5 ms·

Might we call laziness the quality of not being willing to work without external motivation? E.g. if you're running, you slow down, your coach yells at you, and

by strken 5y ago

Might we call laziness the quality of not being willing to work without external motivation? E.g. if you're running, you slow down, your coach yells at you, and you speed up again, vs if you sprain your ankle and are unable to continue no matter how much pressure is applied. In your case, it has a different meaning than Godlessness from the point of view of a boss, since a lazy person is one who'll only complete a task if you motivate them extrinsically. I think it's unnecessarily insulting, though being an insult might be part of the motivational power.

themacguffinman 5y ago
You could also offer two zero-pay activities (eg. cooking vs programming) to the same person. The willingness to do one vs the other will be different, yet they could both be considered work. A lot of people will say "you couldn't pay me to do X" while they frequently do Y for free. This implies that your definition of laziness or Godlessness doesn't describe a consistent personality trait. The exact same personality seems to be more affected by the nature of the "work" than the presence of external motivation.
jodrellblank 5y ago
Often the one being called lazy is lower status and less powerful who has no intrinsic interest in the work, and the one calling someone lazy is the higher power authority figure who wants the work done. Runner vs Coach - in school if you're being forced to run and hate it, the coach shouting at you and the threat of punishment keeps you going (is that the same as it removing your laziness? Is hating running really being lazy?). But in the case of an enthusiast competitively running, they might benefit from the coach holding them to a higher standard, but are they really someone who isn't willing to run without external motivation? You might imagine a couch potato on welfare as a lazy person. Even then they will likely get up to get their welfare money, get food, use the toilet, go to sleep. When they have reasons they care about to do things, they do. If they literally don't get up to use the toilet or eat, we generally call them depressed or mentally ill rather than lazy. So why does the ordinary 'lazy' person watch TV instead of doing something else? Does calling them 'lazy' add any value as a label, or does it obscure whatever is really going on? Is it a Pavlov-dog conditioned situation, where they were disapproved of as a child whenever they did anything, a kind of learned helplessness, a once bitten twice shy situation? Is it that they lack imagination of what other things could be interesting or enjoyable? Is it that they never did anything long enough to get success at it so they have no internal model of that being possible and what it feels like? Is it that they have physical problems or pains, or mental shame and self-hate that make doing things more unpleasant than is visible from the outside?
- strken 5y ago
  Imagine you have a horse you don't care about, and it stops walking. For practical purposes it doesn't really matter why your horse won't walk anymore. You want to know one thing: what to do to get it moving again. If lazy means "now is a good time to dig in the spurs", then it's meaningful. This is not a good way to treat people or horses, and not a nice thing, but it has meaning. Laziness means the spurs will still work. I don't use laziness as a concept because I don't like the mindset that comes with it.
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    Imagine you had a person with a broken ankle who wanted to stop, and you whipped them so they'd keep moving because you don't care. Does the master's lack of interest prove laziness is real?
    - strken 5y ago
      It's still a real and meaningful term, even if you don't like what the meaning is and disagree with using it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by strken 5y ago

themacguffinman 5y ago

You could also offer two zero-pay activities (eg. cooking vs programming) to the same person. The willingness to do one vs the other will be different, yet they could both be considered work. A lot of people will say "you couldn't pay me to do X" while they frequently do Y for free. This implies that your definition of laziness or Godlessness doesn't describe a consistent personality trait. The exact same personality seems to be more affected by the nature of the "work" than the presence of external motivation.

jodrellblank 5y ago

Often the one being called lazy is lower status and less powerful who has no intrinsic interest in the work, and the one calling someone lazy is the higher power authority figure who wants the work done. Runner vs Coach - in school if you're being forced to run and hate it, the coach shouting at you and the threat of punishment keeps you going (is that the same as it removing your laziness? Is hating running really being lazy?). But in the case of an enthusiast competitively running, they might benefit from the coach holding them to a higher standard, but are they really someone who isn't willing to run without external motivation? You might imagine a couch potato on welfare as a lazy person. Even then they will likely get up to get their welfare money, get food, use the toilet, go to sleep. When they have reasons they care about to do things, they do. If they literally don't get up to use the toilet or eat, we generally call them depressed or mentally ill rather than lazy. So why does the ordinary 'lazy' person watch TV instead of doing something else? Does calling them 'lazy' add any value as a label, or does it obscure whatever is really going on? Is it a Pavlov-dog conditioned situation, where they were disapproved of as a child whenever they did anything, a kind of learned helplessness, a once bitten twice shy situation? Is it that they lack imagination of what other things could be interesting or enjoyable? Is it that they never did anything long enough to get success at it so they have no internal model of that being possible and what it feels like? Is it that they have physical problems or pains, or mental shame and self-hate that make doing things more unpleasant than is visible from the outside?

strken 5y ago
Imagine you have a horse you don't care about, and it stops walking. For practical purposes it doesn't really matter why your horse won't walk anymore. You want to know one thing: what to do to get it moving again. If lazy means "now is a good time to dig in the spurs", then it's meaningful. This is not a good way to treat people or horses, and not a nice thing, but it has meaning. Laziness means the spurs will still work. I don't use laziness as a concept because I don't like the mindset that comes with it.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  Imagine you had a person with a broken ankle who wanted to stop, and you whipped them so they'd keep moving because you don't care. Does the master's lack of interest prove laziness is real?
  - strken 5y ago
    It's still a real and meaningful term, even if you don't like what the meaning is and disagree with using it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]