> But US and China lead. Americans work way more hours than Europeans do
Okay, by your logic we should also see: Mexico, Vietnam, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Russia, and Israel to be ahead because they all work more hours.
I think we can all agree that there's more to this problem than hours. Now the question is if it is just money. Probably not considering that list, but hey, that money doesn't hurt either.
No one is arguing that hours aren't needed. People are arguing that output is not linearly correlated to number of hours worked. Personally, I think it tends to look more S-curved. Imprecise because sometimes 30 minutes of work can be very useful and sometimes it can be even detrimental. But it can take some time to get into the zone and be very productive. At the same time, too much and you are less effective.
The only situations where more working hours directly equates to more output is when you have a very clear widget machine. We've already automated a lot of tasks because of this, but hey there are still hard problems like fruit picking. Though I think it isn't hard to understand how the human becomes less productive as they get tired... I'm not sure why you think that isn't true about coding. I'm really not sure why you think that is true when it comes to doing research. Some of the most famous scientists in history famously worked <6hrs per day because frankly in a research job you're working most hours in the day even when you're doing something else.
tldr: I think you vastly oversimplified the problem.
I hope you realize that this just completes proof that there is no significant correlation?
Also, as a person who worked with a lot of Israeli engineers, from juniors to senior architects, I can only say haha, try catching any of them in office after 4pm, or at most 5pm :) . They surely don't work 996, they work the same hours like western EU, just start early and finish early.
I think we can all agree that there's more to this problem than hours. Now the question is if it is just money. Probably not considering that list, but hey, that money doesn't hurt either.
No one is arguing that hours aren't needed. People are arguing that output is not linearly correlated to number of hours worked. Personally, I think it tends to look more S-curved. Imprecise because sometimes 30 minutes of work can be very useful and sometimes it can be even detrimental. But it can take some time to get into the zone and be very productive. At the same time, too much and you are less effective.
The only situations where more working hours directly equates to more output is when you have a very clear widget machine. We've already automated a lot of tasks because of this, but hey there are still hard problems like fruit picking. Though I think it isn't hard to understand how the human becomes less productive as they get tired... I'm not sure why you think that isn't true about coding. I'm really not sure why you think that is true when it comes to doing research. Some of the most famous scientists in history famously worked <6hrs per day because frankly in a research job you're working most hours in the day even when you're doing something else.
tldr: I think you vastly oversimplified the problem.