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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I realized that American hustle + grind culture is inescapable.

American (US) work culture that requires usually way beyond the 40 hour work week, often calling for nights and weekends and limited ACTUAL vacation time - as in you don't take calls, don't bring your work computer etc - for anyone who actually wants to have the trappings of the American middle class lifestyle: A house, a couple of cars, a couple of kids etc. No longer can a conventional 9 to 5 pay for that. 9 to 5 is more 8 to 6 anyways, even for the normal office grunt jobs. Nowadays, if you stay in a normal, non-managerial position, your wages/salary will stagnate, won't keep up with inflation, and you'll struggle to even afford the tiny apartment or shared housing with roommates and budget/Walmart groceries you had in your 20s. If you want to have a single family home and afford children, you have to work longer hours and sacrifice work life balance. That's the reality.

This lack of work life balance creates a very unhealthy society, where people are incentivized to cut corners on their health - not finding time to exercise, eating processed convenience foods, being exhausted while mostly sedentary. We are a very unhappy and unhealthy society.

But if we took the work/life balance approach of the repeatedly happiest, healthiest, best work-life balanced country - Denmark, our entire economy would collapse.

Denmark has a 37 hour work week that pretty much holds true. They have a mandatory year (sometimes two years) of family (maternity and paternity) leave, and five weeks paid vacation. But if we were to be more like Denmark, it would require us to have an overall more modest and quiet life with less consumption. Smaller homes, fewer cars, fewer gadgets, less consumerism overall. People would have to (gasp) ride the train or (horror) the bus! This wouldn't look like Soviet socialism, but would be a drastically less consumptive lifestyle than most of us are used to. And could you imagine what would happen to the economy if we all collectively consumed 20-40% less? An ungodly recession. Job losses every which-way, except the same oligarchs would still secure their profits just passing all their losses onto us.

The American economy as we know it is fueled by consumer debt, hyper consumption, and overwork culture. There's nothing we can do about it.[/quote]

Mmmmmk when was the last time Denmark invented something remarkable/changed life/society/the way we think about health/convenience/technology? Annnnnnnd now you know why. [/quote]

DP but all of that is hype and overrated. 
How many of the last 10-20 years worth of advances really helped the common man?
A lot more have harmed than helped.[/quote]

You’re kidding right? Are you yourself ‘common?’ Do you use any of these?? Microsoft, apple iPhones and iPads, uber, Netflix, Amazon, Ring camera, Waze, Google Maps — are you on any maintenance meds? They were probably R&D’ed by American Pharma. Do you get them in the mail? Rx by mail was OG’ed here. [/quote]

If people spent less time sitting on their butts scrolling and ordering Uber eats, they would not need the meds.[/quote]

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