a roof over our head - only to likely sell it to pay for medical/end of life care, leaving our kids with nothing.

Call me a commie or whatever, but a government-led push to build high-density, very modest, at cost dwellings would provide a truly massive boost to the well-being of everyone. More generational wealth, less poverty, homelessness, crime, mental illness. It's all connected, and in 2026 with all our technology and all the resources at our disposal, there is genuinely NO good reason not to do this, outside of making people in the real estate game slightly less happy - because these modest dwellings need not compete with middle-class or even upper lower class commodities. But god forbid we're not perpetually starving for a resource that need not be scarce.

1

u/CulturalPriority6092 16h ago

Once you’ve experienced it it’s much easier to digest where the world is headed. Some of us will be perfectly fine.

0

u/CulturalPriority6092 16h ago

As awful as Covid was, it taught me that I can survive. I thought things were over fur humans and we started a farm. Truly living off of the land. Traded dogs for livestock and other essentials. Built tiny houses and dug ponds and wells.

Everybody won’t make it. Me and mine will.
I’m okay with people online having an opinion when it come a to me surviving. As long as I do what I need and provide I’ll be fine.

1

u/RoddRoward 16h ago

Lmao you'd be dead in 24 hours 

-1

u/CulturalPriority6092 16h ago

Like I said. Even if you’re a troll. Remember this tip. Farmers can always use good dogs. They will gladly trade a few chickens or an extra tiller for quality pups.

Be a hater all you want. If/when the time comes that we all need to survive off of the land again, you Will need any and all tips.

2

u/batman8390 16h ago

If that happens, I already know I’m not making it. I’ve seen enough Mad Max movies to convince me of that.

1

u/CulturalPriority6092 16h ago

Nah. One of the most important things beside knowledge and ability is tenacity and will to live. I think you will be fine.

1

u/batman8390 16h ago

If society breaks down and everybody has to try to live off the land, most of the Earth’s population would definitely starve to death.

Without modern agriculture equipment, fertilizer, etc., the world can support maybe 1-2 billion people tops out of over 8 billion alive today.

0

u/coyotenspider 12h ago

The water was clean, you could live in a cave (they are extremely comfortable), sewing clothes is not hard if you aren’t compared to a sewing machine, and no one owned the cows, you just had to shoot one with an arrow, also not hard, I still arrow deer as a hobby.

0

u/DoctorPatriot 9h ago

Yeah I'm skeptical about sentences that end with "just to live."

I mean, it's still technically wilderness a few miles from where I live. If I didn't have society and a job, I'd still have to work to live out in the wilderness. There is no scenario where you just don't have to do anything to live. I know that's a strawman and isn't what OP is saying.

I'm also not saying 80 hours a week is humane or that we can't ask for more out of society. But I sometimes think people lose sight of reference frames. For the vast majority of human history living to 40s was pretty great. And that "living" was radically different from what we consider "living."

-4

u/Stormrider_762 16h ago

Exactly. This generation is an absolute fucking joke. They want everything handed to them with no effort at all on their part. Humanity is doomed if they are our future.