
The Free-Time Paradox in America - jnordwick
http://www.theatlantic.com/A/archive/2016/09/the-free-time-paradox-in-america/499826/?single_page=true
======
forrestbrazeal
This article (in the tradition of Keynes) makes the implicit assumption that
more leisure is good/brings happiness. (Hence the seeming paradox that rich
people - those who should be able to afford more leisure - appear to work
more.) I don't think that's true. There's a reason that retiring early is
literally bad for your brain [0] - healthy adults are supposed to be engaged
in productive activity. Whether productive activity means punching a clock,
volunteering at a $nonprofit or striking out on your own, the point is that
our minds and bodies need to be actively living, not just passively consuming.

If you view underemployed young people with lots of "free time" as trapped by
leisure and cheap entertainment, the paradox goes away - they're not in an
enviable position at all.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/this-
is-y...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/this-is-your-
brain-on-retirement---not-nearly-as-sharp-studies-are-
finding/2015/10/29/7a0168ba-7dac-11e5-afce-2afd1d3eb896_story.html)

~~~
adrusi
That's a misunderstanding of what free time is. Free time isn't unproductive
time, its unrestricted time. Free time, if fully exploited, can't be worse
than the alternative because you're free to do the alternative if its the best
use of your time!

The problem is that people don't know how to use their free time, and so it
ends up spent getting high and watching TV. Maybe people would be better at
exploiting the time they have if they were allowed free time earlier in life.
Kids are pretty good at taking advantage of the time they have, maybe if they
were allowed to keep more freedom through to adulthood they'd keep the skill.
Maybe if our non-free time weren't so stressful we wouldn't feel the need to
use our free time just to unwind. Or maybe its that entertainment has gotten
too compelling. I'd rather not believe that people have an innate need to be
forced to do whatever they do.

~~~
323454
You're right about kids: they spend much of their free time exploring and
playing like they're hard wired to do it.

I think our 19th-century-style schools are the problem: we drum information
and behaviours into kids until they forget how to be independent. All this
time wasted sitting at a desk in a classroom means they might miss out on the
chance to develop a passion for something, something that they would fill
their free time with later in life. And then we're surprised that people just
want to watch netflix.

~~~
rimantas
Yeah, just think what a nice ornate roof we could build if we skipped
foundations and spent all the time saved on the roof…

~~~
xenophonf
That misses the point, which is that rote memorization and the recitation of
facts does not lay any kind of intellectual foundation, but rather attempts to
turn children into diligent factory workers.

~~~
tamana
You think that memorizing facts in school is useful for factory workers?

~~~
thatcat
It's the behavioral compliance of memorizing facts that you're not
particularly interested in on demand that is a useful trait for factory/office
workers

------
chollida1
I can think of a few other things the article doesn't touch on that influence
me.

1) Once you become rich you also have a fair bit of say in what it is that you
do. If you are an hourly worker stocking shelves at Walmart your autonomy is
limited and the chance that boredom sets in is much higher than it might be
for most white collar employees. Where white collar employee's is a proxy for
rich.

2) An hourly worker can only grow their income linearly with the number of
hours that they work. The rich often have huge leverage with the time they put
in vs the amount of money they get out. Sales is one example of this, a hedge
fund employee might be another case. This tends to favour the "you eat what
you kill" type of compensation.

3) The people I know who become rich often do so not by diversification but
typically from concentrating on one endeavor, typically a company. In this
case the company tends to become a very large part of their life. They aren't
always at their desk but they are always thinking about their company. Maybe
this is just an offshoot of point 2).

~~~
forgetsusername
Your comment touches on _how_ this happens, but not _why_.

If rich people have more say in what they do, why are they working instead of
things that might be more "fun"? If rich people have far more leverage in
their hourly earnings, why not work far fewer hours?

I'm not sure the article really solved it, either. It's a curiosity to me as
someone who has determined the quality of life I desire and want to "work" the
bare minimum to achieve that.

~~~
cloakandswagger
It's pretty simple really: making money feels good.

I run my own business, and as a result I have a very highly correlated effort-
to-earnings relationship. The more I work, the more I make.

I _could_ spend my time doing "leisurely" activities away from work and I'd
still make more than enough to live on, but instead I spend the better part of
my work days (and oftentimes weekends) grinding away, trying to make _this_ my
highest earning September yet.

I don't do this in the pursuit of some end goal. I have fairly modest tastes,
and 90% of the money I earn goes into a bank account or brokerage where it
sits forever.

All I can say is that earning money gives me the most concrete measure of
achievement I've found. When I was a kid I played World of Warcraft
relentlessly, and gaining another level in that game gave me the same sense of
forward progress. Money feels like the grown-up version of that.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Wonder if this is somehow upbringing-related. I've never felt the "making
money feels good" thing. Sure, it feels great to have a surplus on my bank
account, so that I don't have to worry about not having money for food, or
buying quality computing equipment when I need it, or helping a friend in
need. But the act of making money? It always felt to me (and still feels
today) as a period of grinding you have to endure, a painful sacrifice, that
will ensure the bank balance will maintain its level.

------
jondubois
When you get rich, your life becomes much more interesting - You get more
opportunities and you get 'lucky' more often. Also, your work actually makes
your feel good about yourself. In effect, life feels like a game; you actually
get to win from time to time.

The richer you get, the more you win.

When you're poor, life is boring, nothing good ever happens to you and your
work makes you feel like shit. The only time poor people feel good is when
they're playing a computer game which simulates the feeling of 'winning' which
they never get in real life.

Games are fun because they put you on a level playing field with other players
- Your skills actually have an effect on outcomes.

~~~
carleverett
Very interesting theory - I think I agree. I would add though that a good
portion of the causality is going the other way, where people who find work
fun and stimulating become more successful, and those who are bored by it stay
poor.

These are broad generalizations of course that don't capture all of what's
really happening, but they're interesting to think about.

~~~
aleeds
I think that your argument assumes a certain level of job attained already.
Sure, software engineers who enjoy it more become more successful. I doubt
that people finding stocking grocery stores correlates with their success at
all.

~~~
1812Overture
I had a checkout clerk at Target the other day with Down Syndrome who seemed
to LOVE her job and was very good at it. Unfortunately I don't see her working
her way up to CEO.

------
grellas
I read this piece and was very saddened. Take it from someone who has been
around a few more years than many others who contribute to this site. There is
_nothing_ good - _long-term_ \- about sitting around idle for extended
periods. It kills your initiative. It kills your character. It kills your
options in life. It kills your soul. I saw this happen to several people who
were very close to me growing up and I still grieve at what they suffered in
later years as the price paid for the extreme short cuts and high life of
their youth. And this survey fact as reported in this piece - that is, of one
in five non-college-educated young men in their twenties being so very much
out of work for sustained periods - is _not_ cause for celebration or for
launching into philosophical discussions about the value of leisure in a
developed society. It is instead a real tragedy, and I don’t care how many
survey participants check a box attesting that, for the moment, they can say
they have had lots of fun doing pretty much nothing beyond partying and
playing games over the past 12 months or more. I know that today it can often
happen that there are very limited options in the workplace and this so-called
leisure is really an enforced leisure not of people’s own choosing. But that
does not mean we should rationalize this to say that, after all, they do seem
to be satisfied in their leisure. That is nothing more than a superficial
covering-up of a bad situation. It is decidedly unhealthy for the individuals
involved and for society as a whole to have large numbers of young men
involuntarily idled for sustained periods in this way (wasn’t that what we
used to call the Great Depression). Work is not an evil. It is a big part of
how we grow and develop as people. It is a big part of how we negotiate life.
Let us hope there comes a day ahead when enforced “leisure” is no longer a
norm and the leisure people enjoy is of their own choosing.

~~~
droopyEyelids
You're mixing up leisure and idleness.

You're right about idleness, it's like a person going rotten from lack of
structure. Feeling bad, seeking cheap pleasures, going crazy.

But the alternative is leisure. Being able to spend hours playing music,
writing or drawing, having conversations with friends, or watching the clouds.
Building something for fun, or gardening. Making videos or youtubes, anything!

What causes someone to be idle while another person enjoys leisure? It's hard
to say, probably a combination of their peers, their upbringing, their moral
character.

But not working is definitely NOT a universal bad.

------
ascendantlogic
"narcotic undertow of cheap entertainment"

What a perfect way to describe the constant struggle I have with whittling
away evenings drinking beer and playing Overwatch vs investing time in
learning new skills or working on side hustles to generate additional income.

~~~
swagasaurus-rex
Overwatch is got to be the least rewarding fun game to play.

~~~
zzguy
What games are high reward? In terms of getting you a skill that causes
"fulfillment" outside of the game, or gets you money?

~~~
tetraodonpuffer
as maligned as mmos are, being the gm of a guild gives you a lot of free
training on how to be a manager: you have to learn how to motivate people to
work together, defuse issues, deal with egos, even try to figure out ways to
incentivize "unfun" activities so they get done (i.e. farming for raid
materials etc.)

Not sure if you would put it on your resume, but IMHO if I was a hiring
manager and I was hiring for an entry level mgmt position and somebody had
"ran a successful wow guild with 50 members for 2 years" it would definitely
be something I would see very positively

~~~
GFischer
The local office manager was a successful wow guild leader, and he does put it
into his resume and bio :) (not sure if it actually helped him land the job).

------
WalterBright
I remember coming home for Christmas/summer vacation while in college. I was
good for about 10 days, enjoying my leisure. But then I wanted to get back to
work. Leisure is boring.

The same thing happens when I go on vacation now. About 10 days, and I'm
itching to get back to work. I have no interest whatsoever in retiring and
puttering around doing meaningless tasks. I enjoy working, doing hard things,
being in the fray, and most especially doing something productive that
matters.

~~~
grahamburger
I've heard a lot of people say this, but I've never felt this way. After 10
days of vacation all I can think about is that I'd love to figure out a way to
get 10 more. I also get bored/tired of sitting around doing nothing, but I
guess that's just not really how I vacation. I use vacations and time away
from work to explore and work on projects that I enjoy, and to me that's very
fulfilling. I also really loathe working for someone else, so going back to
work isn't particularly intriguing. Although I've been transitioning over the
last year to working for myself, and that is starting to change the way I see
things - partially because I can take long (multi-week) 'vacations' where I
work in the evening and explore during the day.

~~~
simplemath
>After 10 days of vacation all I can think about is that I'd love to figure
out a way to get 10 more

This is every vacation for me. Scheming ways to never come back.

------
legitster
I think what's missing is how much more engrossing higher paying jobs are.
Working on processing lines or customer service, you completely check out
mentally. I wouldn't have been able to bear the thought of working more than I
have to.

But now I'm in the business world and much higher up the ladder. Work is
incredibly engrossing. I love it. And the higher up I go, the more I get to
pick and choose the kind of stuff I want to work on. Making more is just a
special bonus on top of extreme interest in your field.

So I think the premise is pretty much right. People who love their careers do
more of it. People who don't love their careers don't have to do as much of
it.

~~~
orky56
The executive function of the brain involves decision making and creativity.
Many blue collar jobs are repetitive of just following a standard operating
procedure over and over. It becomes taxing and creates an intrinsic limit to
how much can be done. With many white collar jobs especially when promoted to
higher levels of management and autonomy, the pleasure involved with decision-
making makes work as rewarding as playing that game plus there's a monetary
reward. The basic premise of the article is that if the undereducated people
were afforded similar opportunities than we may have a different situation.

~~~
legitster
I'm not even sure if education has anything to do with it. I have lots of
peers who chose careers where they "work-to-live" vs "live-to-work". An
example may be a pharmacist who chose their career, and makes decent money,
but the average pharmacist doesn't feel compelled to work extra hours. If you
offered her more money at less hours, she would take it. Where you offer me
more money, it won't really change the number of hours I am compelled to work.

------
sien
The article points out a possible interesting reason why crime dropped around
1990 all over the developed world.

"So, what are are these young, non-working men doing with their time? Three
quarters of their additional leisure time is spent with video games, Hurst’s
research has shown."

Perhaps 1990 was about the point when computer games got cheap enough and good
enough to keep young men out of trouble.

~~~
kareemsabri
[http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittT...](http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf)

~~~
sien
The thing about legalized abortion is that it would have had no effect outside
the US.

Roe vs Wade had no effect in Europe or Australia.

[http://euc.sagepub.com/content/7/5/375.abstract](http://euc.sagepub.com/content/7/5/375.abstract)

~~~
kareemsabri
That's interesting - though it doesn't disprove the theory in the US. For
example, the declines coincided with the dates individual states legalized
abortion as well (some predated Roe v Wade).

------
tlb
The author avoids an obvious arrow of causality: some people like work, which
causes those people to work hard, which is more likely to make them rich.

There are lots of interacting causes and feedback loops around behavior and
wealth. But trying to understand a subject while omitting an important arrow
of causality can make anything seem like a paradox.

It's weirdly taboo in liberal American journalism to suggest that one's
industriousness might be a major cause of one's economic status. Or maybe not
so weird: journalists work hard and are terribly underpaid relative to their
contribution to society, because the structure of the industry makes it hard
to monetize.

~~~
allemagne
It's not difficult to understand why anyone might not want to argue that "poor
people are poor because they're inherently lazy" from a strictly political
perspective.

In addition, thought, how many children of wealthy families really turn out
poor out of laziness? How many of those wealthy families were impoverished in
the previous generation? If your explanation were as important as you seem to
be saying, maybe those questions shouldn't be easy to answer.

------
tapp
I'd add another factor the author did not mention: the market in which those
"Elite U.S. men" compete is vastly more competitive than it was a generation
ago.

I run a small technology business and have thought about ways to try and
reduce the number of hours I work. One of the principal challenges is that
every day I am fending off competition from offshore firms with lower cost
structures and VC funded startups with resources to burn. That competition
dictates a certain tempo whether I like it or not.

------
ZenoArrow
To me this is the key point...

> “building wealth to them is a creative process, and the closest thing they
> have to fun.”

When you put a lot of your effort into something, you become invested in it.
It doesn't matter what it is. I'd suggest that past a certain point, the drive
for greater material wealth is no longer about survival or comfort, but is
instead about wealth as its own end goal. It's like grinding in an RPG, if you
grind past a certain point the game itself becomes too easy, so the enjoyment
changes to maxing out your stats just because you can.

------
grn
> The rich were meant to have the most leisure time. The working poor were
> meant to have the least.

Only in fairy tales. The conclusion in economic textbooks is always the same:
if you're rich the opportunity cost of having a day off are _much_ higher so
the more you can create in an hour the _less_ likely it is you'll have a day
off. That's why CEOs of larger companies have assistants or, in case of mega
corps, helicopters or planes.

Practical conclusion: if you're an independent professional schedule a fixed
number in a year of weeks for vacations. If you plan for it you'd be less
likely to hesitate than when making the decision on a week-by-week basis.
(Said a person who had longer vacations about 5 years ago)

~~~
rconti
Absolutely. I'm SO glad I'm not hourly. I'd never take vacation because I'd
think about all the money I'm 'losing'. I'd have a hard time enjoying
unemployment for the same reason, even with ample savings.

I make it a point to use up all my allotted vacation, which has the side
effect of making me more productive, and makes me more respected at work than
the guy who is trampled all over because he never takes time off.

------
hprotagonist
>A Salary of Smoke

Don’t be too upset when you see the poor kicked around, and justice and right
violated all over the place. Exploitation filters down from one petty official
to another. There’s no end to it, and nothing can be done about it. But the
good earth doesn’t cheat anyone—even a bad king is honestly served by a field.

The one who loves money is never satisfied with money, Nor the one who loves
wealth with big profits. More smoke.

The more loot you get, the more looters show up. And what fun is that—to be
robbed in broad daylight?

Hard and honest work earns a good night’s sleep, Whether supper is beans or
steak. But a rich man’s belly gives him insomnia.

Here’s a piece of bad luck I’ve seen happen: A man hoards far more wealth than
is good for him And then loses it all in a bad business deal. He fathered a
child but hasn’t a cent left to give him. He arrived naked from the womb of
his mother; He’ll leave in the same condition—with nothing. This is bad luck,
for sure—naked he came, naked he went. So what was the point of working for a
salary of smoke? All for a miserable life spent in the dark?

\--
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+5&...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+5&version=MSG)

~~~
jnordwick
Half the article talks about how one theory is that they work because they
take pleasure in their work, that they are no longer driven my money but by
the creative process or working.

While this might have only been true of a few people, a more mobile job
market, more opportunity, more choice of field, more education, and other
factors all allow more people to find jobs that they simultaneously love to do
and get paid well to do. I'm one of those lucky people I guess. I absolutely
love what I do and the more successful I become, the more I want to do it.
Work has become almost game-like to me.

I'll see your out of context quote and raise you The Parable of the Talents.
If you have a gift for creation or investment, don't be ashamed of it, but
nurture it and use it.

[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14-30&version=NRSV)

~~~
hprotagonist
The context I meant to suggest was that people have been wondering why rich
people keep working so hard that they miss out on their lives for about 2,400
years at least.

------
octaveguin
"entertainment has become an inferior good"

That's quite an interesting thing to say that is super true. Consumption of
too much media is now a sign of low class status.

~~~
holmak
In case you didn't know, "inferior good" is an economics term with a specific
meaning:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_good)

~~~
GFischer
That said, his comment does have a point, and consumption of inferior goods
themselves can be a signal of low status.

------
yitchelle
This statistic from the article strikes as amazing. Not 100% sure if I believe
it.

"In 2015, 22 percent of lower-skilled men [those without a college degree]
aged 21 to 30 had not worked at all during the prior twelve months,”

"Three quarters of their additional leisure time is spent with video games,
Hurst’s research has shown"

Doing some quick maths put 15% of lower skilled men are playing video games
all day during their idle time. Is this really happening on the ground?

~~~
weerd
Oh yeah, definitely. It's a fantastic way to check out from the mundane crawl
that is average life in America.

Honestly though, it's better than watching TV. Atleast you have to interact
and think. There's also the fact that multiplayer gaming allows us to meet new
people with similar interests. Someday people are going to just put on the VR
hat and practically live in another world.

------
tuna-piano
Economists have studied this kind of thing for a long time.

From Wikipedia: " In economics, a backward-bending supply curve of labour, or
backward-bending labour supply curve, is a graphical device showing a
situation in which as real, or inflation-corrected, wages increase beyond a
certain level, people will substitute leisure (non-paid time) for paid
worktime and so higher wages lead to an increase in the labour supply and so
less labour-time being offered for sale.[1]

The "labour-leisure" tradeoff is the tradeoff faced by wage-earning human
beings between the amount of time spent engaged in wage-paying work (assumed
to be unpleasant) and satisfaction-generating unpaid time, which allows
participation in "leisure" activities and the use of time to do necessary
self-maintenance, such as sleep. The key to the tradeoff is a comparison
between the wage received from each hour of working and the amount of
satisfaction generated by the use of unpaid time.

Such a comparison generally means that a higher wage entices people to spend
more time working for pay; the substitution effect implies a positively sloped
labour supply curve. However, the backward-bending labour supply curve occurs
when an even higher wage actually entices people to work less and consume more
leisure or unpaid time "

Check out this Wikipedia page for further reading:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_bending_supply_curve_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_bending_supply_curve_of_labour)

~~~
dredmorbius
I just wanted to say thanks for that comment. It set me off in some
interesting directions.

------
smallnamespace
This points out another issue with providing basic income -- while basic
income is preferable to just letting people starve and probably better than
expensive-to-administer welfare programs, it does _not_ provide a substitute
source for people's self worth.

For many people, getting paid is literally society's signal to them that what
they do every day is worthwhile and necessary.

~~~
smhg
I don't understand why you would require UBI to provide people's self worth.

Some picture UBI to be this utopia that solves everything. Please evaluate it
based on being an improvement (however small) to the current system.

Also, playing videogames all day is an often heard scenario with UBI. But as
the article states, this seems to happen now too. The question is: if it would
be implemented, and after the dust settles, will so many more people be
unproductive (in the narrowest sense possible)?

------
plandis
Honestly I feel like a lot of this is social. I'm motivated to go and work
because my peers all do that to and it's been that way since I was a kid.
People I knew in high school went to college. Now my college peers are getting
jobs, etc...

Outside of work I play video games a lot because, honestly, nothing else seems
worth doing. I'm already decent at video games so let's just keep doing that.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of these people avoid board games due to lack
of friends and lack friends because being social is super hard when all of
your time is spent on video games. It's a negative cycle that's hard to
motivate yourself out of.

On the bright side it's a pretty frugally lifestyle (don't really go out, only
vacations I take are staycations, no car, etc...) so I'd imagine that it's a
decently sustainable lifestyle for those who don't work or rarely work.

------
squozzer
Here are some factors that might have a role --

1) Those who found companies, or who otherwise become rich through their work
(e.g. pro athletes), as opposed to more passive ways to make money, in a way
have a viewpoint similar to a feudal lord: The fiefdom called self has to be
cultivated, protected and expanded.

2) Modern economics expands the sphere of success more easily than ever,
through things such as branding or genre-crossing. E.g. Trump, Kanye, Michael
Strahan.

3) The old-school rich indulged in a lot of leisure but also personally
patronized a lot of culture. This doesn't seem to happen as much today, or if
it does, more of it happens through foundations that probably free up time to
generate more income.

------
narrator
I think gamer culture is a vast invisible swath of humanity. If you look at
the communities on Twitch or YouTube around certain popular games, it's pretty
clear that billions of human hours are poured into gaming.

~~~
kbart
Before computer games there were also sports, cards, books, alcohol, drugs
etc. It's only a consequence, not a cause of humans inclination for exciting
their reward centers with least possible efforts.

------
jnordwick
I think there might also be a very strong correlation between being rich and
doing what you love, especially has job opportunities and mobility have
drastically increased in the last couple generations.

I don't know too many top 1 percenters that would say that would love what
they do. Very few.

And I do know of many that would say they never really made it -- because
independently wealthy -- until they found what they really loved to do: from
going into a new field to opening up their own store that grew.

I think loving what you do has a lot to do with wanting to put in the effort
to really getting paid back what you put in.

~~~
simplemath
I'm pretty sure, given the opportunity, that I'd love yachting and
recreational aerospace.

------
mark_l_watson
I like the bit about 4am being the most productive hour. I have always been a
morning person and for most employers and customers I have worked early in the
morning until mid-afternoon. Quiet time is golden.

As far as the main theme of the article: having more people idle is something
society needs to adapt to. In the extreme of insufficient work, I would like
to see a very low minimum income and a policy to promote breaking up jobs so
people at least got 15 or so hours a week. Looking forward a decade, I bet
there will be much less for people to work on.

------
tn13
It is not "free time" that people want. It is "time to do what I want" is what
we all want. For someone like Elon Musk running Tesla might be actually use of
that free time.

For many of us writing code is the use of that free time.

On the other hand I can understand why unproductive people are unable to do
much in USA. Most things are automated and minimum wages lock out people from
mundane work.

------
fallingfrog
I think part of what is happening is that people with less money do things
themselves (cooking, cleaning) that wealthy people pay someone else to do. So
wealthy people can spend correspondingly more of their time on the kinds of
activities that count as economic activity in our current system- their jobs.
The amount of time they have left for exploring/learning/resting is most
likely still much more than what poor people have, though.

------
scentoni
Certainly part of the explanation of the paradox is that a great deal of what
elites work on is (intentionally or not) finding ways to automate lower-
skilled folks out of a job.

------
tuxrux
I had the pleasure of studying under a prof that wrote about how this can be a
not so good
thing:[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674278714](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674278714)

------
hamiltonians
til: people who are not working have a lot of free time

I guess the author has never heard of homelessness. instead of being homeless,
or being forced to find work, young people are living with parents longer

------
drdrey
I can't tell if "men" is used as a neutral pronoun in this story.

    
    
        > young men
        > lower-skilled men
        > non-working men
        > rudderless middle-aged men
        > elite men
        > poorer men
        > rich men
        > young non-college men

~~~
irrational
I think it means males. The males are staying home, playing video games,
watching porn, etc. while the females are attending college in droves and
"leaning in" and discovering that they can get by just fine without the males
around. I halfway suspect that video games and porn are this eras circuses and
bread and that there is a secret feminist cabal backing the game and porn
proliferation ;-)

------
cocktailpeanuts
I would like to tell the writer: "Cool story bro, nice job on all the research
and kudos on your effort, but you're confusing the cause/effect."

It's not that "rich people work so much", it's that "people who work much tend
to be rich".

~~~
taeric
Having seen how hard many poor people above the age of thirty work.... I'd
disagree quite heavily with this assertion. Would be interesting to see the
reasons.

My hunch would be more in line with much of the "rich" that we discuss here
have managed to over leverage themselves such that they have to work hard to
meet obligations. It takes surprisingly little money to lounge playing video
games when you don't have a car/house payments.

~~~
nadezhda18
> Having seen how hard many poor people above the age of thirty work....

so agree with you!

poor people often work even more than rich because their salary is low and
they have to take extra hustle just to make the ends meet.

Getting a decent salary, which allows getting out of poverty, may free up
quite a lot of time.

> "rich" that we discuss here have managed to over leverage themselves such
> that they have to work hard to meet obligations

agree again :) I think they just carry take a lot on their shoulders just
because they like to (thus they "have managed to over leverage themselves ")

