
Live longer, work longer - e15ctr0n
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21679463-live-longer-work-longer
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AlexB138
Why would people want to work longer? As much as I enjoy technology, working
is the least pleasant part of my life. Perhaps if I were self employed it
would be better, but spending the vast majority of my time selling my time to
a company is not something I would like to figure out a way to do more of.

I intend to do everything in my power to retire early, and something about the
discussion of keeping the elderly working longer strikes me as perverse and
crass. I think we, as a society, should be trying to figure out how to let the
elderly enjoy their twilight years with some dignity, not how to wring every
last cent of tax money and GDP out of them that we can.

~~~
munificent
> Why would people want to work longer? As much as I enjoy technology, working
> is the least pleasant part of my life.

I think modern industrial civilization encourages a sort of
compartmentalization of roles and terms that isn't actually real. Certainly,
for many people, their _job_ is not a pleasant part of their life. From that
angle, sure, no one wants to keep doing that until the day they die.

But that doesn't mean the alternative—pure idle leisure—is that great either.
Doing nothing sounds awesome when you're burnt out, but after a week or two of
it, most people will start chewing on the wallpaper.

This dichotomy that "everything that you do for money is unpleasant and
unsatisfying" and "everything that is recreational is easy and unchallenging"
is false. There is a whole spectrum of difficulty, reward, and monetary
compensation and jobs, hobbies, recreations and pastimes occupy all sorts of
points on it.

For most people, they want to spend a good portion of their time doing things
that are _rewarding_ , and not necessarily _easy_. Being retired just means
you can optimize for personal satisfaction without having to also optimize for
monetary gain.

If I could retire today, sure, I'd get a bit more sleep. But I'd also hack
more open source code, write more books, and volunteer. Those are difficult
things (especially that middle one). Does that make them "work"? In the sense
of "working on the book", "my life's work", etc. yes. But is it "work" in the
sense of "thing I'd only do for money"? Certainly not.

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iamsohungry
Bob Black's essay, _The Abolition of Work_ gives an alternative dichotomy to
the "work versus idleness" dichotomy: work versus play. You can be paid for
playing if your play produces value (and many forms of play do produce value).

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coldtea
Pursue a career you like and feels like play (DJing, skating, liberal arts,
photography, music) and you wont have to work a day in your life (because
nobody's hiring).

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iamsohungry
I realize you're joking, but in the context of this discussion, this shouldn't
be mistaken for a valid point. We're talking about how to structure a society,
and I think it makes sense to structure society in a way that allows people to
play, maybe not all the time, but more and more as technology reduces the need
to work. Continuing to push the idea that work is a value in itself as work
provides less and less value is going to be a bigger and bigger problem as the
need for work decreases.

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nugget
People talk a lot about ''quality of life'' but not so much about ''quality of
job'' or ''quality of work life''. I used to have a job I hated and couldn't
wait to retire (early). Now I have a job I love and hope to keep doing it
forever, or as long as I'm competent at least. The difference isn't the amount
of work but has rather more to do with autonomy, flexibility of hours, smart
co-workers and low stress. Not sure if that scales across the workforce. Maybe
some people are only productive in medium to high stress environments where
there are constant external pressures to perform?

One downside I can see is that if retirement ages are extended and old folks
work longer, then opportunities for young folks to enter the workforce will be
delayed and overall unemployment may increase.

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vinceguidry
Your criteria are off somewhat.

Most people have jobs they hate and no workable path towards finding something
they love. In tech, we are very lucky to have skills that we a) enjoy
employing, b) can mostly keep doing until our minds fail us, and c) are in
high enough demand so as to pay us a living wage.

The vast majority of people aren't so lucky. Your criteria, autonomy,
flexibility of hours, nice coworkers, low stress, can't be prioritized unless
the former are also satisfied.

To want to work until you die is a privilege afforded to very few. Workable,
socially-subsidized retirement plans are needed for everyone else.

~~~
throwaway999888
I don't know if I should interpret this common sentiment as programmers being
humble about their jobs and lives, or being braggy about it.

What is the huge difference between programming and most other white-collar
jobs, really? Is programming so incredibly liberating and personally
fulfilling compared to them? If so, why? It's not that I can't believe that it
is true. I'm just curious why it is such a massive difference, apparently.

On the other hand, even for people who _looove coding_ , there is no shortage
of those of them who complain that they don't like their coding _job_. A
programming competition is different to coding your own project by yourself,
is different from coding whatever greenfield project for a job, is different
from being stuck with a monolithic codebase as a maintenance programmer.

~~~
ashark
The main thing I enjoy about it, as compared with many other careers, is that
it's in-demand enough that I'm not at risk of having to put up with anyone's
shit for very long if I don't want to. That's not true in many other careers,
where _all_ the jobs will be fairly bad because supply/demand for those
workers is poor enough that they don't have much power to push back.

Meanwhile, if management does something I don't like and gives me the
impression they'll do it again, I start casually applying for other jobs with
an expectation of finding something better in a month or two. I can tell
managers "no" if they ask too much of me and if they insist on a yes... OK,
fine, but you'll be receiving my two-weeks notice before long, hope that was
worth it. I can be relaxed in interviews because I know I _am_ the kind of
person they're looking for, and if this place doesn't realize that then the
next one will. I can bid up my salary because eff it, why not?

I have these liberties and I'm not even in a hot market, and I'm not some
superstar developer. Just competent. I'm pretty sure this is _very_ unusual,
even in white-collar jobs.

This situation won't last—especially for those down the skill/experience
ladder—but it sure is nice right now.

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ryandrake
One unfortunate consequence of the trend of retiring later and later is that
it halts advancement and puts people's careers in limbo who would otherwise be
climbing the ranks.

When people generally retired at 65 or so, "mid career" would be around 35-40,
where you'd start managing or taking on more senior roles. Now you see people
still clinging to their senior executive jobs at 85, crowding out everyone
else's advancement. You have 40 and 50 year olds still in low level jobs, and
you need to be in your late 50s or early 60s in order to start climbing the
ladder. Kind of a crappy situation, unless you're one of the lucky type who
doesn't care about advancement.

~~~
jessriedel
This can't be more than a transient friction. It would obviously be better if
everyone were robust enough to magically work into their were 90s (from a
productivity perspective, not just well-being). This would allow more people
to accumulate more expertise, etc.

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JamesBarney
I think this is why studies looking at ways to promote lifespan beyond just
treating disease are so important. And it seems like the medical and
scientific community are coming around to the same idea.

A great example of the changing mindset in the scientific community is a new
study on metformin to increase longevity.[0]

Given how low interest rates are and the profound savings from delaying
senescence, it is a great fiscal opportunity for government research.

[0][https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287](https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287)

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grecy
The official age of retirement in Canada is now 67, and most people agree it
will bump up to 69 in the next decade like it is in a few European countries.

As a male born in Australia in 1982, my life expectancy is....72.

I feel a lot like the Clydesdale in Animal Farm, working my entire life to
enjoy a very brief (or no) retirement. It's complete nonsense and I refuse to
do it. I just quit so I can drive around Africa for a few years.

(I'm aware life expectancy doesn't work like that, and that it's already gone
up seeings I've lived to 33 already. I'm using it as an illustration)

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CodeCube
From the little chart they have on there ... one datapoint that stuck out was
iceland. Their employment age is significantly higher than other nations.

along the same line as nugget's comment, I wonder how those older workers'
quality of life/job/work life is?

~~~
larrik
Iceland sticks out on a lot of charts. Very interesting place.

~~~
seren
Keep in mind that Iceland population is around ~300K people (with one third
living in the capital city), so compared to the vast world, this is roughly
equal to a mid-size city.

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littletimmy
On the one hand, I see how this might be necessary to continue a welfare
state.

On the other hand, really? A person is institutionalized from a very early age
(school), proceeds to follow orders from a boss (work-life for most), and now
policy makers want to limit even the small part of life that a person has to
himself (retirement). Might it not be a better option to impose a wealth tax
on the very rich and use that to fund retirement?

~~~
rconti
The purpose is to maintain the same amount of retirement as life expectancy
goes up. Perhaps it would be more fair to split the difference. But the point
is that the 'old' retirement age shouldn't be static as life expectancy rises,
because of the costs of state-sponsored benefits.

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galfarragem
It seems to exist a correlation between early retirement and high deficits on
country budgets..

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jsprogrammer
Paywalled.

