age. posted by Neuffy at 9:40 AM on June 19 People haven't suddenly become lazy; they're working harder than ever. You haven't been to my office lately. Let's theorize for a moment that about half the people in the world need to start exercising more; three hours a week. I'm saying half to discount those who already do manual labor for a living (and those of you who think manual labor keeps you trim and fit haven't been to a job site lately), and those who are fortunate enough to enjoy incorporating physical activities into their lives. Let's say we get them all started exercising regularly. We lose 1,986,630 years of productive human activity per week. I'd wager that most workers are "productive" less than 60% of the time they are "at work." This comment? QED. One of the major massive worldview shift events would be a shortening of the work week to 20 hours. We could do it easily in one generation. posted by mrgrimm at 9:47 AM on June 19 [ 3 favorites ] Actually, now that I think about it, the "working harder than ever" comment should be addressed: General consensus is that humans do not sustain high productivity for longer periods of time while working hours greater than 35-45 hours per week. A sprint for a few weeks is fine, but as fatigue builds up productivity drops due to increased mistakes and slowed mental processes. We do not see increased productivity by running sustained 80-hour work