[HN Gopher] Kill the Alarm Clock (2017)
___________________________________________________________________
Kill the Alarm Clock (2017)
Author : aminozuur
Score : 104 points
Date : 2021-02-17 07:28 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (supermemo.guru)
(TXT) w3m dump (supermemo.guru)
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| I've always had massive issues getting to sleep (still do), and
| consequently waking up again in the morning.
|
| A couple of years ago I inherited my Grandparents clockwork
| pendulum clock which ticks quite loudly and also chimes the hours
| and a single chime on the half hour.
|
| I still have an alarm set on my phone just in case, but after a
| couple of months I found myself consistently aware that I've
| woken up naturally before my alarm has had a chance to go off.
| And as I'm not shocked awake by the alarm I'm feeling a lot
| better on a morning because of it.
|
| I can only assume that I'm subconsciously aware of the time
| passing and what time it is from the chiming, rather than a
| period of obliviousness and then a sudden shock. If I forget to
| wind it so it stops I tend to sleep in late and get woken by the
| alarm.
|
| I do find it slightly surprising as I used to be one of those
| people where a ticking wristwatch wrapped in a sock in the bottom
| of a draw on the other side of the house would keep me awake when
| I was younger. Having the wall clock audibly ticking across the
| house has actually become quite calming and soporific.
| ycyou wrote:
| I'm all for getting more sleep, but I think the author's barking
| up the wrong tree. Matthew Walker in "Why We Sleep" says we
| should all set a bedtime alarm, as well as a wake-up alarm. Long
| story short: Good quality sleep depends on consistent sleep and
| wake times. Sounds like a job for a clock to me. Here's a modern
| take on the alarm clock that might change their mind:
| http://byloftie.com/
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I previously posted about my sleeping practice, so I'll just
| share the link:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25246419
| Semaphor wrote:
| Just an anecdote:
|
| My alarm clock has a 30 minute pre-alarm (starting very softly
| with nature noises, never reaching maxing out at 10%), then it
| starts calm music going from 10% to 80% over 10 minutes. It's
| very relaxing to me to wake up like this.
|
| I used to sleep without an alarm clock (work from home and more
| or less free work starting times) and I usually felt far more
| tired during the day.
|
| In addition, I used to have trouble falling asleep, now I'm gone
| 5-10 minutes after I put the book down.
|
| I now usually sleep 6h a night, with once or twice 7.5h (I can
| tell if my body thinks I need more sleep that night). I've often
| read that 6h is not enough, but ever since I changed it like
| this, I'm simply far more energized and have no crash during the
| day.
| chupchap wrote:
| That's awesome! Which alarm are you using?
| Semaphor wrote:
| Gentle Alarm (Android). It doesn't exist anymore though, the
| listing and the dev's site both vanished, and it required
| manually patching the APK to make it work on Android 10. If
| someone has a good replacement, I elaborated on my
| requirements here [0], so far I have found nothing that can
| replace it :/
|
| [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/loo
| king...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I use Sleep Cycle on my phone. It tries to detect a shallower
| phase of sleep by analyzing sounds and vibrations and will
| start to slowly wake you up when appropriate.
|
| You can give it a timeframe when you want to wake up so you
| won't oversleep.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've used alarms almost my entire life.
|
| My sleep quality varies greatly, and the alarm has almost nothing
| to do with it. I always set it for 8 hours past my bedtime, and
| often wake up an hour or two before it rings (like this morning.
| I have been up since 4). If I need to get up early, I hit the
| sack early.
|
| It actually seems to have more to do with my mental activity. In
| the last couple of weeks, I've been engaged in a fairly
| Brobdingnagian server refactoring job. It's been intense, and I
| have been waking up early, quite frequently. I suspect that I'll
| improve, once I get back to working on the app.
| nicbou wrote:
| I don't need an alarm clock, but I still set one. Without an
| alarm clock, my sleep schedule tends to drift and conflict with
| other obligations.
|
| Some things can only be done when there is sunlight or when
| businesses are open.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I've gone without an alarm clock for years, with the occasional
| exception of needing to wake at an unusual time or being sure to
| catch a flight.
|
| I do wake with my puppy which according to the article is not
| "natural" but I don't think it's anything like waking to an
| alarm. We both wake gradually, have a little snuggle, say good
| morning and then start our day.
|
| I also drink coffee through the morning and I object to the
| article putting that down. I don't drink it for its stimulating
| effect, if anything it's calming (then again I have ADHD and take
| amphetamines which are also calming).
|
| Anyway, I will say to anyone who has the option, do try going
| without the alarm and adjusting your sleep schedule accordingly.
| It's absolutely a more refreshing way to wake up.
| 02020202 wrote:
| i have ditched alarm clock years ago. one day i realized i am
| rich because i can afford to do it. downside is that there is NO
| going back whatsoever.
| ianhorn wrote:
| I bought some smart bulbs for the bedroom and use those as a
| gradual alarm clock. It works wonders. I only have a blasting
| audio alarm clock when I need to catch a flight these days and
| it's much much more pleasant to slowly wake from the "sun" than
| to be jolted awake suddenly. I also make sure to wake up early
| enough that I don't have to start getting ready immediately. It
| has made mornings much more pleasant.
| timo555 wrote:
| I agree. I bought one of the Philips light alarm clocks[0]
| years ago me and my wife both swear by them.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Simulation-Headspace-
| Subscrip...
| itsbedtime wrote:
| I haven't had much success with a single standard Philips Hue
| light bulb. Maybe it's not bright enough, but I just sleep
| through the light as if it wasn't there.
| asoneth wrote:
| I found myself in a similar situation. I'm not suggesting
| this is what's happening to you, but in case it helps: my
| mistake was that the light and sound were increasing too
| quickly and my body was turning away from the light and
| shutting off the alarm before I had became conscious.
|
| The approach that worked for me was:
|
| - Increasing light from warm dim (~100 lumens) to bright
| white (1000+ lumens) over the course of ~30m. Even though
| you're not conscious and your eyelids are closed your eyes
| are still responding to the light and rebooting your
| circadian rhythm.
|
| - A few minutes after the light reaches the brightest
| setting, have a sound-based alarm. I have nature sounds that
| start quiet and get progressively louder over about ten
| minutes, but I usually wake up after less than a minute.
|
| - Getting into bed at a consistent time (+/-20m) seven and a
| half hours before the sound-based alarm. This is the hardest
| part since I rarely feel tired that early (yes, even when
| I've exercised) and it feels like a waste of time to lie in
| bed and stare at the ceiling. But I know from regular
| experience that when I wait until I'm tired to get in bed I
| have an unproductive morning.
| ianhorn wrote:
| I have a Hue light on my bedside table that goes from 0 to
| max over 30min, plus three bulbs in the ceiling socket that
| do the same, but are staggered. Like bedside can be
| 6:55-7:25, with overhead 1 from 7-7:30, overhead 2 from
| 7:05-7:35, etc. So you have the four lights brightening
| together over the course of 45min or whatever longer period
| you want.
|
| If it's gradual enough, you won't just bury your head, and if
| it's enough bulbs, it'll get bright enough to convince your
| body it's daytime.
|
| There's another trick I've been meaning to do. The Hue app's
| wake up routine turns it on to a low temperature light, but
| turning it a little higher temp/bluer once I'm up does help
| trick me into daytime. I'm meaning to make a cron job on my
| raspberry pi to make my own wakeup routine that is a little
| slower to avoid the need to stagger lights, and also increase
| temperature once it's bright. If you know linux, the pi is
| easy.
|
| Even without the fancy pi stuff, it's Good Enough. The Hue
| bulbs add up fast in cost, but it's worth it to me. I have
| the white ambiance ones.
| dsr_ wrote:
| I absolutely agree, and in addition -- my teenager sleeps
| through all manner of audible alarms, including very loud ones,
| but now wakes easily from a light-based alarm clock.
|
| Cheap ones on Amazon are in the $20 range. Highly recommended.
| The Philips is more expensive and has just one color, but it
| seems to be built much more ruggedly.
| billysielu wrote:
| The sun should dictate when we sleep. Sunrise is nature's alarm
| clock. Sadly we've messed that up with electric lighting inside
| and outside.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Where I am, I'd be asleep 14 hours a day.
|
| I don't think that is sustainable.
|
| For a start I don't actually want to sleep that much. Nor do I
| think I could.
| darkwater wrote:
| That works for latitudes near the equator were the day duration
| is more or less constant. For higher/lower latitudes daylight
| changes vastly during the year. How do you cope with that?
| billysielu wrote:
| All the other critters manage just fine. People can too.
| darkwater wrote:
| Animals do it doesn't sound like a good reason to me. There
| is plenty of things humans do and animals don't and _vice_
| _versa_ and it 's perfectly fine.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| The other critters, in general, evolved where they are
| found.
|
| Humans live in all kinds of environments that are far
| removed from the East African Rift.
| vraid wrote:
| Lots of animals manage by either migrating to the tropics
| or hibernating through the winter. Neither is viable for a
| modern human society.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Where I live there are places where the sun doesn't go down for
| months in the summer and doesn't come up for months in the
| winter.
| joemclarke wrote:
| Thanks to the kids switching to virtual school, I've only had to
| set an alarm a handful of times. It's truly wonderful, not
| looking forward to having to wake up to an alarm everyday again
| next year.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| Let me take this opportunity to shill for SleepAsAndroid . It
| does a cool thing where it tries to detect shallow sleep (by bed
| movements and noises) and prioritizes waking you up in a shallow
| phase.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I forget how long it's been (decade? probably less), but I've
| been using an alarm app called Sleep Cycle.
|
| The premise is simple but effective -- it senses whether you're
| in deep or shallow sleep, and rings the alarm within a 30 minute
| window before your set wake-up time.
|
| First few times I used it, it blew my mind. Effectively, it
| nudges you awake when you're almost awake anyway. It's so gentle.
| I'll never go back to a hard-set alarm clock.
| radarsat1 wrote:
| Working remotely has had a major positive impact for me in this
| respect. I can sleep until it's time for breakfast and then go
| right "to work" (the couch) and get there on time. Otherwise I
| would be setting the alarm for 6 AM so that I could make the
| train. I'm not a morning person, and this is painful enough for
| me that it becomes a serious consideration in my dedication to
| the job. Once in a while going into the office is okay, I even
| enjoy the time on the train to get some things done, but if
| things go back to normal and I have to go every day, I will
| seriously consider quitting for remote-only work. I am not trying
| to sound lazy: the positive impact of proper sleep on my mental
| health has been that important.
|
| Another factor is not having to leave and arrive in the dark. I
| get to experience sunlight now.
| k__ wrote:
| Working remotely alone didn't help me there, because I worked
| in a bunch of toxic companies.
|
| People would call me at 8am because something was broken etc.
|
| Things that helped more were:
|
| - Self-employment, because people have to ask for my time at
| least one day in advance.
|
| - Working international, because people in other timezones know
| you aren't awake.
|
| - Doing technical writing instead of software development,
| because it's less time critical and texts don't tend to break
| suddendly.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was working remotely pre-pandemic although I traveled a fair
| bit.
|
| I don't set an alarm most days. Usually is I have a meeting at
| 9am or earlier I will "just in case." (I'm usually up earlier.)
| And if I have something critical--like an early plane when I
| was traveling (which they mostly were)--I'd even set two
| alarms.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Yup. Not factoring in 1.5 hours a day for my commute and
| honestly another 30 minutes for dressing myself for commuting
| and office life has been so incredible. At least half of that
| time is now sleep time. The other is book reading time. Both
| help my mental health a lot.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's saved me about five hours a week of commuting in my
| current job, and ten or more at my previous one. I mean I don't
| actually do anything useful with the extra time, not even
| sleeping in since we still have to get up at seven, but still.
| ryandrake wrote:
| My commute is roughly 2.5 hours each way, so it's saved me 25
| hours a week.
|
| In order to make it to my first (8:30AM) meeting of the day,
| I needed to wake up at 5:30AM, leave my home at 6:00AM, and
| white knuckle it down three interstate highways dealing with
| Bay Area Rush Hour traffic every day. Now, I can usually roll
| out of bed around 7:30AM and putz around the house a bit, eat
| a real breakfast, make sure my kid's school/day is squared
| away, maybe do some exercise, then unhurriedly sit down at
| the videoconference for my first meeting. Night and day
| lifestyle change.
| gjulianm wrote:
| Honestly, I don't really know why this article is focused on the
| alarm clock instead of in getting the necessary sleep. I need an
| alarm clock because if I don't have it, I enter a loop of "sleep
| until late - go to sleep late because I'm not tired - sleep until
| later", all without sleeping less than eight hours. In extended
| holidays without alarm clocks my waking hour would shift to three
| hours gradually, but consistently. (and before anyone says it,
| exercise just makes me sleep more so it doesn't solve the issue).
| So yeah, I need an alarm clock or something that wakes me up.
|
| I'd focus more on actually getting the necessary sleep, and also
| in not using caffeine regularly. In a new job where coffee was
| free, I started noticing that I was very drowsy on the evenings
| after lunch, and also happened in the weekend mornings. Turns out
| I was drinking a minimum of two coffees in the morning and my
| body had become used to having that caffeine, and without it I
| didn't work properly. I fully removed coffee from my diet and
| after a few weeks I returned to normal. If you are one of those
| people that "can't function without coffee", try removing it
| completely and see what happens.
| ehnto wrote:
| I am the same, and also weight lift and ride bikes so it's not
| from lack of exercise either.
|
| My sleep cycle drifts naturally forward, and it has lead to
| many weird issues. I don't fit in a 9-5, at least not without
| feeling like shit for 80% of the day, being basically useless
| during the 9-5 portion.
|
| I'm happiest when I just let it happen, and accept that for
| some portion of the time I am essentially a night-shift worker.
| But I'm not totally satisfied with that, either. I would love
| to be up at 9am and down at 1am every day, I think that's the
| sweet spot. But inevitably 1am becomes 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, and
| at about 7am I will just stay up for 24 hours and start all
| over. This happens over the course of a month or so.
| Nursie wrote:
| That's a very familiar pattern. I'm not particularly happy
| when I let it happen though, as I miss the daytime and that
| affects my mood. Can't win!
| multjoy wrote:
| BBC Radio 4 had a piece about this a couple of weeks ago,
| although I was listening to it on the way in for a night
| shift...
|
| I will try and dig it out, apparently it is more common than
| you'd think.
|
| Edit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q3r7
| dsego wrote:
| I have the same drift. I did notice that for me traveling and
| experiencing new things can sometimes break the spell for a
| few days.
| Contax wrote:
| > inevitably 1am becomes 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, and at about 7am
| I will just stay up for 24 hours and start all over.
|
| That's exactly my case. It's like having a 25 hours cycle
| instead of 24.
| mrslave wrote:
| Sci-fi novels and TV shows with 26 hour days always make me
| envious. Just one more hour of the day and one more hour of
| sleep would be bliss.
| vestrigi wrote:
| That would be just two more hours that you're expected to
| work for your boss but in theory it sounds great!
| elbear wrote:
| What time do you go to bed?
|
| I haven't used an alarm in years and I wake up between 5 and 7
| am. At that point, I simply can't sleep any longer, even if I
| lie in bed, so I get up.
|
| I usually go to bed between 10 and 11 pm.
| gjulianm wrote:
| Usually around 12-1 AM now. But the time doesn't matter, it
| has happened when I went to sleep earlier (say 10-11pm). The
| issue is the oversleeping, and I haven't found anything to
| actually fix it other than alarms. Even light doesn't wake me
| up once I get used to having sunrise at 6-7 am.
| neves wrote:
| If you see the author sleep logs, that's exactly what happens
| to him and what he is advocating for top notch brain
| performance. The problem is that we live in society and not
| everybody can shift their sleep hours.
| deepstack wrote:
| > also in not using caffeine regularly
|
| Yeah I used to use coffee when I was in school, however there
| are side effects. Some including not allowing me to think
| clearly. I found out sleeping is the best remedy. Work should
| allow workers to take naps!
|
| Edit: of course I don't mean jobs that involves heavy
| machineries. But more like white collar jobs.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's more important for machine operators to be alert than
| most other jobs.
| seer wrote:
| This drift happened to me too, mostly because the most
| interesting things for me were happening later in the day, I
| would read some engrossing book, code something or watch /
| play.
|
| The moment I put an interesting thing to do right after I woke
| up (martial arts training) my internal clock started going the
| other way. If I don't intentionally stay up late, my clock will
| drift and I would get up earlier and earlier ... its weird and
| fascinating at the same time.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Even with an alarm I find that I almost immediately fall into a
| cycle of waking up at later than 7PM if I don't stop myself - I
| don't even go to bed that late sometimes, exercise or not.
|
| Its the only superpower I actually want - to be able to just
| turn myself off like lightswitch. My brain itself is fairly
| happy just sort of thinking about compilers or field theory and
| stuff like that when going to sleep but I physically cannot
| stop myself from putting my fingers in yet another pie when I'm
| awake so I end up in this hyperfocused state in bursts of an
| hour or two and then I won't be going to bed possibly ever.
|
| Sometimes I'm completely fine, sometimes the only way I'm
| getting up before 12AM is if I haven't slept a second. Even
| more annoying is that I have no vices other than tea - ADHD has
| been bandied around at me in the past, could be something like
| that.
| [deleted]
| mjevans wrote:
| That and regenerating health quickly are the superpowers from
| The Long Dark that I long for. It's a videogame, and it does
| have a can't sleep if not tired enough mechanic, but you can
| just go to bed exactly when wanted and it's restful (when
| warm enough, and with water and food buffered).
| goatcode wrote:
| It kind of sounds like you're following an extremely
| unnatural sleep pattern. Chemically, psychologically, humans
| were meant to be awake with the sun and asleep with the dark.
| Do you remember sleeping poorly when you did this?
| tobmlt wrote:
| I am facing yet another day of utter sleep deprivation
| tomorrow... most of this is from work stress I think, and a
| good chunk of that is because Ive never in my life been able
| to force myself to really focus on something that wasn't
| fun/engrossing in its own right. Luckily, programming physics
| is usually engrossing and fun, but when I am being closely
| managed, the old traits come out and sleep soon goes by the
| board due to stress from slow progress. I can handle
| micromanagement during the "code-up-the-solver" stage, but
| then when I have to deal with yet another rewrite of the
| infrastructure code... the mind wanders to, say field theory,
| the weather, or hacker news. It reminds me greatly of back in
| my school days. I could never really focus on the content of
| my studies properly -- not until after being dumped out of
| undergrad with a lackluster gpa and no good future prospects.
| Only then, with nobody looking, caring, or expecting,
| curiosity and motivation switched on properly.
|
| From the article: " Dr Robert Stickgold has shown that people
| who learn a skill during the day do not show significant
| improvement until they get 7-8 hours of good sleep[1]"
|
| Wow, I have had that a handful of nights in the past 3 years.
| sanarothe wrote:
| I have no advice but want to send some empathy. I also
| typically get through work with curiosity and my own
| motivation, and less by discipline.
|
| It's a constant battle to refocus on critical business
| objectives and not to get distracted by the hundred other
| interesting rabbit holes.
|
| I know I've given too much time and too much of myself to
| work, but still feel a bit of shame and stress about
| falling behind.
|
| I've always heard the advice to do work by discipline and
| not motivation but 30 years and I haven't figured it out
| yet :)
| adflux wrote:
| Used to have the same problem, my mind wandering off into
| (anxiety raising) fantasies. Now I read the same book over
| and over again as a form of meditation, it's a way to
| switch off. Same book because else I will be too engaged
| and will want to keep reading. I have the brightness way
| down on my amoled screen so that I can only just read the
| letters.
| garmaine wrote:
| Yeah... ADHD alarms are blaring right now. Worth getting
| yourself checked.
| afarrell wrote:
| > ADHD
|
| It is worth getting yourself checked.
|
| I'd also recommend listening to the podcast of prof of
| Neurobiology Andrew Huberman. He does research on the
| relationship between the eyes and the brain and a lot of it
| touches on sleep.
| J-dawg wrote:
| How does one actually get "checked" for ADHD? It's not like
| there's a blood test.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| You get assessed by a medical professional equipped to
| evaluate you, just like any neurodevelopment issue.
| afarrell wrote:
| As a first step, you might hire a coach to help you with
|
| 1. Making and keeping the necessary appointments.
|
| 2. Dealing with insurance.
|
| 3. Persuading your parents to endure the ego-threat of
| listening to your actual needs instead of telling you
| things like "stop being so hard on yourself".
| fatnoah wrote:
| (Note: My son has diagnosed ADHD, non-hyperactive) There
| isn't a blood test, but you can do a neuropsychological
| evaluation which assesses cognitive functions. We had one
| done for my son, and it was a 2-day affair. As a non-ADHD
| parent, it was eye-opening to get a glimpse into how his
| brain worked and to start to really understand the
| challenges ADHD poses in a school environment.
| mckirk wrote:
| I can only second the Huberman podcast suggestion.
|
| It's so much good information in one place and the guy does
| such a good job of explaining things that I'm really happy
| to see it gain traction :)
| jdxcode wrote:
| Yeah, I think he would say you need very bright light soon
| after waking, ideally sunlight.
| darkerside wrote:
| If you aren't accidentally switching your AMs and PMs, you
| should really consider leaning into your sleep schedule. If
| you're going to sleep in the morning (6am?), just stay up one
| night/morning until 4pm, and then naturally sleep until 3am.
| Congratulations, you are now an early bird.
|
| That said, you might have done constraints enforcing this
| bizarre schedule. It doesn't really make sense to me without
| more details.
| issamehh wrote:
| For me that would only work for a short time. No matter
| what I do I end up shifting towards a night sleep pattern
| snorremd wrote:
| I once used a mobile alarm clock app that would try to be smart
| about waking you up. You put it on your bed and it would
| measure your sleep cycles by your movement and try to maximise
| your sleep, but wake you up after a whole cycle had completed.
| The theory being that being woken from deep sleep is worse than
| being woken from the REM stage of sleep, and that it is more
| natural to wake up after a full cycle.
|
| I can't remember if it actually helped that much, and I've
| since gone back to normal alarms.
| gjulianm wrote:
| I tried this with my Fitbit, in one of the updates they added
| "smart alarms". I discovered two things: one, that apparently
| my range for waking up was too narrow and the alarm was
| always firing at the last moment, and that a vibration in the
| wrist will not wake me up at all.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Perhaps you need an alarm clock to tell you to go to bed at
| night.
| killalarmclock wrote:
| Mirror:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210217073350/https://supermemo...
|
| +1 to not using an alarm clock. I trust the years of evolution
| that the human body has tuned in figuring out how much to sleep.
| dorkwood wrote:
| Rearranging my sleep schedule so that I fall asleep and wake up
| earlier means I lose the part of the day that I value the most --
| the night. Should I really give that up so I can be more
| productive at my day job?
| TheShrug wrote:
| I've been thinking a lot about this recently and it's led to a
| few personal realizations about my identity of being a "night-
| owl". I also greatly value night-time, and it took me a while
| to realize why.
|
| If I had to to try to summarize the core, it would be that I've
| been conditioned through school/society/work over decades that
| the morning is for fulfilling responsibilities to others. Only
| when school/work/chores are done, could I exercise any autonomy
| to do whatever I wanted (seeing friends/playing
| videogames/programming/night-life/etc..). Naturally, I ended up
| with at _least_ a moderate pavlovian response to the end of the
| workday.
|
| The one thing I absolutely couldn't shake was that by the end
| of my workday, my "fulfilling responsibilities" energy felt
| completely drained -- leaving me in a cycle of "wake up,
| immediately go to work, finish work exhausted, veg out on
| whatever interest my brain has until very late and go to sleep
| anywhere from 12AM-2AM" with little time to maintain _my_ life
| up to the standards I set for myself.
|
| I also interpreted threads like this one in the way you do:
|
| > Should I really give that up so I can be more productive at
| my day job?
|
| No, absolutely not unless that is a personal goal of yours!
| Maybe this isn't true for you or others, but I _do_ feel
| recharged in the morning. In a very general sense, there is
| somewhat of a clean slate mentally in the morning that my wife
| and I call the "good brain". Anxieties that I fell to sleep
| with are often resolved, pessimism might be reframed into
| cautious optimism, that tricky programming (or interpersonal!)
| problem has had some fog clear out of the way, etc...
|
| This led me to realize that my sleep schedule _was already_
| optimized for my employer's benefit. Get out of bed, and take
| that fresh "good brain" to work and drain it. The way out of
| this for me was to slowly transition into earlier mornings to
| get a few hours of orientation in the morning where I can use
| my fresh energy to do something valuable _for me_ instead of
| the company I am working for.
|
| Nowadays I'm up at 4-5AM without an alarm clock which leaves me
| 2-4 hours to get ready and do the things I feel I need to do.
| The head-start feels really nice.
| matwood wrote:
| I never need my alarm clock to wake up since I always wake up
| before it goes off, but I need it to go to sleep. If I don't have
| an alarm set I wake up all through the night and check the time.
| Knowing there is an alarm set, even though I never sleep until it
| goes off, removes anxiousness that otherwise prevents me from
| sleeping well.
| notorandit wrote:
| I wake up naturally because I know I have an alarm clock. It took
| me years to fully recognize this. But, at least for me, it's a
| fact.
| senko wrote:
| This doesn't seem feasible for people that either (a) have
| naturally longer sleep cycles and are thus prone to getting to
| bed later and then sleeping in (if not controlled, it adds up),
| or (b) have to be or do something by some time in the morning.
|
| I'm both and I can't rely on my natural sleeping patterns to wake
| me up and get the kids to school/care.
|
| That said, replacing a adrenaline-pumping/panic-inducing alarm
| clock with something that gradually increases sound or light
| sounds like best of both worlds. You can still rely on getting
| woken up when needed, and there's no need to shock yourself to
| it.
| adrianN wrote:
| For me, getting up at the same time every day means that I don't
| need an alarm at all. It also means that staying up late is not
| really possible.
| gerbler wrote:
| I don't disagree with the premise, but there is an enormous
| luxury in having this option.
|
| If you work two low-paid jobs, you are time poor. My partner used
| to work three jobs at one point in her life, getting up at 5am,
| and finishing at 11pm. An alarm clock is needed due to sleep
| deprivation.
|
| Perhaps a different framing is "kill low-wage jobs"? I'm being
| facetious but alarm clocks are not inherently bad, low-wages and
| long hours are.
| mayankkaizen wrote:
| How does one maintain mental sanity working 3 jobs at a time? I
| can sort of understand working long hours but 3 jobs? Even in
| relatively poor country like India, I've never seen anybody
| working in 3 jobs. Even 2 jobs are very rare.
| judgemcjudgy wrote:
| Use low paid jobs as a stepping stone to better paid jobs. You
| even mention your wife as formerly working three jobs, so
| apparently she doesn't anymore.
|
| I feel this is a neglected aspect of wage discussions. It is
| normal that people start with lower wage jobs and work their
| way upwards, but age demographics are rarely reflected in the
| income distribution charts.
|
| Some work unfortunately needs to be done at ungodly hours, you
| can not simply kill off those jobs.
|
| Edit: since I can't post replies because of rate limiting.
| Sorry, but low paid jobs absolutely are stepping stones in many
| cases. For example people used to start while in school with
| delivering newspapers ("paper boy"). Many people have side jobs
| while completing their education. And while you work your three
| jobs, you can look for better jobs. You should, actually. They
| are stepping stones in that they help you survive until you
| find a better job. What jobs are the "work three jobs" variety
| anyway? I would expect you to be able to replace them with one
| "normal" job eventually, that is a normal job that pays a
| normal salary (even if it is a low salary). If that is not
| enough to sustain your lifestyle, what exactly is going on in
| your life? Where do the high costs come from?
|
| Maybe the OP could explain why his wife ended up working three
| jobs, and how she got out of it?
|
| As for ungodly hours, I don't think some people only working
| night shifts and others only day shifts is an option in
| general.
|
| Edit 2: how do you find a better job? The traditional way is
| asking around, checking job portals, considering to move to a
| place that has job offers, that kind of thing. I guess most of
| those people also have long commutes, so I wonder how well most
| job boards are adapted to mobile.
| gjulianm wrote:
| > Use low paid jobs as a stepping stone to better paid jobs.
|
| This is a naive take. It's not a game where if you grind
| enough you get experience and your level increases. If you're
| working multiple jobs, I doubt your performance will be good
| enough to be the first in line for a promotion. You also
| won't have time and energy for an education that allows you a
| better job in a different industry. Probably won't even have
| money to pay for courses, nor to take time off and do
| something different. Not to mention that those situations are
| taxing on your body and mental health, putting you in a
| competitive disadvantage with other employees.
|
| Low wage jobs that don't pay enough to survive are not a
| stepping stone, they are a trap. It is also a drain on
| society: these jobs don't allow people to scale up the
| ladder, so the pool of workers in these jobs gets bigger and
| bigger, which in turn pushes wages further down.
|
| > Some work unfortunately needs to be done at ungodly hours
|
| The discussion is not about ungodly hours but about getting
| the necessary amount of sleep. You can work nights for 8h and
| have a decent sleep schedule. It's not optimal, of course,
| but it's very different from working two, three jobs and not
| having time to sleep.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That's overly simplified; how are you going to get a better
| paid job if you have to work multiple dead-end jobs just to
| make it to the end of the month?
|
| You, and many others, do not understand poverty or living as
| the working poor, living paycheck to paycheck, etc.
| ajmadesc wrote:
| This is nuts and absolutely _sadistic_. We live in an age of
| such overwhelming surplus there is no need for anyone to work
| multiple jobs.
|
| Have a read into the physical and mental effects of poverty,
| especially on children.
|
| Edit: also poverty is a trap, every thing is more expensive
| when you're poor.
| judgemcjudgy wrote:
| If there is no need to work three jobs, as you claim,
| don't.
|
| New people constantly come into this world. They have to
| find their way in life. Not everything is set out for them
| right from the beginning.
|
| Yes, everything is more expensive when you are poor. That
| is why most people strive and work for not being poor.
|
| There are also different attitudes. Some people only have
| children when they feel they can provide for them (as in
| prevent them from having to work three jobs), others don't
| care. I'm not saying that those kids should just be left
| alone in their poverty, as it obviously isn't their own
| fault. But at the same time it is not the fault of the more
| responsible parents and their kids, either. The poor kids
| were not created by the rich people, they were created by
| poor people. In my opinion, it is all a bit more
| complicated than claiming there is so much surplus.
|
| Rich people existing also doesn't mean there exists an
| unlimited amount of stuff. Jeff Bezos owning a trillion
| dollars does not imply he could conjure food for a billion
| people out of thin air. Food still needs to be farmed by
| somebody, which is a chore.
| jamil7 wrote:
| The comment you're responding to looks like a troll
| account, created recently, I'd ignore it.
| scatters wrote:
| Many things are still scarce, sometimes artificially so.
| Case in point: housing, and also healthcare. Without fixing
| those you're just bidding up the cost of living.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Needing to work 18 hours a day to live is not normal.
|
| The problem is not alarm clocks, the whole system is broken if
| you need to work 12+ hours a day just to keep a roof over your
| head and food on the table.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Most people who are working 12hr days at min-wage (or
| thereabouts) have some aggravating factor like debt or child
| support payments that is screwing them.
| judgemcjudgy wrote:
| It's not "the system" that is broken in that case, just your
| personal life. There is no system that provides for you, you
| have to do that yourself.
|
| Edit: I think "get a better job" is a better argument than "I
| am such a victim, there is nothing I can do, everybody else
| is at fault". What else than getting a better job can you do?
| Seriously? And you don't need better education or stuff like
| that. If you work three jobs, maybe you can replace them with
| a normal job in a factory line or whatever. Just because you
| don't immediately get bestowed with your ideal job, doesn't
| mean that everything is hopeless and society is exploiting
| you. Most people don't start out with their ideal job.
|
| Jobs don't fall from the sky. And nobody owes you a job. If
| there are no jobs in your area, you should move to someplace
| where there are jobs (maybe because a new Amazon warehouse
| opens or whatever). Yes, there can be circumstances where you
| can't move, like perhaps having to take care of sick
| relatives. But those are also temporary.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| A single full-time job should pay enough for a person to be
| able to have a place to live and sufficient food to provide
| a healthy amount calories for themselves and their
| dependants.
|
| If this it not possible, the system itself is broken,
| either rent/food is too expensive, wages are too low or
| both.
| arez wrote:
| you seem to be very disconnected with people who have these
| problems. There are no jobs for some people, they can't
| move, can't work in certain jobs, have mental, physical
| problems etc. also no, society maybe doesn't owe you a job,
| but at least in europe there's this believe that we care
| for each other and you don't have to work 3 jobs, the
| government just pays such a high unemployment rate that
| companies won't create those jobs because it's better to be
| unemployed than to work for this little money.
| noahtallen wrote:
| Your concept is predicated on the assumption that there is
| and always will be a supply of living-wage jobs provided by
| "the market" equal to the number of people alive. That's
| probably a wrong assumption to make.
|
| And, what if everyone followed your advice to abandon low
| wage jobs and just get better ones?
|
| - People need a living wage to, well, live.
|
| - Therefore, all people should get better jobs so that they
| have living wages (instead of working 3 jobs or relying on
| welfare)
|
| - As a result, there are no workers for low wage jobs.
|
| - But everyone relies on these jobs constantly for the
| menial tasks we don't like to do ourselves (like cooking or
| cleaning or farming or building things)
|
| - So we do in fact value these jobs enough for people to
| work them. Otherwise our lives would be less comfortable.
|
| As a result, we should actually be bringing the wages of
| these jobs up (to make them living-wage jobs) rather having
| everyone abandon these jobs for other high paying jobs
| which don't actually exist.
|
| I want to (eventually) eat out at a restaurant, and there
| aren't enough teenagers to be waiters everywhere. So do I
| just say to every waiter that they should "get a better
| job", and eventually run out of waiters? Ridiculous. I
| propose that if someone cannot make a living off of the
| service they provide, then we should examine whether we
| would rather do it ourselves all the time. If we do think
| it's a valuable service, I'd hope we'd be willing to
| compensate in a non-exploitative way.
| qmmmur wrote:
| You realise the alternative you offer is one of the jobs
| that won't sustain you on it's own? Let me guess, you
| personally have an okay job so the woes of anyone else must
| be self inflicted?
| holstvoogd wrote:
| ah yes, the 'just get a better job' argument. smh.
| tremon wrote:
| It's easier than the 'just get a better system' argument.
| the-smug-one wrote:
| >"I am such a victim, there is nothing I can do, everybody
| else is at fault"
|
| How about "We should organize ourselves to ensure that
| everyone's necessities are provided for through democratic
| processes"?
|
| There is no reason to accept this status quo.
|
| OK, your account was created 13 hours ago and you're
| already at -19.
| aminozuur wrote:
| I agree it's a luxury to live well without needing an alarm.
| But "killing" low wage jobs (how?), might put people in even
| worse situations.
| adrianN wrote:
| We could "kill" low wage jobs by making sure that 35h a week
| pay enough for yourself and a child or two.
| aminozuur wrote:
| You can start a company and pay your otherwise underpaid
| employees whatever you want. Be the change you want to see
| in the world.
| gambiting wrote:
| If you see companies using child labour, the solution
| obviously isn't to start your own company that doesn't
| exploit children just to prove a point. This stuff is
| regulated for a reason. You could argue that an employer
| should be able to offer any wage they want, but the
| argument against it is that people on poverty wages then
| have to use public assistance to survive. So essentially
| private companies use public money to have cheap labour
| which they wouldn't be able to access otherwise - that's
| obviously not ok either.
| gerbler wrote:
| Why do you assume I have not done this? (I have)
|
| My main point about this article is that it's not
| considering why we are roped into an alarm clock culture
| - it's not because we want to be woken up this way, it's
| because sometimes it's an economic necessity.
| adrianN wrote:
| You don't fix races to the bottom by individual action.
| nvoid wrote:
| This is exactly how you do it! If everyone is encouraged
| to take responsibility and make a good life for them and
| their family, a society will improve massively.
| adrianN wrote:
| Companies have no family and making a good life for
| themselves means externalizing as many costs as possible
| on society. You might enjoy skimming this very long essay
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditat
| ion...
| gambiting wrote:
| If you run a company that produces something, but your
| competitor undercuts your prices by half because they
| don't pay taxes, dump their waste in a river and hire
| children, you doing all things right will have absolutely
| zero impact on fixing the situation. You will be priced
| out of the market because you can't possibly compete with
| someone who has lower costs through illegal actions.
| Again, the answer is regulation, not hoping that people
| will behave morally and decently out of the goodness of
| their hearts.
| nvoid wrote:
| The answer can sometimes be -good- regulation. But
| another solution would be to employ a skin in the game
| approach. If a company behaves in this way, they will be
| sued to the heavens, therefore discouraging this kind of
| behavior.
|
| Besides, the way the regulatory system works now, new
| regulations only seem to benefit large corporations who
| can afford to lobby and get around the regulations. They
| actively hurt small businesses.
| jpxw wrote:
| How do you propose doing that?
|
| Minimum wage increases?
|
| Why not increase the minimum wage to $10,000 an hour?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah why not? I mean you're doing an argumentum ad
| absurdum but you have the right idea.
|
| Minimum wage and employee protection laws are the way
| forward. Everybody should be able to live comfortably,
| working at most 40 hours / week.
|
| Minimum wage is bad in its own way, because it sets a
| "what is the least we can get away with" boundary for
| employers, but in the current employment climate,
| employers can and do get away with paying less (see the
| service industry where employees are expected to collect
| tips to stipend their wages, see the gig industry where
| the employer doesn't give a shit that the employee has to
| struggle full days to get enough work to get paid).
| jpxw wrote:
| > Everybody should be able to live comfortably, working
| at most 40 hours / week.
|
| What if they aren't productive enough to earn that amount
| of money? Where does the money come from?
| issamehh wrote:
| It's a real good thing that all of the money was
| imaginary in the first place. It can come from wherever.
| It's just a means to allocate the resources that actually
| hold the value, but is not valuable itself.
| adrianN wrote:
| Other people of course. Just like for people who can't
| work at all, for example because their health doesn't
| allow it.
| jpxw wrote:
| How is this any different to a welfare state, then?
| peteretep wrote:
| Why does it need to be different from a welfare state?
| nvoid wrote:
| I don't think you have a picture of what a welfare state
| is. Sometimes it helps to take it to the extreme:
|
| You have millions of people sitting in their government
| provided housing, waiting for their government provided
| payouts, so they can avoid having to get out and work.
| This sound familiar yet? Then what you have to do, after
| production grounds to a halt, is to start to force people
| to work which is exactly how you get labor camps.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Ah yes, the well known labour camps of Scandinavia.
|
| I'm pretty sure you may be trolling but if you're not,
| reading up on the western european welfare states would
| probably be a good idea.
| nvoid wrote:
| I was taking it to the extreme as I said above. Obviously
| it is possible to have a country that has welfare without
| labor camps. I was merely trying to point out that by
| having unemployment benefits, you actively discourage
| people to get jobs and essentially tax payers pay for
| people to not work.
|
| At least in the UK, we have an inordinate amount of
| benefits cheats that live off other people's money. If
| you only extend benefits to people who physically cannot
| work -i.e. disability benefits, then you stop this
| happening.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| It's not any different. If by "welfare state" you mean "a
| decent social safety net". Which the USA should
| definitely have.
| oezi wrote:
| I think this argument makes sense in white collar jobs,
| but productivity in blue collar jobs is very scalable by
| capital (e.g. automation). People without much
| qualifications can make a multiple if there are adequate
| jobs.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| With globalized world, many of us compete with people and
| companies from places with much lower total cost of life.
|
| You can definitely manufacture an umbrella or a car
| cheaper in China or Serbia than in the U.S.
|
| This means that there is a natural ceiling on wages in
| some sectors, unless people start "Buy American" even if
| the price of the product is considerably higher. Which,
| in turn, will lower their own purchasing power.
|
| As seen in practice, most customers would rather purchase
| cheaper stuff made abroad by cheaper workforce. The E.U.
| has a lot of protective measures in various sectors
| precisely because they know that the same would happen if
| the restrictions were lifted.
| ajmadesc wrote:
| The problem with people who think like this is you forget
| that economics is not a science. Economics exists inside
| of politics.
|
| What happens time and time again if the working class has
| it too rough in a country with a sizable 'aristocratic'
| class just below the ruling class?
| scatters wrote:
| Not much; people live with it. Revolutions happen when
| people see an improvement in their living standards halt
| or go into reverse. Invoking a past golden age is
| reactionary in effect if not in intent.
| nvoid wrote:
| Pretty much the first thing about economics. You have/raise
| a minimum wage, consumer prices inflate and then it costs
| more to live with that minimum wage.
|
| What do you want to do, keep raising it every year? The
| market will outrun the government. This kind of thinking is
| how you end up with a welfare state, where the only way
| people can live is with their pitiful stimulus check from
| the government. People want to earn their own money not
| freeload of other taxpayers whilst sitting on the couch.
|
| I am not going to be that guy that points out a problem and
| doesn't propose a solution though. The solution is cut back
| corporation tax and regulation and make it easier for
| companies to hire people. This of course is what made the
| west as great as it is today.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Not really, in countries with reasonable sized minimum
| wage (say 1/2 of median wage) only small percentage of
| workers have minimum wage.
| eertami wrote:
| >You have/raise a minimum wage, consumer prices inflate
| and then it costs more to live with that minimum wage.
|
| I've never understood why people continue to make this
| argument when there are easily demonstrable counter-
| examples to the "But you won't be able to afford
| anything!!!" line of thought.
|
| Look at countries like Switzerland, or even in the US
| there is Washington DC where minimum wage is $15, and
| society isn't collapsing.
| nvoid wrote:
| Have you been to Switzerland? If you had, you would
| understand that exactly what I said would happen has
| happened has happened there.
|
| No society wouldn't collapse with a minimum wage, that is
| not my argument. Logic would dictate that if everyone in
| a town was making $15 an hour then prices would naturally
| increase. How can you not see this?
| adrianN wrote:
| I'm not sure whether you're joking or not. Just have a
| look at rich countries other than the US how they treat
| workers and what the rate of people having more than one
| job but still living in poverty is.
| moonchild wrote:
| Well, one way of killing low wage jobs is to turn them into
| high wage jobs.
| smeej wrote:
| How, exactly? How do you propose making low wage jobs
| generate enough revenue to become high wage jobs?
|
| Or do you mean to apply this rule only to large, profitable
| corporations and spare the mom-and-pop shops and other
| small businesses that are already having trouble staying
| open?
|
| Low wage jobs are already being _replaced by_ high wage
| jobs, but not 1:1. There are already higher wage jobs
| programming the machines that automate away a dozen low
| wage jobs. I 'm guessing that wasn't what you meant by
| "turn into" though.
| saberdancer wrote:
| It's a solution people come up with when they think in
| one dimension.
|
| Increase minimum wage = no poverty
|
| When in reality, for some people it would be: Increase
| minimum wage = they get fired and can't find a job, end
| up homeless.
| teataster wrote:
| We had a minimum wage increase in my country recently. I
| met a bunch of people that went from having from full
| time to part time contracts cause their employer could
| not afford the increase. For about two months. After that
| what the employer could not afford was part time workers,
| and everybody got full time back.
| adrianN wrote:
| If people without a job end up homeless something is
| seriously wrong with the social safety net.
| saberdancer wrote:
| What do you think happens with single people renting when
| they lose their income?
| adrianN wrote:
| Where I live social security kicks in.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > How do you propose making low wage jobs generate enough
| revenue to become high wage jobs?
|
| They don't have to; it should be a factor of the overall
| company's revenue. If you take an infamous company like
| Amazon, they have 1.3 million employees worldwide
| generating 386 billion in revenue; that's nearly $300K
| per employee of revenue generated. Surely there's room
| there to pay people more.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Revenue is a bad measure for a retailer, as it includes
| the cost of all the goods they sell. Net income reports
| the difference and was $152.76 billion for the year you
| report.
|
| That's still close to $120,000 per employee, so plenty of
| room to pay people more.
|
| The next step would be to look at the segmented results,
| to see whether there is a significant difference in net
| income per employee across the company (It's fine if a
| high margin operation inside of Amazon ends up supporting
| a lower margin operation, but you wouldn't want to build
| economic policy on the assumption that businesses would
| do that).
| randomchars wrote:
| But why would they? If they had to pay warehouse workers
| twice as much, what makes you think they wouldn't try to
| automate away even more jobs?
|
| Companies rarely exist to give employees more money;
| their goal is to increase the wealth of their owners.
| qmmmur wrote:
| You're so close but you just haven't made the leap yet.
| account42 wrote:
| > But why would they? If they had to pay warehouse
| workers twice as much, what makes you think they wouldn't
| try to automate away even more jobs?
|
| Good. We should automate away more jobs. More automation
| means people can work less hours, get more sleep, and
| pursue things that do not provide direct financial
| rewards but still enrich society. This is what we should
| be working towards.
|
| The only problem with that is if the value of that
| automation only enriches a few people at the top. But
| that is not an inherent problem. The solution is simple:
| progressive income and wealth taxes. These can pay for
| universal basic income and other safety nets that provide
| for the people whose jobs have been replaced with
| automation.
| randomchars wrote:
| > These can pay for universal basic income and other
| safety nets that provide for the people whose jobs have
| been replaced with automation.
|
| And after that what? Continue taxing the highly
| productive people, while letting those whose jobs were
| automated away, live the rest of their lives doing
| nothing?
| issamehh wrote:
| People really don't like to do nothing. Of course there
| will always be people that do, but they are certainly not
| that large of a group. There are also plenty of things
| that need doing that don't produce resources or money. If
| by doing nothing you mean not sacrificing their lives to
| do menial tasks then yes, I would prefer most people do
| nothing. That isn't what would happen though.
| gerbler wrote:
| Yeah, fair. But perhaps higher minimum wages, and no zero
| hour contacts? Better worker protections?
|
| If economic survival requires depletion of your sleep (which
| is so important), it's highlighting an imbalance in the
| overall system.
| saberdancer wrote:
| Higher minimum wage is not without problems.
|
| If someone is not highly skilled and works low end jobs, he
| could be left jobless if minimum wage increases. Some
| businesses already have low profitability and they can't
| absorb an increase in minimum wage.
|
| I know where you are getting from but I don't see a simple
| solution. UBI might help but from my perspective the cost
| of UBI is too large to pull off in any normal economy
| (petro states in the gulf can probably pull it off).
| Shacklz wrote:
| > If someone is not highly skilled and works low end
| jobs, he could be left jobless if minimum wage increases.
|
| If you made this argument 100 years ago I might be
| inclined to agree with you, but "reasonable" minimum
| wages (i.e.: a 40h/week job pays always enough to feed a
| family and a roof over your head) have been tried and
| tested in countries all over the world and as far as I'm
| aware, they're almost always a success.
|
| The 'low skill worker' losing job opportunities because
| of too high minimum wages is a myth that just doesn't
| hold up to reality, no matter how many times
| conservatives afraid of losing their own bottom line or
| relative status repeat it.
| saberdancer wrote:
| It may have less of an effect than it is claimed, in some
| jobs the demand is there regardless of wages, so any
| increase in cost gets transferred to the consumer. If
| your janitor gets a 20% increase, it is doubtful he will
| get sacked because he is needed. But if the same happens
| to a person packing boxes or working and McDonalds, he
| might lose a job to overseas or a new automated machine.
|
| If you take it to extreme, it's obvious it's not a myth.
| Imagine a 100k USD yearly minimum wage. Obviously all
| unskilled worked wouldn't be able to earn this much for
| the employed, but in places where you have to have
| someone do the job, they'd enjoy their new high minimum
| wage.
| Shacklz wrote:
| You might be interested in this article here:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/sunday/us-
| denmark... (note that technically, Denmark has no minimum
| wage - but mechanism that essentially enforce the same)
|
| A few quotes here:
|
| > Starting pay for the humblest burger-flipper at
| McDonald's in Denmark is about $22 an hour once various
| pay supplements are included.
|
| > Americans might suspect that the Danish safety net
| encourages laziness. But 79 percent of Danes ages 16 to
| 64 are in the labor force, five percentage points higher
| than in the United States.
| wwtrv wrote:
| While the argument might be overblown in many cases you
| can't really deny that many South/South-Western European
| countries have huge youth unemployment rates, especially
| in low incomes areas, which can at least partially be
| attributed to minimum wage laws.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That's a risk, but I don't think it's as big as you think
| it is; it implies that an employer already has more staff
| than they need to have.
|
| Social safety nets is another thing that needs to be
| improved though. I don't believe in UBI myself, I think
| (and I'm not an economist) that the cost of living will
| just go up by an equal amount, negating the whole thing.
| It seems to work on a small scale, but cost of living is
| not changed significantly if only a small section of a
| country receives UBI.
|
| Anyway, back to unemployment, in theory automation causes
| unemployment too, but in practice, while people lose jobs
| over automation, the overall unemployment rate is not
| significantly affected. Or in other words, there's always
| more work to be done.
| judgemcjudgy wrote:
| I find the assumption so very silly that you could imply
| increase wages for everyone and everything else would stay
| the same. Sorry, I can't help saying that.
|
| But very well, let's assume it could work that way. Then
| you still haven't changed anything about the need for alarm
| clocks or work at inconvenient hours. So talking about
| minimum wage is really besides the point here.
|
| Even high paid physicians have to work ungodly hours at
| times.
| [deleted]
| dagorenouf wrote:
| Alarm clocks have always felt painful to me : an unnecessary
| burden to start the day with. Luckily, I haven't needed to used
| one since I finished school, as I've been either freelancing or
| running my own business. It does wonders to my energy levels. I
| basically never wake up tired, except on times where I go to bed
| way too late (after 1am). Sometimes I wake up at 8, sometimes 9
| or 10... My wife still uses one, and many times, she just spends
| the full day tired because she didn't sleep enough. Some people
| don't seem affected by it though. Namely: those that manage to
| fall asleep in 5 minutes!
| artonge wrote:
| I'm that kind of person, I fall asleep in 5 minutes. But early
| wake up and alarm clock are still very painfull to me.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Same. Someone point out I probably fell asleep so quickly
| because I am consistently sleep-deprived :-/
| aminozuur wrote:
| Another problem is forcing yourself to hurry and rush right after
| waking up.
|
| The last thing I want right after waking up, is having adrenaline
| and cortisol take over my body. It feels about as bad as waking
| up too early by an alarm clock.
|
| My days are best when I:
|
| - Wake up naturally, without an alarm clock
|
| - Relax the first hour, eat and drink something, talk to family.
| gverrilla wrote:
| If people could ditch the alarm clock, they certainly would. It's
| a matter of the social model of work. Until we change that, alarm
| clocks will remain, regardless of the number of blogs writing
| about this or wellbeing specialists wavering in.
| fimdomeio wrote:
| I stoped needing an alarm clock at the same time I stopped
| putting the blinds down. Waking up with natural light works
| really well for me.
| vestrigi wrote:
| How does that work with shifting sunrises? Do you just get up
| at 5 in the morning in the summer and 9 in the winter?
| k__ wrote:
| I didn't set an alarm for 3 years after struggling with getting a
| regular sleeping schedule my whole adult life.
|
| Best decision.
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