$500 Shadow Statue my Beloved

It turns out that working 40 hours a week is just too much. Full stop, no ifs ands or buts. The tiredness and loss of focus it induces is enough that you're about 25% less productive per hour when you're on a 40-hour work week, and so the extra 10 hours a week cancels out. This effect is a little bit more pronounced for white collar work and a little bit less pronounced for blue collar work, but there's functionally not enough of a difference to care. And people who are working more than that actually become less productive in total.

The thing is that you don't immediately gain the benefits of being fully rested and focused by working less on just one day, or even one week. It can even take months to settle into the pattern of higher productivity per working hour, and that's frankly miraculously quick given that full burnout can take years to recover from. And during that transition you will be less immediately productive. Particularly for people who pride themselves on being hard workers and how much overtime they put in, the notion that working less can get just as much done can feel absurd and even insulting. Because it seems so painfully obvious that you get less done when you do less, and any experiences of being invited to do so feel like they back that up.

But it's true. We are all simply working more than we need to, pointlessly, to no benefit at all. It is an appallingly pointless waste of human life.

Storm at Saturn's north pole

They tried to kill us, but they did not succeed. And we owe so much thanks to the other oppressed peoples, in particular the Choctaw Nation and the Masai, who sent money and grain to us.

Let me repeat that. The Choctaw Nation who had just gone through the Trail of Tears sent us money to try save Irish lives. It’s led to an understanding between Irish people and Native American tribes, most recently when we donated to the Navajo and Hopi fundraisers for COVID-19 relief, because while it may be a different tribe, Irish people will never forget those who helped us and we’ll help back.

The entire population of the island is less than seven million people. We’re still a million less on this island than pre famine. And it’s not that long ago. My grandmother’s grandparents lived through it. We’ve told the stories, it literally changed the DNA of the country. We have a national fear of renting, because so many people were evicted. People joke about Irish people always offering loads of food, but it’s because there’s that cultural memory of not being able to.