
Waking up early serves capitalism - laurex
https://qz.com/work/1435324/how-to-wake-up-early-dont/
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wowzap
I find this article bizarre. I wake up at 5AM so that I can juggle personal
goals - fitness, hobbies, etc with my workday which goes from ~10-5. I
typically can work out in the morning, beat my coworkers to work (start work
at 7:30, they get in at 10), wrap whatever I had to for the day before my 10AM
meeting, spend time during working hours exercising more, playing piano, or
flying drones, then do a bit more work, cook AND STILL be in bed by 9:30PM to
support my sleep.

Yes, many early risers who are "cultish" are total dorks that are sleep-
depriving themselves and evangelize their wakeup time to appear "elite", but
if I miss sleep I know it immediately - I feel mentally drunk all day and get
mood swings, make simple mistakes, forget things, and oversimplify tasks. As
such, I try to be in bed by 9/9:30 to get ~7 hours of sleep which still
irritates my tension headaches, increases my workday stress and comes with a
whole slew of compromises.

Regardless, I wouldn't trade my rising early lifestyle for the alternative -
oversleeping (11->8), getting into work at 10, feeling tired all day, getting
30% as much done, no hobbies, no exercise... no thank you.

~~~
no_identd
As someone who finds it impossible to change their sleep cycle and has tried
almost everything in that regard & read a very large chunk of the scientific
literature on sleep, both your view and the view of the article seem naive.

~~~
rorykoehler
Maybe the GP is a natural early riser. I'm not but have managed to orient
earlier. If left to my own devices 4am or 5am bed times are the norm but as I
work I am up before 8am feeling fully rested and on an 8:15am call every
morning. I must get 7-8 hours every night. That is the main differentiator.

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bobochan
> having free time after you put your children to bed, or watching one of the
> 17 Netflix shows everyone is talking about

These are two things that are not a big sacrifice for me. But honestly, I am
continually baffled by posts that insinuate that waking up at 5:30 or 6:00 is
some bizarre ritual. Since the quote mentions children, I will just throw out
that a school start time of 8:00 generally means having to leave for school
before 7:30, which makes a 6:00 alarm pretty necessary if you want to start
off with a good breakfast.

We have lights out by 10PM (with the occasional homework mandated exemption)
and everyone is up by 6AM after eight hours of sleep. This has never once
seemed like an unusual schedule to keep.

~~~
wink
In retrospect I'm really glad to have lived where I lived. Once I was old
enough to get to school safely in my own pace sleeping until 7:30 to get there
on time just before 8 was so much better than having to wake up at 7 :D

~~~
bobochan
The elementary school was only a five minute walk away, but even still, the
kids always wanted to be at school early to play soccer, ice skate, etc. It
has always been more of an issue telling the kids that they cannot get to
school too early, rather than the opposite.

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logfromblammo
How about this? All the larks move to California, and all the owls move to New
York. Then everyone can have a synchronized workday starting at 10 AM EST & 7
AM PST.~

If that sounds ridiculous, it was supposed to. I am very irritated with lark
propaganda, trying to make me feel bad about my natural bio-clock. My opinion
is that your work will be best when your body is healthiest, and that will
happen when you go to sleep when you get tired, and sleep until you wake up
without assistance or unnatural interruptions.

~~~
rorykoehler
You've just invented the time communist utopia.

~~~
logfromblammo
From each according to schedule; to each according to fatigue.

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mikestew
So the summary is that waking up early is bad if you skimp on sleep to do it?
Duh. And you're serving your corporate overlords by doing so? Oooookay.

Waking up early serves me, my employer doesn't care what time I come in. But
traffic is a hell of a lot easier at 7:00 than it is at even 10:00. And I get
to go home at 3:30. And then I go to bed at a decent hour so I can get my
sleep.

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bootsz
Agree. Being sleep deprived is not a good long-term strategy. I can wake up
early if I wanted to but I need to go to bed way earlier too, which
historically hasn't fit well with my lifestyle.

The only real advantage I see to shifting your day earlier is that there's
generally less distractions or unexpected demands on your time in the early
morning because, well, no one else is awake.

I prefer to work on side-pursuits in the evenings but I do find that the time
gets easily hijacked by other stuff like social/family obligations, etc. IMO
it's probably easier protect your productive time by saying "sorry I have to
go to bed" than "sorry I gotta go work on my Scheme interpreter".

See also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18111034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18111034)

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spurcell93
This is really simple. If your life allows it, sleep as much as makes you feel
rested. Go to bed when you need to sleep. I have been fortunate enough to do
this for the last two years and I can't stress the impact it has had on my
mood and my mental health. Obviously the "allows it" part is a large
qualifier, but still. I think it probably applies to a large amount of HN
readers.

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jumbopapa
Most people I know that wake up early do so to serve themselves, not
capitalism. If you go to the gym you're doing that for the health benefits and
you know you're less likely to make an excuse and not go after work if you
just get it out of the way in the morning. If you wake up earlier to enjoy a
nice breakfast it's so that you are fully energized throughout the day. If you
go to work earlier it's so that you can better your life by increasing income
or getting that promotion you want. Not everything is some conspiracy about
our capitalist overlords. Capitalism has alleviated more poverty than any
economical system, so I don't understand the need for constant demonization.

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CompelTechnic
It is very strange that the thrust of the piece is defined as:

Waking up early is good for capitalism, but not good for your own interests

As opposed to:

Waking up early is good for your career interests given that you work in a
capitalist system, but not good for your other interests

Anthropomorphizing capitalism and portraying its grand stance as a monolith
that demands more time and sweat be thrown into it (for the good of
Capitalism!) sure is a nice literary touch. But its a very subversive way of
appealing to people's self pity. I can feel the implicit assumptions of
language embodied within this article chewing on my mind and damaging the
definitions I need to be able to rely on.

~~~
qubax
> Waking up early is good for your career interests given that you work in a
> capitalist system, but not good for your other interests

Isn't that the gist of the article? Whether you serve capitalism or whether
capitalism serves you?

It's like industrial farming. Do the cows exist to serve the farm or does the
farm exist to serve the cows?

Maybe both? Who knows.

~~~
Nasrudith
Depends on how you define it - while they may not have the best lifestyle it
did result in them outnumbering humanity and being fed. While the intent is
for humans clearly symbiosis can work on selfishness. Bees are just after the
nectar of flowers but the plants get to mate with distant others while being
completely sessile. The spice of peppers was "meant" to deter those who would
eat it and destroy its seeds but humans are freaks who destroy it with
digestion and like it but deliberately farm it enmasse so it works out for the
plant. It has no agency clearly but it is served nonetheless.

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coldtea
Generic comment about how I personally go home early anyway, and thus since I
do so, the article is moot.

(even if tons of employees don't go home early anyway, and the kind that
follows the "wake up early" doctrine peddled by social media influencers is
overworked).

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djhworld
I get up at 6:20am, leave the house at 7:15, get to work for 8:15

Go home at 4:15pm

The sole reason why I do this is purely a matter of comfort on my commute, the
London Underground is much more pleasant if you take the tube outside of the
peak periods.

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mellowdream
... This, according to a "travel and lifestyle" "journalist" with a degree in
environmental studies. Thank you, very cool!

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tareqak
I think a what a lot of the commenters here are missing is that not every
employee has the choice of when they get to come in for work.

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dwags
I wake up early so I can get to work early and read hacker news for an extra
hour before my co workers get here

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cafard
Waking up early also serves families with children between birth and
adolescence. For that matter, it serves subsistence farmers--there are
roosters crowing--in pretty much any economic system.

Also, what calendar are the folks working from who write about "late
capitalism"? I'm not saying they are wrong; I just wonder whether there is a
date at which they will notice that capitalism is still around, and reconsider
their forecast.

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cirgue
Clickbait about capitalism serves capitalism.

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clircle
I'm pretty tired of the false dichotomy that capitalism has an early stage and
a late stage.

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hn17
I belive it's a clickbait article or the author doesn't really tried to
understand benefits of getting up early. How can it serve capitalism if
someone uses first hours of the day for himself not employer.

