Let’s say a new, cheap drug is invented where everyone no longer needs sleep (or sleep is cut down to 30 min a day).
My contention is that (as posted in the linked thread):
I could be wrong…but lets look at housing as an example. Let’s also say a new, cheap miracle drug was mass produced which eliminated the need to sleep.
At first, you could work a normal workday. However, a significant number of people will work extra hours because they like work, or want to increase their lifestyle etc.
They now have more money. This means more money is available for these folks to buy (as per the example) houses. This means people will bid higher for houses and prices will rise. Rents would climb as well because houses are worth more.
So, if you insisted on working a normal workday…you would find your salary not being able to afford as much a house or rent. You would be forced to lower your standard of living or work more hours.
Now, the above is assuming that you are paid the same. In all likelihood, your $ per hour would probably drop…as there is a vast increase in the labor pool and so downward pressure on salaries.
I can see this probably happened with women entering the workforce…how many average Joe people do you know that have one working adult, one at home and have a nice house? Today, it takes 2 Joe working stiffs to afford that modest house.
The workday has little to do with how much sleep one needs. It could easily be expanded to 12 hours today, by eliminating all the “personal time” people seem to like. In the past, the work day was often from before sunrise to after sunset, and people needed just as much sleep back then.
Many of us seniors sleep less and less as we grow older. Most complaints are of boredom. What is a 72 year old supposed to do while awake for 19 hours?
I’m assuming this will be moved to the Hypothecal Questions forum.
If it takes fewer people to supply the needs of society, we will see a rise in unemployment. Prices will rise to the newly available overtime income, but more people will be left without any income - or our society will have to expand the entertainment/service sector to employ those who are jobless due to the fewer people producing the necessities.
And we’ll run out of fossil fuels a lot faster since we now have to keep the lights on 24/7
for the last question:
I am a Husband, and father of 3. I own a 4-bedroom home in a part of town with only 1 reportable crime within a mile of my house in the past year. (The nice part of town). My wife is a housewife - no income, by her choosing. I don’t make a ton of money, but we do just fine on one income.
That’s what happened with 2-income families, isn’t it? At first they had nice money to live well with, and to save for retirement, but now 2-income families are common, and the money doesn’t seem to go as far.
I really don’t buy this “boredom” thing. There are so many things I want to do that I often find myself staying up till 2 or 3am and subsisting on 4 or 5 hours’ sleep a night, just to try and get them done. (I often work 12hr days anyway.) If I didn’t have to work, I still doubt if I’d have time for all the things I want to do. How do people get bored?
As far as housing goes, this would reduce required living space, particularly for young single people or childless couples. You don’t sleep, you have less need to have a bed included in your furnishings - yes, there are other traditional uses, but lack of one is hardly an impediment. Somebody who would now be renting a 1 bedroom apartment will be fine with a studio. College dormitories won’t really be necessary - just rather large storage lockers. As long as you’ve got someplace to stash your belongings, you could hang out / study in the student union or the library, and not actually “live” anywhere at all. Being homeless wouldn’t be as big a deal, and you wouldn’t have to find lodging when you traveled. There would be a new business opportunity renting out bathroom facilities by the hour to travelers wishing to clean up. Families would still find houses with rooms to allow privacy useful, but not having to sleep in them probably changes house designs.
Yeah, but when it got dark they went to bed. Now people stay up and watch TV. I drive to work in the dark and home in the dark a lot, and I only work 10 or 12 hours most days. Lately it’s been 90 hour weeks, but that’s only two weeks a year.
It’s been mentioned that people working increased hours would drive up prices, since they’d be making more money. But they’d be WORKING during that time, which means that production would increase by the same amount. People make money by doing productive things. A contractor who worked twice as much would be producing twice as much housing. A factory worker would be producing twice the amounts of widgets. An officeworker could shuffle twice the amount of paper.
More production means lower prices. So people might make more money, but everything would be cheaper, not more expensive.
you may eliminate the need for sleep, but i doubt you have eliminated the need for down time/quiet time away from people. The dorm replaced by a storage locker gives people no private time.
Roughly speaking, this isn’t right. You would have more production, a greater GDP. But things would cost the same. The people who work 16 hours could afford twice as much, but you wouldn’t. You’d afford the same amount. (Except for land and a few other annoying things that aren’t made anymore).
You could legislate maximum work hours. We sort of do already.
I don’t see most of the people using the extra hours for a job. Recreational hours will go up. Also I don’t care if the person can stay awake. the physical demand on the body would be beyond what many people good handle.