A lot of doctors have work weeks that are over 72h, but people like to call them greedy bastards and other stuff. Curse them for sleeping 15 min on the 24h call, etc.

Yeah I also think that doctors shouldn't work 72 h a week and people who hate on doctors who have to work that long should reconsider their moral values.

I want to work part time hours of my choosing and cash in hand, na mean?

I think I get this reference

A phenomenon that has been going on for a very long time which has recently gained media traction.

It's worth noting that it's not a phenomenon exclusive to the tech industry, my father who lives and works in China takes exactly zero vacations other than his annual trip to see me.

The fact that it's gaining media traction and public support is a sign that the collective mentality towards 'working' is changing slowly, and it's great.

I didn't read all the responses in the thread, but for the few replies I did come across:

1. Dictatorship? Yes, but nothing to do with this thread.
2. Communist country? No? it subscribed to certain communist ideologies during its early days and still do to a much lesser degree today. a more accurate description for China is that it's a one-party state
3. To the peculiar accusation/implication that this is because of communism: 996 is 100% the private sector's doing - the market and capitalists doing what they do best, without a strong hand from the government to intervene
4. Why haven't they intervened? IDK, wait and see

As a medical resident I worked 90 hours weekly for some time some would say the paycheck is worth, but not here in Brazil, where residents get paid 3000 BRL (around 760 USD)

Then guess why the unions were created in the first place?

Right, to fight against these exploitative working hours (among other things, of course, and on par with job safety and work safety, as often back then operating the machines was pretty dangerous).

Such working hours are not sustainable on the long run. Workers are getting physically and emotionally exhausted to the point of becoming numb to anything not related directly to it, like family and friends. It also kills off all creativity. Hence why we say today to "work smarter, not harder"

? This is mostly about Chinese tech firms like Xiaomi, Alibaba and so on...

Not really about companies from USA even though they let Chinese companies build their stuff but that's another story.

Huawei, Xiaomi, Alibaba and all of them don't fuck up their employees because of the US

Have I said these companies fuck up their employees because of US? No. I said companies in US do it on China and other places, but inside US they pretend to be great companies.

Well, that's the problem, if every company does this, where could you go instead?

Also, I did 12 hours a day for a while, but never also 6 days a week(either one or the other, I capped out at 60 hours a week. This is 72 hours a week, and that doesn't even contain any potential overtime) and certainly not over years and without holidays in between.

Besides, the Chinese government already is curbing dissent by paying good (compared to in the past, not necessarily to western countries) salaries, so in effect they are already doing what you ask. Which will get problematic if China will go into a recession, especially a prolonged one, as dissent will then go through the roof.