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I don't get it either, I actually enjoy getting things done and being responsible (to the extent that is reasonable) as well. Doing nothing makes me feel like a

I don't get it either, I actually enjoy getting things done and being responsible (to the extent that is reasonable) as well. Doing nothing makes me feel like a piece of shit. Not because of some kind of societal conditioning about work being inherently virtuous, I think, but because it feels good to contribute to something larger than yourself, and I think we should endeavor to contribute to society proportionately to what we receive from it. This phenomenon of bragging about laziness or how little you work smells similar to the "I barely got any sleep last night" of yore. Considering how much we take from society (you can look at your pay as that, or the fact we reap the benefits of centuries of technological progress, or that we have extremely physically easy jobs compared to the majority of the world's population), I think we have a duty to contribute back. It's pretty disappointing to see people in the software industry advocate for laziness considering how plum our jobs are and how much potential we have to contribute to the world.

thenerdhead 5y ago
The late Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard Feynman famously told an interviewer that his strategy for minimizing committee work was to do it really poorly so that people would eventually stop asking him for help. "To do the kind of real good physics work, you do need absolutely solid lengths of time. When you’re putting ideas together which are vague and hard to remember … it needs a lot of concentration—solid time to think. If you’ve got a job administrating anything, say, then you don’t have the solid time. So I have invented another myth for myself—that I’m irresponsible. “I am actively irresponsible,” I tell everybody. “I don’t do anything.” If anybody asks me to be on a committee to take care of admissions … “No! I’m irresponsible. … I don’t give a damn about the students!” Of course I give a damn about the students, but I know that somebody else’ll do it! … because I like to do physics, and I want to see if I can still do it. I am selfish, okay? I want to do my physics."

thenerdhead 5y ago

The late Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard Feynman famously told an interviewer that his strategy for minimizing committee work was to do it really poorly so that people would eventually stop asking him for help. "To do the kind of real good physics work, you do need absolutely solid lengths of time. When you’re putting ideas together which are vague and hard to remember … it needs a lot of concentration—solid time to think. If you’ve got a job administrating anything, say, then you don’t have the solid time. So I have invented another myth for myself—that I’m irresponsible. “I am actively irresponsible,” I tell everybody. “I don’t do anything.” If anybody asks me to be on a committee to take care of admissions … “No! I’m irresponsible. … I don’t give a damn about the students!” Of course I give a damn about the students, but I know that somebody else’ll do it! … because I like to do physics, and I want to see if I can still do it. I am selfish, okay? I want to do my physics."