[spartanatreyu]

> There is no sudden outbreak of productive activity because people have more free time.

I can't recall which studies they were, but I was under the impression that with a sudden expansion of free time, the earliest productivity gains don't occur until months later at the earliest.

I think the effect came up in long-term UBI trial participants, and those that acquired sudden wealth from inheritance / lottery / stocks / etc...

There tends to be a decompression stage after leaving work environment that didn't suit the person, then a deconstruction / rebuilding / searching stage afterwards.

I think it's also common for large lottery winners to become depressed because they have trouble searching for what to do afterwards.

[wongarsu]

Anecdotes obviously aren't data, but from my own experience going some time jobless after my last startup I was basically useless for the first three months. By month four I started looking for some things to do and excuses to regularly leave the house. By month 9 I had a bunch of side projects and hobbies going on. Some productive, some artistic, some just screwing around.

Then I got a job I liked, and while some of the hobbies were still quite active for the first two months or so they've all come to rest now. Still trying to figure out how to get a better work-life balance again, because I quite liked those hobbies

[fendy3002]

Yep, the statement is so bad with a pattern of "because most won't, then all won't", which commonly used during birth rate issues too. It's either ignorant or malicious with hidden agenda behind.

Giving employees 1 week of free time? That's nothing, and nothing will change too as a result. Give them a whole month of free time? I bet they will make some small, short term projects, even doing hobbies like gaming, fishing, cooking or golfing where it wasn't available before.

[henrikschroder]

> Giving employees 1 week of free time? That's nothing, and nothing will change too as a result. Give them a whole month of free time? I bet they will make some small, short term projects, even doing hobbies like gaming, fishing, cooking or golfing where it wasn't available before.

*confused in European, again*

Hey, if only there was an entire continent of hundreds of millions of people who typically have 5 weeks of paid vacation per year or more so that we could check this and see what happens?

[chownie]

You have confused 5 weeks (across a year) for 5 weeks (contiguous), this isn't speciality european confusion it's the regular garden variety.

[xedrac]

5 weeks, even contiguous is not enough to unwind from decades of job induced stress. I took some time off between jobs, and it was a solid 3 months before I noticed major improvements.

[timje1]

Multiple countries take the entirety of August off. This is most common in France, but also Italy and Spain. 5, 6 weeks of contiguous holiday is commonplace in France. This is a big enough trend for there to be data.

[WJW]

There's tons of people over here taking 3 or 4 weeks contiguous, especially if they have children. That is in addition to other vacations around christmas etc. It's definitely not 5 separate weeks.

I don't think there's a lot of things that one could do in 5 weeks, but where 4 weeks would be too short.

[chownie]

Tons? Hyperbole? Are they teachers or something? That amount of leave in one go is basically unheard of, with the exception of maternity leave I don't know anyone who's been on leave for more than 3 weeks as a single block.

This is also taking from that same 5 week leave bucket people have available per annum, if they're taking 4 weeks then they have 5 days to last the remainder of the year. Not that crazy, but I have literally never even met a single person who does this let alone knowing tons.

[henrikschroder]

No, it's not hyperbole. 5 weeks vacation is the legal minimum, this also includes the right to take 4 contiguous weeks in the summer.

At my last employer, I had 6 weeks paid vacation per year, that's 4 in the summer, 1-2 weeks around the Christmas holidays, and a couple of extra days here and there if needed. Most people spent their vacations like that.

There's also something called the "industrial vacation", where related manufacturing industries coordinate the 4-week legal right, which typically results in everyone in that sector taking July off.

In Southern Europe, the same thing happens in August, it's very common that people simply take the entire month off.

> I don't know anyone who's been on leave for more than 3 weeks as a single block.

I am so sorry for you.

[glacier9147]

I don't know if this is a Norway exclusive thing or if some other countries have similar laws aswell, but we have the right to take three continuous weeks of vacation during summer. You don't have to take the continuous weeks, but in my experience most people do

[qkeast]

All the time in Germany.

[fendy3002]

yes, the exact point I've mentioned, feels like an organized effort to reduce the importance of free time. "Look at those European with astonishing 5 weeks of paid vacation and they aren't productive at all!" argument without getting the point:

* no source to back them up, and equalize everyone without considering some will be productive

* equating all non-money making or enterpreneur activities as non-productive and equal to doomscrolling

* ignoring other limitations like living space size, funds availability, opportunity, license or regulation

[kuerbel]

I'm not sure about other countries in europe but in Germany your employer can and will try to prevent you from starting a company. Some are more lenient and don't care if it's another industry, but same? Usually that is not going to happen.

So the cheapest and safest way to open a company is closed to a lot of employees, even with UBI.

[wiseowise]

5 weeks is nothing over a year.

[Aurornis]

> I think the effect came up in long-term UBI trial participants,

The failure of UBI trials to show these effects has been one of the noteworthy developments in the UBI topic in recent years.

There were several studies that tried really hard to demonstrate that UBI would increase the rate of business creation and similar metrics. The last one I remember reading was trying to show that the long-term cash recipients reported a marginally higher rate of thinking about maybe starting a business, but they weren't actually doing it.

[spartanatreyu]

As I remember it, there were four kinds of UBI trials:

- Low UBI, short term

- Low UBI, long term

- High UBI, short term

- High UBI, long term

Both low UBI kinds did little except provide a little better food/medical security for poor folks.

High UBI short term mostly only led to people either saving or spending the money immediately.

High UBI long term was the only one where the effect I was talking about showed up. Most people carried on as they did, some reduced hours, there was an increase in people switching jobs, and an increasing in people leaving work to get a degree.

I also remember the difference between the first three kinds and the last kind led to confusion between UBI trials.

Admittedly I haven't looked in a few years, so I'll have to check again.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Starting a business can be horrifically expensive, complicated, and risky. You have to spend a good few months researching all the things you need to do before you actually do it. And most people don't even know what questions to ask.

Some people will grow up in households where their parents understand basic law, finance, and business bureaucracy. They may already be part of a network with similar individuals in their cohort.

There's also the informal culture - knowing when you can push and maybe exploit vs knowing when to fold and play by the rules.

Other people come to it completely cold. They don't know the basics, don't understand the requirements, have no experience of the culture, don't even know what the words mean.

This is another reason why UBI isn't enough. If you want people to be more entrepreneurial you need a practical culture that supports that. Investing in them financially is a good first step, but it's not a complete solution.

[WalterBright]

> Starting a business can be horrifically expensive, complicated, and risky.

Or just go door to door offering maid service or yard service or cleanup service or handyman service or tutoring service or ...

[21asdffdsa12]

I think those that would start a business, self-select themselves out of any crowd that would receive UBI before the experiment.

[6510]

It's such an unimaginative metric. First, we lump all jobs together into one bag. Depending on who you are some jobs are an actual joy whole others are absurdly demanding. We have zero dialog about the correct number of hours for each.

Lots of jobs (both physically and mentally) require slacking off half the shift. I've seen quite a few that on paper require 8 hours of top tier athletic performance. It might be possible to train a person to accomplish that. The work schedule looks nothing like a training program.

To grow, mental and physical challenges have to push people to their limit for X hours over Y days where X and Y depend a lot on what it is one does and their point of exhaustion. If you are not exhausted you aren't growing. When you are exhausted you should be resting. Rest should be exactly the right duration.

If people are never challenged physically, mentally (and perhaps socially) they will decline and eventually the lack of physical fitness will eat away their mental performance just like a lack of mental challenge will ruin physical performance.

There is no discussion about the duration or frequency of shifts.

If you look at it strictly from a greed and exploitation perspective it is a dumb idea to pay someone for 8 hours if it isn't possible to do more than 5 hours of work. It is dumb to have people work 5 days if they are used up after 3. It is dumb to have 2 days of weekend if the employee is not recharged. The collective goal was to exploit them until retirement. If they cant even be allowed to grow stronger it is a truly dumb schedule.

I had a job once that involved a weekly truck full of 75 kg bags of flour. About 10 employees were unable to do a single bag, about 10 could do 1-5. Then there was one guy who did the other 150 bags. Not a coincidence it was the same guy who put them in the mixer. Say 10 000 kg. The world record most weight lifted in a day is half a million kg or say 6500 bags.

They calculated top memory sports people are on average 5000 times better at remembering things than untrained people. They weren't born like that nor did it just happen suddenly.

Lots of people want to start their own business but they are terrified by the amount of work and level of uncertainty. It doesn't seem like we want people to start their own business. We need them to but it looks more like we've made it intentionally complicated. Complicated enough that you probably shouldn't invest in them.

There is also the angle of people able to support you. If everyone has 4 day weekends you really should ask them to help you. If it is only 2 days you'd best not bother.