[HN Gopher] Overwork killed more than 745k people in a year, WHO...
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Overwork killed more than 745k people in a year, WHO study finds
Author : user_235711
Score : 183 points
Date : 2021-05-28 18:46 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| anm89 wrote:
| When I hear people with anti-science attitudes I think back to
| things like this where an attempt to get a catchy headline
| published, misleadingly states something that obviously isn't
| true. So is it a wonder that people are dismissive of the results
| of other scientific research like climate change research?
|
| Overwork *CONTRIBUTES* to the death of more than 745k per year.
| It did not solely and directly cause those deaths. How would you
| even know if it did? But the claim of the title is that overwork
| killed them as if overwork popped out behind them with a gun and
| shot them. It's just obviously a nonsense claim. And once you put
| it this way, tons of things CONTRIBUTE to excessive deaths. Poor
| diet, exposure to many everyday chemicals, living in a city(air
| pollution).
|
| In fact, what are the odds that overwork doesn't correlate with
| living in a higher air pollution environment? Anyway, the claim
| in the title is nonsense.
| wyager wrote:
| > Overwork _CONTRIBUTES_ to the death of more than 745k per
| year. It did not solely and directly cause those deaths.
|
| Try telling HN to remember this when talking about covid death
| figures.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Can you find anyone who reads that headline and thinks overwork
| popped out behind them with a gun and shot them, or anything
| remotely like it?
|
| > " _It 's just obviously a nonsense claim_"
|
| Yes, obviously, and even more obviously after reading the
| article and the linked WHO press release which says " _The
| study concludes that working 55 or more hours per week is
| associated with an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke_ ".
|
| Attacking straw people based on a title of a newpaper headline
| isn't pro-science.
| anm89 wrote:
| I am clearly not proposing that they are claiming an abstract
| concept held a physical weapon to kill anyone. Actually
| that's the point though. You would have to believe something
| nonsensical like this for it to be possible for the headline
| to be true as it is written.
|
| The headline is "Overwork Killed x" and that implies in no
| uncertain terms that overwork directly and solely killed
| people which is again, obviously nonsense.
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| This reminds me of a comment that I read years ago and still
| think of every now and then:
|
| > A few months ago a person of the ones you mention in your
| first paragraph posted on FB, as a blow against religion, that
| religion was so unreasonable that parents had to train their
| kids since youth in order to believe. And I remember thinking
| at the time about all the years of training needed to get any
| non-superficial commanding of science.
|
| https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/29763
|
| Edit: I should add that I believe the title is justified in
| this case. The study[1] identifies overwork as a cause for
| developing deadly diseases. Without overwork, the given number
| of people wouldn't have died of these diseases. Unhealthy diet
| and other factors are counted as a consequence of overwork. It
| could be phrased as '3.6% of stroke deaths and y% of ischemic
| heart disease deaths could have been avoided by working less'.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...
| nineplay wrote:
| Plus in a world population of about 8 billion, the WHO has
| nothing better to do than worry about factors "contributing to"
| the deaths of 745k people? That should be considered a
| embarrassing waste of effort.
| teachingassist wrote:
| > Overwork _CONTRIBUTES_ to the death of more than 745k per
| year.
|
| I understood the headline figure to be suggesting that 750k
| people per year around the world are dying early, i.e. _10
| years earlier than they would otherwise_.
|
| (Unlike you, I find it unsurprising and likely true to the
| point of not being headline-worthy: this is not very many
| people against the working age population)
|
| The original article doesn't quite refer to that definition,
| but does say that 23.3 million Disability Adjusted Life-Years
| are lost per year, so it does seem to be working on an
| approximately equivalent basis.
|
| Saying that everything around us "contributes" some amount to
| death is pointless hyper-factualism. It's useful to have a
| scientific attempt to quantify how much each factor
| contributes.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| It's sad, but while this is far from the first article on the
| damage that comes from overwork, the people who have the power to
| stop it don't seem to care enough to do so.
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| In addition, there is cultural conditioning towards
| overworking. The problem will likely continue until this
| changes. There are progressive movements like UBI and 4-days
| work week but the inertia will take its toll for some time to
| come I reckon.
| handrous wrote:
| 3-day or bust. Enough to still get stuff done, but means that
| even on a non-vacation week, work no longer dominates _most_
| of your life.
| datameta wrote:
| I don't think an ambitious all-or-nothing approach will
| pass in the voting chambers. It needs to start with moving
| to 4 days. In fact in some places 6 days is the normal work
| week so for them a change to a legal and cultural
| expectation of 5 work days would be a big step.
| munk-a wrote:
| I've always been heavy but while working in the gaming industry
| I put on enough extra pounds to develop full blown OSA
| (obstructive sleep apnea) from pounding down sugary coffees in
| the mornings I felt exhausted (eventually every morning,
| because OSA).
|
| Working 9AM-8PM regularly has real health side effects and,
| honestly, it can get a lot worse than 11 hour days in the
| gaming industry.
| egao1980 wrote:
| So basically Capitalism silently kills 745k in a year. If this
| figure raises up to 1910s levels we'll see Socialist
| revolutionary wave once more.
| ergocoder wrote:
| Now do a research about commute, so the jobs that don't need to
| go to the office can just work from home
| 5tefan wrote:
| Work was among the Pandora's box contents. I solve others'
| problems all day long and I am left with my personal problems
| after a day at the office.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I've seen this funny effect too. I can deal with enormous
| projects and complexity at work, but sometimes my personal life
| feels like it's in shambles and nothing on my to-do list is
| getting done. The reality is that work has taken up everything
| I have and there's nothing left over at the end of the day.
| WalterBright wrote:
| On the other hand, there's a spike in deaths shortly after
| retirement as people lose their purpose in life.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| That rather suggests one should oneself outside of work so as
| to have other reasons to wake up in the morning.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I'm reminded of the old man (Brooksy) who kills himself after
| getting out of Shawshank.
| teolandon wrote:
| Thankfully, there's more things to do in life than wage labor,
| so people can continue to have a purpose after "retiring".
| codetrotter wrote:
| So let people work less per week and more years and they might
| live longer and more enjoyable lives
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Some physical jobs have a point at which you're no longer
| able to work them and I'm not sure if reducing the hours and
| adding years will help that. Knowledge workers have much less
| of a concern in that regard.
| nradov wrote:
| Could that be confusing cause and effect? Maybe some workers
| choose to retire when they're diagnosed with a serious medical
| condition and know they don't have long to live. If my doctor
| told me I had an incurable disease with only months to live
| then the first thing I would do is quit my job.
| lummm wrote:
| I don't understand the lamentation over a culture of overwork.
| What other method is there to get ahead as an individual other
| than out-competing your peers? My understanding of life as a
| young professional in China or Korea is that the competition is
| almost unbelievable to someone from North America.
| GIFtheory wrote:
| People generally overestimate the benefit of working long hours
| and underestimate the value of working hard during those hours.
| If working 55 hours a week is enough to cause serious bodily
| harm, then it seems likely that the optimal number of working
| hours from a productivity perspective is far less than that.
|
| I sometimes think it's useful to think of myself as a mental
| athlete. My job is to perform intellectual feats of strength in
| controlled efforts. The rest of my time I spend preparing for
| those efforts by relaxing.
| courtf wrote:
| Why do we feel the need to get ahead of others? Because we see
| how the lower classes are treated and would rather live a
| better life. Our justified fears of falling behind the curve
| are manipulated by our circumstances, that we have no control
| over, but others do. We are driven in the direction of escape
| from these circumstances. It's just more fight or flight, and
| we mostly choose flight. Our fears are a yolk, our labors are
| harnessed and converted to profit. We may get ahead of our
| peers, but we do not get very far.
| bserge wrote:
| There really is no need to "get ahead". Nothing wrong with
| taking it easy when there's no life or death situation going
| on. That's good enough for 80+% of productive work and a decent
| life.
|
| Sadly companies make it seem like that's the case, like there's
| a war going on, forcing people to work until they drop or lose
| their income. That applies to offices and factories alike. Just
| to squeeze that last 10-20% out of people.
|
| For what? A shitty app, 2 more assembled devices, 3 more ready
| meals, all of which will be forgotten or in a landfill without
| even being properly used.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Easy to say in a safety-net society in a comfortable city.
| But if losing a job can mean an extreme drop in standard of
| living, then competition will naturally be more fierce.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| In that situation it would be more rational to look for
| allies to reduce the leverage of an unscrupulous employer.
| [deleted]
| paganel wrote:
| > What other method is there to get ahead as an individual
| other than out-competing your peers?
|
| Some of us have started to have issues with the "get ahead"
| mentality. Otherwise you are totally correct, wanting to get
| ahead implicitly means getting ahead of others i.e. out-
| competing them, but, like I said, some of us have started to
| see/understand that this battle is mostly futile.
| adam12 wrote:
| A lot of people are forced to overwork because of a low minimum
| wage. Raising the minimum wage to a living wage can save lives.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| In most western countries, in most professional situations,
| working harder isn't the way to advance, often.
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/
| walterlb wrote:
| A great read :)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > What other method is there to get ahead as an individual
| other than out-competing your peers?
|
| There's a parable about this, about a fisherman and a
| businessman.
|
| https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the...
| Opt_Out_Fed_IRS wrote:
| > My understanding of life as a young professional in China or
| Korea is that the competition is almost unbelievable to someone
| from North America.
|
| South Korea and China competition is "working harder". In the
| US it's all about "working smarter"
|
| Also with all due respect for South Korea and China...very risk
| averse.
|
| The big jumps happen when you take a risk and beat the odds,
| not the endless grinding which goes on in Asian societies.
|
| Asian societies lack the arrogance of the creator/founder,
| which abounds in the West, especially American Jews.
|
| Imagining something new and having the arrogance to think that
| it will be a great success and you'll be the one bringing it
| into the world. This is the trademark American Jew mindset.
|
| Zuck turned down 1 Billion for Facebook...Larry and Sergey 1
| million for Google. It takes guts and arrogance to think you'll
| beat the odds and say "no thanks" to 1 billion (and to 1
| million too! considering it was back in the 90s and it was a
| very good deal for the effort they put into it)
| chasd00 wrote:
| i don't know why you say "American Jew" because that trait is
| a trademark of Americans of all race, religions, and creeds
| not American Jews only.
|
| ( skip to 1:06 ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ4aDgZSjDo
| Opt_Out_Fed_IRS wrote:
| It is, but Jews have both the arrogance as well as the
| capabilities and the IQ to make their attempts successful
|
| Regardless, the more impulsive a society is, the more
| arrogant it is.
|
| America and especially American Jews have the right mix of
| arrogance and capabilities to make the dream come true.
|
| I'd say :
|
| 1) Africa has all the arrogance and impulsiveness but lacks
| in capabilities
|
| 2) Asia has the capabilities but lacks arrogance
|
| 3) Europe has both the capabilities and the arrogance but
| not as much as USA
|
| 4) Usa is the sweet spot, and American Jews are in the
| sweetest spot
| xedrac wrote:
| Somebody likes to generalize large populations of people
| - sort them neatly into buckets and label them.
| Opt_Out_Fed_IRS wrote:
| Violence rates don't lie!
|
| Interpersonal violence and confidence in yourself go hand
| in hand at the societal level.
|
| Places where interpersonal violence abounds has people
| being so arrogant and believing in themselves that they
| have no qualms attacking others, because they KNOW that
| they can't possibly lose. This is Africa
|
| Places where interpersonal violence is low has people
| being very conservative and avoiding confrontations
| because they are scared of losing or succumbing to them:
| this is clearly Asia and Europe to a certain degree
|
| The US is in a sweet spot, actually it was in a sweet
| spot in the 80s, now it has abandoned it and moving
| towards European type society. Still it's the closest
| place to a sweet spot it once occupied and still
| benefiting from the time it spent in that sweet spot
| jlarocco wrote:
| > What other method is there to get ahead as an individual
| other than out-competing your peers?
|
| I think there are a lot of assumptions in that statement that
| highlight the problem.
|
| What does it mean to "get ahead as an individual"? The phrasing
| implies that you mean earning as much money as possible, but
| should that really be our primary goal?
|
| It also implies that for one person to "get ahead", somebody
| else needs to stay behind, but why should that be? Why should I
| work 60 hours a week, and another person zero, when we could
| both work 30?
|
| The problem with making that our culture is that most work is
| not very enjoyable or fulfilling, and so we're basically peer
| pressuring people into miserable lives, and that causes other
| problems like drug addiction and mental health issues.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| You could out-compete them by being smarter. What is the point
| of 'getting ahead' if you die from exhaustion? That's a false
| economy.
| gigatexal wrote:
| This is what killed my dad though it was not the sole cause:
| divorce (his fault, but still) which led to depression which
| caused him to devote all free time into his work. Being a QA
| manager all the stress of timelines fell on him and it worked him
| to death.
| akomtu wrote:
| Did they count only office workers? I bet way more people die in
| cobalt mines in Africa to make our electric car revolution
| affordable.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Interesting that this outrage has only started appearing now
| when there are moves to electrify transport, and was somehow
| never a problem for all previous generations of electronic
| processes - which have relied at least as heavily on cobalt.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| What irks me about outrage culture is many of these pro
| workers types of people think that we can somehow have an
| ethical society but still maintain. So the push for anything
| moral and affordable means someone is gonna get exploited. If
| those people can't be exploited costs will go up. If costs go
| up the product can only be bought by rich people. Then the
| cycle begins again. I wish people would just get a reality
| check that life is filled with people who are exploited.
| That's been our history for millennium. Some new idea is not
| going to change it. The faster people accept this the quicker
| they can work to get to a point where they can try to end the
| cycle...until they realize they're themselves are just
| another cog in the impossible to control machine.
| manquer wrote:
| The overlap between environmentally concerned and electric
| car users is lot more than electronics users. It is serious
| conflict with their story of why they and _you_ should switch
| to electric.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| you must be exaggerating? it's really that bad that literal
| millions die in mines in Africa?
| klyrs wrote:
| [1] doesn't directly answer your question, but there are some
| interesting stats there -- over 300k children, 5 and up, work
| in Bolivian mines. Bolivian Miners die on average 25 years
| earlier than the average Bolivian. Overall, that appears to
| point to a significant amount of premature death caused by
| mining.
|
| On the other hand, the answer to GP's question is that this
| study isn't predominantly about officework. It's a global
| study[2], and miners are likely accounted for. Americans
| account for less than 5% of the statistic.
|
| [1] https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-
| earth/minin...
|
| [2] https://ars.els-
| cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S01604120210022...
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I don't know about _in_ the mines, but there is this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_diamond
|
| I imagine a similar phenomenon exists for other mineral
| resources.
| akomtu wrote:
| "Paid less than $1 a day children are primarily coerced into
| cobalt mining work due to injury or death suffered by parents
| in cobalt mining, the inability to pay school fees, ..."
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Did you mean to enclose an actual source with that comment?
| Without that, it's difficult to verify the scale and
| validity of the issue you're raising (not that I
| necessarily doubt it; I just like to have more coherent
| sources than a pull quote from an anonymous commenter on an
| internet forum).
| munk-a wrote:
| We can do two things at once - in fact society is so large that
| everyone trying to do a single thing is likely to lead to a lot
| of inefficiencies.
|
| If there's a good source on cobalt mine deaths that shines a
| light on the issue why not consider submitting it to HN?
| BeetleB wrote:
| Obvious (hard) question: How many deaths were prevented because
| of this overwork?
| Knufferlbert wrote:
| My sibling comments are a bit cynical. Considering the widely
| reported stress on health care workers during the pandemic I'd
| suspect that number may be higher than one would think despite
| the millions working on throwaway products.
|
| Obviously, society should incentivise that those professions
| that are overworked and useful to society hire/train more, so
| they are not that overworked.
| ornornor wrote:
| I'd suspect not very many. Filing the TPS report by some made
| up arbitrary deadline, forcing the victims to work overtime so
| that a middle manager somewhere can feel important is very
| unlikely to save a life.
|
| When you think about it, most of the work most people do is
| utterly inconsequential and doesn't matter much if at all. And
| even when it does, it's really not so critical that the world
| will end if it's a week or two late, making most overwork
| useless.
| nradov wrote:
| That makes no sense. If most work was truly inconsequential
| then a smart CEO would fire all the inconsequential workers
| to improve profit margins. Companies lay off redundant
| workers all the time.
| bserge wrote:
| Gee, I dunno, those extra 200 smartphones and 40 app features
| that will end up as trash and forgotten a year later sure saved
| a lot of people.
|
| Most of this overwork is for bullshit, mundane reasons that
| aren't even worth a rat's life.
| manquer wrote:
| Not everyone works in software or builds apps, even if you
| don't find meaning in someone's work( or yours) it doesn't
| mean they don't find meaning in that themselves however
| trivial or useless it may seem to you.
|
| A job overworked or not gives a purpose, a lot of people get
| depressed if they loose a job because they lack the purpose.
| Also overwork makes sure there is not much time to think
| about anything else.
|
| I don't encourage overwork, however it can have both positive
| and negative impact on lives.
| paxys wrote:
| If anything this number is too conservative, since the study
| looks at just stroke and heart disease. When you start getting
| into mental health and other less obvious health conditions
| resulting from overwork, the results are sure to be devastating.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Men tend to be ok with dying at work. I'm exaggerating a bit
| but historically, we were doing nothing about safety in 1800s
| until women started working in factories too.
|
| I'm focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than women in
| all Western countries, but most of those deaths were in worker
| jobs, and if we focus on the office workers (and WFH
| candidates), I'm sure the difference is tighter. But still a
| multiple. So let's start somewhere:
|
| We love to overwork ourselves to death, sometimes by sexist
| prejudice ("men are workers!"), sometime by honour ("He died in
| a battle"), sometimes by ideals ("This startup is the work of
| my life"), sometimes for money ("Ok we risk high with this
| robbery, but we might have money in the end") and often because
| we have no friends and no other way to be recognized in
| society.
|
| It's not a fatality, but I'm a bit lost at where to start.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > Men tend to be ok with dying at work. I'm exaggerating a
| bit but historically, we were doing nothing about safety in
| 1800s until women started working in factories too.
|
| > I'm focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than
| women is all Western countries, but most of those deaths were
| in worker jobs, and if we include service industry, I'm sure
| the difference is tighter. But still a multiple.
|
| I think you need to qualify those deaths a bit. On a long
| enough timeline men and women all day at the same rate. If
| it's while at work that absolutely makes sense given that
| women didn't "work" like men did until recently.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| "On a long enough time line", like infinity?
|
| Certainly under any and all finite time periods, the rates
| would differ.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, that's why a claim of 11-18x really needs bounds to
| have value as well.
| hervature wrote:
| Your argument is "when the human species dies, half the
| deaths will be men and half the deaths will be women". That
| is a silly statement. Life expectancy among men is lower
| than women in every country except Afghanistan [1]. The
| necessary imbalance caused is that women spend more of
| their lives single. Either later in life or some women the
| entirety of theirs.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_li
| fe_expe...
| munk-a wrote:
| I think it's actually pretty likely that women are just
| built better than men. I can't even attempt to explain
| why but it just appears that a lot of ailments that
| affect men tend to be rather minimized in women after
| they pass through menopause.
|
| I don't know if it's actually fair to try and ascribe
| expected lifetimes to lifestyle when there are some
| pretty clear biological differences - this strikes me as
| a sort of Occam's Razor situation.
| laurent92 wrote:
| It's pretty likely we care about women. The modern ad
| campaign testify a lot of this behavior.
|
| There was a woman who did immense progress for the miners
| and factory workers, organizing demonstrations and
| strikes. But she had never had success trying to attract
| attention of the number of limbs lost or lives lost. No-
| one cared than men were severing their bodies at work and
| living disabled. Then she stated wording it this way:
|
| "When a man dies at work, it's a WIFE and little CHILDREN
| who can't eat."
|
| Then men started improving safety.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| No, they said:
|
| > I'm focussing on men because they die 11-18x more than
| women in all Western countries, but most of those deaths
| were in worker jobs, and if we focus on the office
| workers (and WFH candidates), I'm sure the difference is
| tighter. But still a multiple.
|
| I asked that they qualify the deaths - men don't die
| 11-18x more than women - they die the exact same - 100%.
| Age range it, provide bounds to that statistic. Because
| even "while working" doesn't make sense if less women
| work than men.
| laurent92 wrote:
| At work.
|
| Example: In France, there are about 500 deaths at work,
| 40 are women. It's getting lower in general but actually
| increasing for women until before the Covid, as equality
| makes progress in worker positions.
| Jiocus wrote:
| Fewer women die in total, than men. This is because
| roughly 51% of all births are boys, 49% girls.
| paxys wrote:
| Men have "worked" professionally for thousands of years.
| Women have entered the workforce at the same scale for maybe
| a few decades now. Give it time and they will be socially
| expected to kill themselves for the corporate good as well.
| Equality!
| whiddershins wrote:
| > they die 11-18x more than women
|
| I'm pretty sure, currently everyone dies exactly the same
| amount.
|
| 100%
| robocat wrote:
| > men die 11-18x more than women in all Western countries
|
| Firstly, your numbers are meaningless without context (we all
| die eh!?)
|
| More importantly, work might be a small factor but other
| factors are believed to be more important.
|
| From https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151001-why-women-
| live-l... are two points:
|
| Firstly, testosterone has been implicated as the cause: "A
| few [institutionalised men] were forcibly castrated as part
| of their 'treatment'. Like the Korean eunuchs, they too lived
| for longer than the average inmate - but only if they had
| been sterilised before the age of 15."
|
| Secondly: "female chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and
| gibbons also consistently outlive the males of the group".
|
| Additionally, I have read that women having XX chromosomes
| and either one or the other X chromosome is active in each
| cell (a kind of chimerism) which has been though to provide
| more resiliency.
|
| Edited: made writing clearer.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| An employee of mine used to be a paramedic. He said is was
| very common to for men to die at their computers w/ their
| pants around their ankles. I guess that counts as dying while
| working...
| WalterBright wrote:
| I couldn't be a paramedic. Too much sadness. Being an
| oncologist has to be brutal, too.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Sort of makes you want to have a watch heart beat linked
| app that clears your browser history.
| dheera wrote:
| > We love to overwork ourselves to death
|
| I'm not sure that's true. It's just the system is often set
| up with the rule of "overwork or be left behind".
|
| Common work schedule in China these days is "996" or 9am-9pm,
| six days a week. It's standard across internet companies.
| ByteDance and Pinduoduo I believe are "11116", i.e. 11am-11pm
| six days a week.
|
| I don't think anyone actually wants that schedule, honestly.
|
| Yes, it destroys families, it wrecks people's lives, it
| contributes to screwing up everyone's cardiac and mental
| health, it drives people to depression and worse. But it's
| not like you can negotiate with them to work 9am-5pm five
| days a week for slightly less pay. They don't offer that
| option.
|
| This isn't really China-specific either. iBankers in NYC do
| the same or more hours and they also aren't offered a 9-5
| option, it's either work all your waking hours or you're
| fired.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| > Men tend to be ok with dying at work.
|
| This isn't _quite_ what you are referring to, but, back in
| the days when I had delusions of becoming a college
| professor, I had always thought I would die in front of a
| blackboard, with a piece of chalk in my hand.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've often said that I intend to work until they carry me
| out in a box.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I know a guy who said he wouldn't retire because he
| wanted to die at work and make them clean up his mess for
| once.
| munk-a wrote:
| Getting into gender biases is a touchy subject to many but I
| would highlight that (and this is all generalities, please
| don't assume this applies to everyone who identifies as this
| gender) men tend to be a lot better at single task focus
| while women tend to be a lot better at multi-task focusing.
| I'm in an extreme camp here as I'm a man with ADHD and thus
| tend to hyperfocus on tasks (or be unable to latch onto them)
| to the detriment of other tasks.
|
| But I'd actually disagree about gender being the primary
| drive of this - I'd instead state that the "young" (vaguely
| defined) tend to be more willing to invest everything
| singlemindedly compared to the "mature". With an
| understanding that gender also seems to contribute this but
| also contributes to maturity with women tending to mature to
| the idea of having a family at a younger age then men.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Having a family doesn't make men work less. It's more usual
| for the opposite to happen.
|
| One of my many disagreements with feminism is that it has
| somehow persuaded itself that this is somehow a _privilege_
| for men, and not an intolerable and sometimes literally
| fatal burden.
| Yoric wrote:
| Feminists I know (including myself) consider that the
| "patriarchal society" is a trap for both gender.
|
| There are other brands of feminism, of course.
| door101 wrote:
| > One of my many disagreements with feminism is that it
| has somehow persuaded itself that this is somehow a
| privilege for men, and not an intolerable and sometimes
| literally fatal burden.
|
| It definitely is a privilege, as a whole. People bring up
| workplace fatalities, and compare the experience of poor
| or working-class men vs women in general. The experience
| of a working class woman in this country is absolutely
| worse than that of a working class man, but both are very
| bad, because our country is not built for our working
| class or poor, regardless of gender.
|
| If you compare women vs men in the same class, men
| undeniable have privilege.
| wisty wrote:
| By "men", I assume you're switching between "male humans" and
| "whoever controls society". Yes, society has been happy for
| male humans to work themselves to death. Maybe it's
| patriarchy, maybe it's their families who benefit from the
| resources they bring back.
|
| It's not entirely unheard of for men to do things for their
| family. It's not uncommon for women to do this either. If
| stereotypes have any accuracy, men tend to be willing to do
| an awful lot to impress women (e.g. "happy wife, happy
| life").
| TaylorSwift wrote:
| I work so much that I do not know what to do with my freetime,
| and become really bored. So I just go back to work. It's a
| vicious cycle. It's brutal.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I know that feeling. For me the only way to get out of it was
| to take a sabbatical. My interests and passions flowed back
| quickly.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I have noticed this too during crunchtime projects. At some
| point you lose your ability to do other things besides working.
| For me this is a clear signal to take a vacation or work less.
| I don't really want to sacrifice my life to my corporate
| overlords.
| [deleted]
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Not sure how to interpret this. In the 1800's, a 12-hour shift 6
| days a week was normal. Life expectancy wasn't much different
| (except child mortality of course).
|
| Have to think its our attitude toward work that is part of the
| problem? Now, I don't endorse 12-hour days. But it seems that
| 60-hour weeks aren't the whole story, if 72-hour weeks used to be
| the norm.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Quite a few people decried the industrial revolution as
| objectionable precisely because they were subjected to
| excessive toil.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| No it wasn't. People would work about half to 2/3rds of the
| year, and about 10 hours a day.
| Yoric wrote:
| > Not sure how to interpret this. In the 1800's, a 12-hour
| shift 6 days a week was normal. Life expectancy wasn't much
| different (except child mortality of course).
|
| Are you sure? I seem to remember otherwise.
| [deleted]
| douglaswlance wrote:
| This study is very flawed. They claim there is a direct link, but
| they didn't control for alcohol and tobacco consumption. If you
| look at a map of tobacco consumption vs. their map of deaths by
| overwork, they're very similar.
|
| Lower income folks work more hours and are more likely to self-
| medicate. It isn't the additional hours that kill them,
| necessarily.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Arguably true, but given that people consume cigarettes as a
| mild(ish) fast-acting stimulant, it's certainly reasonable to
| treat overwork as a proximate cause.
| manquer wrote:
| Overwork only directly kills you if there is workplace accident
| because you worked long hours and your attention slipped and
| you drove off the road/ machinery fell on you etc.
|
| Almost _always_ overwork does not kill "directly", if your
| premise is alcohol and tobacco is not controlled, my question
| is then how much of alcohol or tobacco consumption is driven by
| overwork.
| lostmsu wrote:
| So it is possible there's an indirect link instead of a direct
| link. Still for practical purposes it might be that the
| intermediate step (e.g. self-destructive behavior) is extremely
| hard to get rid of.
| blocked_again wrote:
| Does browsing twitter, youtube, HN etc all day after work also
| counts as overwork?
| WalterSear wrote:
| This is often presenteeism, and it can be a result of overwork.
| cle wrote:
| How do they determine this number, or that someone died of
| overwork? Can someone summarize the methodology in layman's
| terms? I tried reading the paper but it is (understandably)
| technical.
| [deleted]
| raziel2701 wrote:
| "Hard work never killed anyone but why take a chance?"
|
| Guess it's time to remove that one.
| austincheney wrote:
| It's only work if you don't like it. I worked far less last year
| on my military deployment but it was really stressful work that
| raised my blood pressure 40 points and resulted in serious weight
| gain.
|
| Now that I am currently working from home where I can pet my cat,
| tend my garden, watch Netflix, and still work as much as I want I
| am happy as a clam.
| freddealmeida wrote:
| Probably another reason for a lockdown.
| lurquer wrote:
| I wonder how many were overworked doctors treating overworked
| patients. I could imagine a chain reaction occurring where you
| could wipe out several thousand doctors and nurses merely by
| showing up at the ER. (Not to mention all the overworked health
| insurance adjusters who'd necessarily be involved.)
| ExcavateGrandMa wrote:
| me I have no job... & you wouldn't believe the actually lost
| value :D
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