News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Could a four-day working week become the norm? by linspace on Friday July 09, 2021 @03:59AM (#27781430)
As someone who is always doing side projects or at least thinking about them I do wonder if for certain part of the population having more free time would also mean more creativity and a net improvement for all of society. I know I'm biased and it's wishful thinking but it could be true.
Re:Could a four-day working week become the norm? by borjah on Friday July 09, 2021 @04:15AM (#27781515)
You nailed. True, less work means more time for side gigs, ideas and self-improvement, you are not the only one that hopes for a future like this. Every day more I think Star-Trek predicted the future with a degree of precision quite impressive.
Re:Could a four-day working week become the norm? by vidarh on Friday July 09, 2021 @05:11AM (#27781805)
This is the basis for Marx' infamous "hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic" quote from The German Ideology - the notion that wage work alienates people from the work they do and end up controlling them.
Re:Could a four-day working week become the norm? by alexgmcm on Friday July 09, 2021 @06:08AM (#27782160)
I wasn't familiar with the quote:

“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.

He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

Re:Could a four-day working week become the norm? by linspace on Friday July 09, 2021 @07:20AM (#27782530)
Now that we are quoting, of course:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

-- Robert Heinlein