"Emlyn" <emlyn@one.net.au> writes:
> Good points Harvey. I just have to quibble with this one...
>
> > 5. Free Time: We also work less time and have a lot of free time.
> > That is a major difference.
>
> Everything I've read says that we work more than ever, that the trend over
> time has been for the amount of hours people spend working to increase,
> rather relentlessly. We may possibly this century be beginning to turn that
> around... although with the 35 hour week fading from memory for most of us
> (yes, it used to exist here), I doubt it.
I think this is is mostly a case of rising expectations: we expect
more free time, and hence feel that we work all the time. If we
compare with the dawn to dusk working days that were common before the
21th century we definitely do not work muc more.
What may be really changing is that the time constraints of work are
being dissolved, and this makes it to creep into the free time. I no
longer have to stop working because it gets too dark, thanks to
Edison, and today computers makes it possible to work regardless of
what time it is outside my window - which means there is no strong
external reason to stop. We seem to be moving towards a
time-delocalized society.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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