I wish it was only 40 hours
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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Welllll the 40 hr work week is based off our 24 hour days and some planets have much longer than 24 hours in their day. So realistically some planets could have 60 hr work weeks. Plus we have no idea the governmental structure and ideology of other worlds and if they even allow you to stop working at all/you're worked to death or if they have such an advanced society that you don't even really have to work much at all.
Basically, this is kinda dumb.
Sort of, but but really. You're right that historically the daylight hours set an upper limit on the amount of work that can be done per week for most types of work, but that limit is far higher than 8 hours per day over 5 days. The 40 hour work week is based on unions fighting for a 40 hour work week. If it wasn't for the unions you'd be working all day every day except Sunday, for religious reasons.
That might change over the next few decades too, the current fight is for a 4 day work week and studies are showing promising results there.
Unions are absolutely why we have 40 hour work weeks I wasn't saying otherwise. Just that because of how our day works 8 hours of work was what people fought for. If we had days that were 48 hours things could be different and people could have fought for 10 hours days. Of course this is all hypothetical and we have no idea what people actually would have fought for.
The point isn't about how our work week works though, it's about how dumb it is to assume that other planets wouldn't have possibly longer work weeks.
Interesting idea. Since we don’t see as well at night, we evolved to use that time to sleep. Were a day 48 hours in length we probably would have evolved to be awake twice as long, and then sleep twice as long. So proportionally we would probably be working the same amount.
Daaaaaaamn this is fire. Rhetorically.
I have a 40 hour work week. And two more jobs than are ten hours work per week. And I need to do these, or I don't have health insurance and can't afford my rent.
It's a simulation. The nothingness of space is used as an isolation barrier to keep us feeling important. Just another guard rail to keep the experiment going.
Either it happens, or it doesn't. I'd say that's exactly 50/50.
What if all those other galaxies are just like us? Like totally different, but also exactly the same. How terrible would that be?!
Well given the low likelihood that any of them have intelligent life the fact that you're able to ask means the chances are probably 100%
Since when do we have a 40 hour work week? I don't know anyone who works only 40 hours
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