> It's generally accepted that longer work hours decrease cognitive performance
Of course, it is more or less obvious that there's a point where working more is not going to produce marginal improvement anymore. Physiology is a harsh mistress. But claiming 4 days per week is that point is pretty bold.
> You might also note that I've argued for a shorter work day as well, thus allowing for significantly more non-work work to be done by amateurs than just 1 day per week.
To me it looks like replacing workhours done by professionals at designated workplaces by workhours done by enthusiastic amateurs using their own resources. It may be that the latter model is more efficient, but that is a rather bold claim that needs some proof, and not at all intuitive. What amateurs win with anthusiasm, they can easily lose with poor resource base, organization and cooperation issues. Some things, to be sure, lend itself to crowdsourcing easily, but some - and a lot of fundamental science seems to be in that area - require very specific large organizational effort and significant resources. If, say, an average pharma worker works 1 day less to pursue their hobby of writing gcc patches, and an average software engineer works 1 day less to pursue their hobby as a amateur chemist, I am not sure we'd get cure for common cold or order of magnitude better compiler. Maybe it will happen, but it's not obvious to me that it should.
> If the premise of increased productivity for shorter work weeks applies to research work as well
That, again, is a big if. Especially the point where the return starts to be negative.
Of course, it is more or less obvious that there's a point where working more is not going to produce marginal improvement anymore. Physiology is a harsh mistress. But claiming 4 days per week is that point is pretty bold.
> You might also note that I've argued for a shorter work day as well, thus allowing for significantly more non-work work to be done by amateurs than just 1 day per week.
To me it looks like replacing workhours done by professionals at designated workplaces by workhours done by enthusiastic amateurs using their own resources. It may be that the latter model is more efficient, but that is a rather bold claim that needs some proof, and not at all intuitive. What amateurs win with anthusiasm, they can easily lose with poor resource base, organization and cooperation issues. Some things, to be sure, lend itself to crowdsourcing easily, but some - and a lot of fundamental science seems to be in that area - require very specific large organizational effort and significant resources. If, say, an average pharma worker works 1 day less to pursue their hobby of writing gcc patches, and an average software engineer works 1 day less to pursue their hobby as a amateur chemist, I am not sure we'd get cure for common cold or order of magnitude better compiler. Maybe it will happen, but it's not obvious to me that it should.
> If the premise of increased productivity for shorter work weeks applies to research work as well
That, again, is a big if. Especially the point where the return starts to be negative.