Did you know that before world war 2 people were speculating that we could active a 4 hour workday at 5 days a week?

@Greenbare i think flexibility in how those hours are worked are important. A lot of people would benefit more from three 7 hour days or two ten hour days. Some creative pursuits would do well under multiple shorter days.

I know I can have extremely productive short days in my current career. But keeping focused over a long day gets hard to stay focused and I lose a lot of efficiency.

A less intellectually demanding job I would probably favor fewer, longer days.

@Riverman Might get a few more to join SW ;)

@Nimbus 😨😰😱

@puck61 🆒

@dumpstermeow not really. It relies on more technological automation and better access to education. We have a lot of BS jobs robots can do. We have a lot of non BS jobs robots will be doing in twenty or thirty years anyways. If those displaced workers had free access to education to develop the skills the robots aren't so good at, we'd have plenty of workers.

We're already looking at underemployment. Don't let the low unemployment fool you. Lot of people are struggling to get even 30 hour work weeks in unskilled areas of the economy. And the reserve workforce, those unemployed but not actively seeking, is still large enough that wages are not yet rising under pressure.

Yes, a lot of things would have to change in order to utilize the work force we do have. But we do have it.

@ViciDraco we're constantly interviewing and can't find qualified candidates. These robot workers seem ideal.

@dumpstermeow I welcome our robot overlords. I really believe having machines do more of the work is better. We just need policy to serve a society where people are not as tied to work.

@cherokeepatti with the cost of childcare these days and parents having to constantly be out working, it would change the current parenting relationship completely. People actually being home for their children and not too exhausted from work to actually do things with them? Imagine!

@Elegy people were tracking productivity increasing with technology and also assuming a model where we produced more durable goods rather than goods designed to fail over time like we have now. It was also around the time labor was making big inroads into worker's rights and shortened work weeks were still fresh in memory as recent accomplishments that could be taken further.

A lot of the people who believed these things were labeled Communists after the war and their movement marginalized and forgotten as a result.