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I don't like how people, still, treat lazyness as a root cause, not as an effect. Lazyness is a bug, it's a failure state, it's a medical condition. Much like

I don't like how people, still, treat lazyness as a root cause, not as an effect. Lazyness is a bug, it's a failure state, it's a medical condition. Much like depression, psychology cannot treat it in all cases, but taking the approach that people are just born lazy and iredeemable seems like the most unscientific, least promising, and most likely to annoy your devoted commenter.

NateEag 5y ago
In my experience, people who focus on laziness are NOT saying the lazy person is irredeemable - they're usually saying precisely "You're choosing to be lazy and you don't have to. Choose to be different!" Granted, they often don't think through how to do that, or why the person might be struggling to perform, but it's not usually a belief that the person is incapable of doing better.
- RobertoG 5y ago
  In my experience, people who focus on the laziness of others are trying to bring the focus at how they themselves are not lazy. There is something similar going on with overweight. What's so difficult? just eat less! look at me! It's a status game, instead of trying to help. Anyway, to say to somebody "don't procrastinate" is like given a guitar to somebody and tell them "just play!". Sure man, how?
  - loves_mangoes 5y ago
    That's hard to want to believe. The problem is if you assume they're not trying to help, then either they need help (too), or there's not much we can do about it. I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. . Thankfully, psychiatry! Read a book, boys & girls & enby friends.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      > I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. Yes. This is exactly what I was trying to get across. Thanks.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "You're choosing to be lazy and you don't have to. Choose to be different!" This gets to the very important question of how much choice do we really have. People are the way they are because of how they were raised, their genetics, where and among whom they were raised and their life experiences. There's arguably some choice mixed in there too, somewhere, but how much real choice people have is debatable. If people don't have much choice in the way they are, it explains why they have a really hard time changing, and there's no sense in blaming them for something they can't change. Of course some people do change, but maybe that's because they were the kind of person who could, and other people are the kinds of people who can't.
- loves_mangoes 5y ago
  Thank you for trying to explain their thought process — I appreciate that, that's very kind! I appreciate that you're very empathetic, and I feel like not everyone else is. There's a whole lot of people who probably can't imagine what it's like to be somebody else. That's hard, isn't it? But when you tell lazy people not to be lazy, and they don't do it, then it almost sounds like you must either be calling them dumb, or defective. So that's why I feel like thinking of it as treatable is a nice and friendly middle ground. Which a lot of people don't seem to. That doesn't seem to be their impulse. Oh, they're lazy. Let's not fix that.
gmadsen 5y ago
in my personal experience, laziness is absolutely a thing. As an example, many friends in college would go party or hang out far more often than I did. Its not that I didn't like hanging out, its that I valued the long term payout of good grades more than my current suffering. I've also ran through the mountains until I literally couldn't stand from a pile of stress fractures. Even though very stupid, its an example of mind over matter. To me laziness is an inability to mentally force action over the brains signals to not incur distress or effort. I feel pretty confident that there is a large overlap of "lazy people" with people that would have a hard time taking cold showers in the morning for a month, if hot water was available.
- zamfi 5y ago
  > in my personal experience, laziness is absolutely a thing. As an example, many friends in college would go party or hang out far more often than I did. Its not that I didn't like hanging out, its that I valued the long term payout of good grades more than my current suffering. This sounds more like you’re trying to explain the behavior of your friends and are choosing the word “laziness”, but that’s a pretty reductive explanation for why some people like to party and others don’t. Perhaps if you were willing to do the hard work of questioning your own assumptions and seeing life through your friends eyes a little more you could have more sympathy. But perhaps you aren’t because that’s hard work and causes distress you’d rather not incur, and it’s much easier to describe human behavior as “laziness” than to understand it’s causes.
  - gmadsen 5y ago
    I do that plenty, I used that example because it seemed most appropriate for this forum. It was probably because they had a support system, so they felt there lives would be ok even if they did average in school, where I felt I would literally be homeless if I lost my scholarships. you know who wasn't lazy in school? All the immigrant friends I had. I could have instead, easily described the 100s of people I grew up around, that would skip work and get drunk instead, spend all their paycheck the day they get it. The obesity, the abuse, the drug addiction. I have zero sympathy for able bodied people that can't cope enough to feed their children. I don't care the causes, nor are they relevant. I have worked for $10 an hour doing construction in 100 degree weather, and I have also work as a SWE at a FAANG. I have seen the complete lack of self awareness most professionals and/or those from upper class backgrounds have.

NateEag 5y ago

In my experience, people who focus on laziness are NOT saying the lazy person is irredeemable - they're usually saying precisely "You're choosing to be lazy and you don't have to. Choose to be different!" Granted, they often don't think through how to do that, or why the person might be struggling to perform, but it's not usually a belief that the person is incapable of doing better.

RobertoG 5y ago
In my experience, people who focus on the laziness of others are trying to bring the focus at how they themselves are not lazy. There is something similar going on with overweight. What's so difficult? just eat less! look at me! It's a status game, instead of trying to help. Anyway, to say to somebody "don't procrastinate" is like given a guitar to somebody and tell them "just play!". Sure man, how?
- loves_mangoes 5y ago
  That's hard to want to believe. The problem is if you assume they're not trying to help, then either they need help (too), or there's not much we can do about it. I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. . Thankfully, psychiatry! Read a book, boys & girls & enby friends.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    > I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. Yes. This is exactly what I was trying to get across. Thanks.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"You're choosing to be lazy and you don't have to. Choose to be different!" This gets to the very important question of how much choice do we really have. People are the way they are because of how they were raised, their genetics, where and among whom they were raised and their life experiences. There's arguably some choice mixed in there too, somewhere, but how much real choice people have is debatable. If people don't have much choice in the way they are, it explains why they have a really hard time changing, and there's no sense in blaming them for something they can't change. Of course some people do change, but maybe that's because they were the kind of person who could, and other people are the kinds of people who can't.
loves_mangoes 5y ago
Thank you for trying to explain their thought process — I appreciate that, that's very kind! I appreciate that you're very empathetic, and I feel like not everyone else is. There's a whole lot of people who probably can't imagine what it's like to be somebody else. That's hard, isn't it? But when you tell lazy people not to be lazy, and they don't do it, then it almost sounds like you must either be calling them dumb, or defective. So that's why I feel like thinking of it as treatable is a nice and friendly middle ground. Which a lot of people don't seem to. That doesn't seem to be their impulse. Oh, they're lazy. Let's not fix that.

gmadsen 5y ago

in my personal experience, laziness is absolutely a thing. As an example, many friends in college would go party or hang out far more often than I did. Its not that I didn't like hanging out, its that I valued the long term payout of good grades more than my current suffering. I've also ran through the mountains until I literally couldn't stand from a pile of stress fractures. Even though very stupid, its an example of mind over matter. To me laziness is an inability to mentally force action over the brains signals to not incur distress or effort. I feel pretty confident that there is a large overlap of "lazy people" with people that would have a hard time taking cold showers in the morning for a month, if hot water was available.

zamfi 5y ago
> in my personal experience, laziness is absolutely a thing. As an example, many friends in college would go party or hang out far more often than I did. Its not that I didn't like hanging out, its that I valued the long term payout of good grades more than my current suffering. This sounds more like you’re trying to explain the behavior of your friends and are choosing the word “laziness”, but that’s a pretty reductive explanation for why some people like to party and others don’t. Perhaps if you were willing to do the hard work of questioning your own assumptions and seeing life through your friends eyes a little more you could have more sympathy. But perhaps you aren’t because that’s hard work and causes distress you’d rather not incur, and it’s much easier to describe human behavior as “laziness” than to understand it’s causes.
- gmadsen 5y ago
  I do that plenty, I used that example because it seemed most appropriate for this forum. It was probably because they had a support system, so they felt there lives would be ok even if they did average in school, where I felt I would literally be homeless if I lost my scholarships. you know who wasn't lazy in school? All the immigrant friends I had. I could have instead, easily described the 100s of people I grew up around, that would skip work and get drunk instead, spend all their paycheck the day they get it. The obesity, the abuse, the drug addiction. I have zero sympathy for able bodied people that can't cope enough to feed their children. I don't care the causes, nor are they relevant. I have worked for $10 an hour doing construction in 100 degree weather, and I have also work as a SWE at a FAANG. I have seen the complete lack of self awareness most professionals and/or those from upper class backgrounds have.