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Comment by darod | Hacker News Reader

The author said medieval peasants ONLY worked 150 days a year. The average US worker is probably closer to 240-(8hr?) days a year of work. If you work more than 8 then I'm sure this figure would decrease. Additionally there are only so many hours that you can concentrate on a problem before you're useless yet we try to press on.

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>The author said medieval peasants ONLY worked 150 days a year.

They worked 150 days on the field. Their other time was occupied with chores.

Only working 150 days a year probably left a lot of time to go fight in one of those wars, peasant uprisings, and the crusades that were going on.

I'll dig into the history of leisure in the medieval period.

In the mean time, though... consider. If you earned the same amount as you do now, but only worked 150 days a year (and even then, only maybe 4-6 hours per day), what would you do with your free time?

I would have a lot more free time? I don’t understand the question. If I didn’t work at all but lived off of passive income due to an inheritance or investments, I would have even more free time.

I could probably live to the same standards of living as a medieval peasant working only 90 (potentially less) days a year for a significant pay cut of what I make currently. A wood stove, no electricity or running water, an outhouse, etc. the tent I could afford today to camp in would be luxurious compared to a peasant’s home.

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