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Being Lazy Is a Sign of High Intelligence, Study Suggests (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Findings from a U.S.-based study seem to support the idea that people with a high IQ get bored less easily, leading them to spend more time engaged in thought. And active people may be more physical as they need to stimulate their minds with external activities, either to escape their thoughts or because they get bored quickly. Researchers from the Florida Gulf Coast University gave a classic test -- dating back three decades -- to a group of students. The 'need for cognition' questionnaire asked participants to rate how strongly they agree with statements such as "I really enjoy a task that involves coming up with new solutions to problems," and "I only think as hard as I have to." The researchers, led by Todd McElroy, then selected 30 'thinkers' and 30 'non-thinkers' from the pool of candidates. Over the next seven days both groups wore a device on their wrist which tracked their movements and activity levels, providing a constant stream of data on how physically active they were. Results showed the thinking group were far less active during the week than the non-thinkers. "Ultimately, an important factor that may help more thoughtful individuals combat their lower average activity levels is awareness," said McElroy, according to The British Psychological Society. "Awareness of their tendency to be less active, coupled with an awareness of the cost associated with inactivity, more thoughtful people may then choose to become more active throughout the day."
but did'n feel like doing it
That saying was everywhere when I was a kid.
As Calvin once said, "You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well mine are even worse!"
First time I have to do something I do it.
Second time I think of how to automate it
Third time I test my script
Fourth time I refine my script
Fifth time I run my script and go back to whatever I was doing.
I'm just allergic to manual labor. And being active.
So I do tend to spend a lot of time thinking.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
"Being lazy is a sign of high intelligence" -- I knew it, this means I must be an underappreciated super-genius!
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
being physically inactive and being lazy are two different things.
one can be physically inactive, or less active, while doing a lot and expending lots of energy, through metal activity and stationary activity.
any one who codes, or writes papers/books, designs stuff, or paints pictures, etc, or even watch and read thought provoking books/plays/movies know that such things can take a lot out of one.
may be only people who do nothing of the kind, and write absurd careless/thoughtless summaries here, that are full of silly errors and duplicates, mistake all that for 'laziness'
Anecdotally it kind of bears out. Painting with an admittedly broad brush, people who build their lives around sport and physique don't tend to be the sharpest tools in the shed. "Dumb jock" is a stereotype for a reason, and the bros who hang out at the gym all day aren't usually known for their stellar intellectual capacity. Most of the people I know who I'd consider to be highly intelligent don't devote much if any time to physical activity. They're not out exercising, and they're not doing any manual labor either, they're paying people to mow the lawn and wash the car. For whatever reason there also seems to be (again anecdotally) a high correlation between intelligence and self-destructive behavior like alcoholism and fucking around with "research chemicals."
Then again, there are a whole lot of fat lazy Wall-E style dumb motherfuckers out there. I mean someone has to be voting for Trump, right?
if you're smart, thing happen more efficiently or are dropped when unnecessary - also a type of laziness, avoiding chaff.
Oh God that headline. C'mon guys. C'mon.
But sure, there's going to be some kinds of correlation. When you "Work smarter, not harder" the obvious interpretation is that you don't work needlessly hard (lazy) because you were smart (intelligent) about the situation.
Being "intelligent" is naturally going to trend towards optimized points on diminishing return curves. For an easy example and the obligatory car analogy, you might be "lazy" about where you buy your gasoline. The curve will shift if the price gaps become too punishing and demand more scrutiny, but otherwise you have bigger concerns than the tiny (after travel losses) savings gained from using the station across town. Conversely, the curve will shift the other way if the gaps become zero, or if the sheer scale drops (eg we're talking $0.12/gal vs $0.18/gal) so it's now too many orders of magnitude away from your income context (presumably) that giving it attention is a waste of your brain's fucks. You give it zero fucks. You don't even look at the price. You're "lazy".
That's probably a measure of intelligence right there. You can quickly ballpark how many orders of magnitude is too far away to warrant fucks. To wit, you sense where increased effort only gains diminishing yields, and get lazy. Or smart. Or both.
That's actually a very
I'm not lazy, I'm efficient. That it takes me less time to do the job, so I have more time to goof off doesn't mean I'm lazy. I'm just more efficient.
Learn to love Alaska
They never tested IQ, and IQ is not intelligence. They passed out a questionnaire where people self selected with bullshit questions, then tracked them for a single week.
To put it another way, this is like sorting fruit salad into grape and kumquats by shaking the bowl so the small ones end up on the bottom and so everything on top is a kumquat, everything else is a grape, without even checking that the fruit salad was in fact made with blueberries, pineapple, strawberries, and tomatoes(technically a fruit).
This is shit science I would chew out a fifth grader for it, because they failed to determine if the factor they were testing was present, and used a shit sorting method. A questionnaire with questions like that isn't going to get you any useful results unless you're testing self perceptions of inteligence related to something(to which I'd argue that this study proves that lazy gits think their smart to excuse their laziness, which is just as valid as their conclusions).
Where the hell do these people get the idea that it's alright to call this shit science? A first year student of any science other than social or political would be able to see what they've fucked up, and I've only excluded those two because they generally work with questionnaires and so might assume a competent questionnaire was created, which I highly doubt due to the absolute shit example questions. Mien Gott.
I have a couple problems with this concept. I doubt levels of physical activity correlate that highly with intelligence. For one, as others have here have noted, intellectual activity is often physically draining. Secondly, serious physical activity can likewise be mentally taxing. Ask any athlete about the level of concentration required to compete in their chosen sport, and the knowledge required to perform at a high level.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
See, honey? I been telling you. I'm not napping, I'm contemplating.
As Bertrand Russell said,
Now can I please order No Man's Sky?
You are welcome on my lawn.
So you are in favor of discriminating against all those who do things that must be done at night?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
See. I've always said, Me Smart!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
XLNT!
Table-ized A.I.
Greed is generosity
Think about it, our modern world mostly exists because of the huge automation processes going on.
I concur with the GP, if a problem is being repeated, then I seek solution on how to automate it. Over the year i automated a lot of stuff from testing, to revenue accounting. I also learned to always foresee additional cost equal to the initial development, over the next ten year, as debugging or maintenance, and when somebody ask me to automate stuff I ask them to sign it off with the knowledge and understanding of that maintenance cost.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
By their flawed logic an engineer is lazy because they don't run around the room. If you're solving problems, then you're not being lazy. Focusing on something is not being lazy. How is a piano player supposed to practice and also be as physically active as a construction worker? How is anyone who studies data and reads a lot for their profession supposed to also be moving around and still have the same data retention. Activity has it's place in high thought. It's a great way to reset your brain or use nature to inspire yourself, but you have to stop and focus at some point to get the bulk of the work done. It's too hard to read test results while jogging, for instance. At least for now. I don't think lazy applies here. Some professions do not allow as much activity as others, and that's kind of just obvious. I think we have a study make to make lazy people feel good about themselves and in that sense it may be useful. It's also safe to say smart people learn faster, so most things in life come easier to them, reinforce this lazy notion. The fact of the matter is laziness came before money as a reason to create tools and automated work. Efficient use if calories is nothing to laugh at. That a top skill for my DNA mutations to make it past The Bottleneck Event. It's like cardio on Z day, except it pays off everyday even without having to run. In fact having to run would be like admitting defeat. If i'm going to be active I want the synergy of also complete necessary physical chores.
"Over the next seven days ...wore a device on their wrist... the thinking group were far less active during the week than the non-thinkers"
It doesn't mention if these people had a week off work, or if they had to work normally during those hours. So one wonders if there is a correlation here between "thinking people" having desk job, and "non-thinking people" having more active jobs, like pizza delivery -- was the job they do taken into account in the study?
I know after a day working out problems and stretching my mind, when I get home I just want to sit and unwind. About the most active thing I would do is walk the dog. So I can understand why thinking people may be lazier, to some respect (at least to _my_ respect), but I know a lot of intelligent "thinking people" who would be quite active, which would go against the reported findings of this study.
Without access to the paper itself I can't answer these for myself.
That philosophy also includes working out which jobs are worth doing and which are unnecessary or futile. An active person might clean their house every day. A lazy person might only do it when visitors are due. Which one is correct?
It is also worth noting that anyone who has read the Perl Book (one of life's necessities, no matter how lazy you are) already knows this.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
How have we defined laziness? -activity levels seems rather vague. Grouping "thinkers" and "non-thinkers" sounds like bias.
I know some very intelligent people that are constantly on the go due to kids, work, training and a restless nature. How have we defined "intelligent"?
Lazy people, as I define them; are those that choose inaction at the expense of others. Like not taking out the trash until someone else is fed-up and does it for them. You could argue it is intelligent to force others to expend more energy while you conserve yours but that's manipulative and a very narrow expression of intelligence.
So while there may be a CORRELATION between being lazy and intelligence it is ultimate detrimental to the individual deemed lazy and thus not that smart in the end.
Far more intelligent would be to contribute and take part as that gets you further in life. Being thought of as a person that "makes an effort" is far better for an individual living in society than being known as "lazy".
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
I'd take these findings more seriously if someone started this report but couldn't be bothered to finish it.
Now if you flip the study upside down. You get this instead.
Results showed the thinking group were far less active during the week than the non-thinkers.
more thoughtful people are choosing to think what the tracking device actually do rather than to become more active throughout the day. Meanwhile, the lazy people choose to enjoy the day rather than reinventing the wheel for the tracking device.
Apparently, the scientists need to be lazier and google the smart and lazy table (straighttogo.com/clever-and-lazy).
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active." - Leonardo da Vinci
then i must be a genius!!!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Even from the very bried summary, it is clear that this does not suggest that "being lazy is a sign of high intelligence"; it only says that intelligent people get bored less easily, which makes sense, since they are more likely to think of something interesting. If layness was a sign of high intelligence, then the brightest people would be the ones sitting on their sofas gobbling snacks and watching soap operas.
Do they mean lazy as being efficient or mazy as meaning sittng in front of a TV and do nothing?
Correlation is not causation.
I can imagine that intelligent people will have the intelligence to figure out a way to do things more efficiently.e.g. a smart waiter will sooner figure out that it is better to pay attention to customers, because it will save you from doing the same distance twice. So yeah, you will walk less. So it is true that lazy people move less.
However if you are smart, you will also realize that sitting in front of your tv and doing nothing is boring, so you will start playng games. Plaing games is more movement than sitting in front of a tv, so you move more.
The first is a more efficient way for energy (and increase tips if that is how your country works) and the second is to be more efficient with your personal time.
So smart people are more efficient to reach their goals. It depends on their goals if that means more or less movement for the individual. And the goals will be different. Some want to be rich, others wat to be famous and yet others just want to have a great family life and free time to play with the kids.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Interestingly the original article says nothing of the sort but it looks the independent have warped it into a nice story!
Perhaps the typical Fat Dumb American are actually intelegent people who cannot find work to match their potential.
This isn't other similar research correlating intelligence with other related issues.
Such as intelegent people tend to get paid less than people with lower intelligence. Or People with higher IQ may get caught up in drug addiction.
I think in part much of American values are built on the concept of hard work and not on smart work.
If I am smarter than the next guy and gave a task to do I may get it done in half the time and go home early while the guy who is having a harder time is putting in overtime. Thus he is getting paid more for doing more work however the outcome is the same.
Then we also get the smart guy questioning authority. So the boss will say "Do it this way." While you may think of a better way and the boss doesn't like watching you not following his direction.
Now all this goes down to a link in America correlating obesity with income. So this with other research such as this one helps paint a better picture of the complex issue that we face. Not the simplified tweet or a snarky comic of a fat guy in a wheelchairs with flags and gun going 'Merica!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
My brother-in-law must be a freaking genius then, he's the only person I've ever met who has moss growing on one side.
One of my earliest jobs involved a 14hr lab procedure. It all had to be done in a single day (biology can be like that), and the grant didn't allow for hiring additional help. I began to find ways to make the process shorter so that I could go home and eat pizza, drink beer, watch TV, and basically be lazy. I worked hard to find various techniques to shorten the procedure to under 10hrs.
The actual results (why we went through the long procedure in the first place) didn't have much influence on the way of things, but the shortened methodology enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame as other labs picked up on it. Of course, as a mere technician, I got no credit, but I did get to drink more beer, so I have no complaints.
> New research seems to prove the theory that brainy people spend more time lazing around than their active counterparts.
> Findings from a US-based study seem to support the idea that people with a high IQ get bored less easily, leading them to spend more time engaged in thought.
Interesting that the study equates spending "more time engaged in thought" with "lazing around". Wait...no...not interesting, merely indicative of America's ongoing degradation of those with more than a shot glass worth of brains.
Turn the reporting on its head, and what do you have? "New research seems to prove the theory that less brainy people lack the ability to sit the fuck down and focus on a simple task."
> The findings of the study, published in the Journal of Health Psychology, were described as “highly significant” and “robust” in statistical terms.
Their findings may have been statistically significant among the 60 people in their sample, but you're going to have a difficult time convincing me that a sample size that small is "robust", in statistical terms.
This looks more like the people who *think* they are intelligent are lazy. Physical activity is good for both the body and mind.
I think the problem with being lazy but having an appetite for thought, is that many physical exercises are extremely tedious and repetitive. There are some sports that I think are more demanding of the mind, I know all competitive sports have a form of strategy, but the technical skill of sports vary greatly. Thinking "i'm lazy, I need to do exercise" and then going to the gym, is a recipe for failure... if you want to do it consistently then you need to enjoy it.
My sport is rock climbing, from an outside view I know people just think it's a purely physical thing, picturing Stallone using brute force to solo up something while unnecessarily carrying a bolt gun... but it is a very technical sport especially when you get into the upper grades, i would describe it as good combination of intuitive r-mode ability with a balanced thoughtful l-mode overseeing, modulating, strategising, then combine that with the physiological challenges of falling... It's a mentally demanding sport, and I thoroughly enjoy all of it's challenges.
You can really imagine the conversation that led to this research question.
"So you're too lazy to come up with a research topic?"
"Yes."
"That's not very smart."
"... I beg to differ."
Real lawyers write in C++
More "intelligent" (perhaps more aware is a better term?) people tends to realize things existentially. They tend to ask questions like "what is the point of this task?" as well as many other things. When they really consider the possible rational, logical answers to these questions, they arrive at interesting conclusions some of which erode their motivation to do certain things but spark their interest in things that are more purposeful.
A great example is Alan Watts in his famous talk "Life is a Hoax": https://www.youtube.com/watch?.... It is absolutely amazing that he talks about this in the 70's and it's still pretty accurate all the way to the present day, at least from an American perspective.
Unfortunately, many of the tasks society demands of us are very much inefficient, nearly pointless, a waste of one's time and energy or are not clearly connected with a motivating purpose. The person who is interested in doing "interesting" things, usually involving more usage of ye old cranium, tend to gravitate towards things that aren't of interest to the majority of society.
The less intelligent/aware people on the other hand, they can be convinced to be motivated by things that just aren't even remotely true but may appeal to a more primitive or emotional side of them. These people tend to lack the cognitive skills especially critical thinking to be able to do the categorization effectively. They are the "oooh shiny" people or the people that think by working hard doing menial tasks they are going to score points in the afterlife with the deity they pray to at their local mythological worship center each week. On an intellectual level, you might find these people rather annoying with their inconsistent, irrational thoughts running around in their minds but I see them as a blessing. Because they are ignorant and willing to do things that no rational, reasonably intelligent human being would ever do, that creates a pocket of society for the more intellectual people to do their thing. If intellectual things were as popular as cleavage on celebrity magazines then there would be fierce competition over who gets the opportunity to have intellectual pursuits.
We'll make great pets
"Ultimately, an important factor that may help more thoughtful individuals combat their lower average activity levels is awareness," said McElroy, according to The British Psychological Society. "Awareness of their tendency to be less active, coupled with an awareness of the cost associated with inactivity, more thoughtful people may then choose to become more active throughout the day." Seems like the correct prescription would be mindfulness meditation.
This looks more like the people who *think* they are intelligent are lazy.
It is not just about being lazy, but about what you do with your laziness. The most intelligent goof off by posting on Slashdot.
Physical activity is good for both the body and mind.
TFA is using "lazy" to mean lack of physical activity. So if I pull an all-nighter and write 1000 lines of code, I am lazy. If I go for a walk instead, then I am not lazy.
Wow this must means I am the Einstein of our generation. I could probably write the greatest intellectual paper of all times, but I really can't be bothered.
If you want to know the easiest way to do a job, give it to the laziest man and he will find the way.
If I am smarter than the next guy and gave a task to do I may get it done in half the time and go home early while the guy who is having a harder time is putting in overtime. Thus he is getting paid more for doing more work however the outcome is the same.
Then we also get the smart guy questioning authority. So the boss will say "Do it this way." While you may think of a better way and the boss doesn't like watching you not following his direction.
Your experience sounds like mine. I know some folks who are considered hard workers because they are always busy or often working late, but they don't get anything more accomplished. Smarter people work more efficiently, and that is different from being lazy. I just hate wasted effort. I also keep as much free time available so I can handle emergent issues (and sometimes that gives me a moment to read /.)
Otherwise, I think laziness is unrelated to intelligence. Smart people know they need to get exercise.
I've always suspected that sloths are intelligent. Think of all the advancements to science we could discover if sloths spilled their secrets.
We need to start a sloth torture facility. Torture them until they tell us the secrets of Nuclear Fusion generators.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Then you've never met the typical Fat Dumb American. I'd imagine a Discovery documentary would be something like the following: "We're on a hunt for the Southern Fat Dumb American. Today we will spend the early afternoon at a Wal-Mart in rural Kentucky, a favored meetings grounds for this elusive creature. Pardon the poor quality footage, we are using our phones discreetly as the Southern Fat Dumb American is easily startled, values privacy, and may be armed. We also know they are protective of their young, when they are not beating them for grabbing candy when the children were told to behave.
...five minutes later...
And now we have a beautiful specimen. Marvel at the torn XXL Hello Kitty pajamas, his stout 5'6 250 pound physique makes him one of the average males, and his hairstyle is what the locals call a 'Sweet Mullet'. If you listen closely, you can hear his mating call of 'Beer', 'Murrica', and 'NASCAR'. It is thought that these three phrases work to attract the female further down the aisle with the purple curlers in her hair. She too is wearing Hello Kitty pajama pants, perhaps she will accept the males advances... lets watch as the male wipes the remnants of KFC from his half-beard to slick back his hair."
I've known intelligent people with every belt size, every race, every gender (if we want to be PC about it), and every activity level. Many of the brightest ran at least 5 miles a day and were the furthest from lazy I could imagine. Others were a bit wider, but would read higher math textbooks during lunch. I would argue that this particular study found a correlation for their local population and they should be careful about creating any generalizations.
...new study validates sedentary tech guys.
"Because of (handwavy psych 101 rationalization shoehorned to fit some trivial data) this PROVES that
- women are actually aroused by familiarity with obscure code jargon
- avoiding sun in close proximity to one's maternal forbear (say, in a basement) leads to much higher intelligence
- obesity is a sure sign of sexual prowess"
Nerds go wild at the information.
-Styopa
The publication is pay-walled so I can't read the original study but the write up does not mention how they determined intelligence. It sounds like they had two groups of people - those who said they think a lot and those who do not. The news article suggests that they assumed that those labeled themselves as thinking more are therefore more intelligent. That doesn't seem very logical to me. Furthermore, anyone with an above average intelligence can tell you just how easy it is to be bored in meetings, lectures, etc while you wait for everyone else to comprehend the material that you already understand. So unless the original study discusses something I've missed, I don't understand the logic here at all. And maybe I am less intelligent than I think I am, but I often engage in physical activity to help me think - I find that if my hands aren't busy I get easily distracted and my mind starts wandering to more interesting problems than the ones at hand. I go for a jog or take a walk so that there is nothing more interesting to focus my attention on. If the problem is interesting enough on its own, I'll sit there and forget to eat or sleep until I solve it.
"wore a device on their wrist which tracked their movements and activity levels"
Um.. I think I may have found a flaw in their methodology? They may have caught a whole fistful of arbitrary data with that "Wrist Motion" monitor.. Data that could force them to toss all their conclusions, which could choke off their funding and really stain their reputations. I don't want to come off as a know it all but this study seems a bit anti-climactic.
So those that don't RTFA are actually the smart ones?
---
Still American Colleges and Universities are still top notch in the world. I have seen American Students struggle just as hard as foreign students from those countries who have top education marks.
In terms of education in America we can do better. However I expect the metrics that we are using to understand our ranking is flawed. Also the fact it is easy to hack metrics.
For example. In the United States there is a path for any student who is willing to graduate from high school, this means the full normal distribution of people are in play. While other countries after elementary school, will keep the best and brightest to go to high school and college, while the Standard Deviation -1 and below will be forced to go into vocational labor job training. In short comparing the metrics are faulty as they just take out people who would make such metrics poor.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And I play Ice Hockey as well, although as I age, hiking is becoming more prominent.
I knew some folks who were sedentary and intelligent as well. But given that I know and have worked with at least as many very intelligent people as were in the study, and that if anything, my group was heavily skewed toward the higher end of intelligence, I really have to call bullshit on this study.
Highly Intelligent people would seem to me to cover the spectrum of physical activity and boredom as everyone else. That's based on over 30 years of personal experience.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If you pull an all-nighter and write 1000 lines of code, then you're likely in violation of the "I only think as hard as I have to" part.
If, on the other hand, you spent your time daydreaming, a light bulb came on while you were taking a shower, and the net result is 20 minutes of work and 30 lines of brilliant code, then you qualify.
But management will ding you, because while you're supposed to work smarter and not harder, if they don't see you "working", then you're "obviously" not being "productive". So keep doing those all-nighters and job security will be yours. Maybe.
Laziness. Overweight high blood pressure diabetes enlarged heart. Short-term memory lethargic easily confused and short tempered. Early symptoms of dementia, marked by personality changes impaired reasoning and a need to get away from the confusion by getting away from people who are causing the confusion. Becoming antisocial and worried and Inactive. Needing background noise to ease your worrying. begin sleeping in the armchair and buying rubbish products from television shopping channels. End up not able to climb over the rubbish you have purchased from the shopping channels. Getting hungry finding it hard to stand.
What does Trump supporters have to do with this topic?
This looks more like the people who *think* they are intelligent are lazy.
It is not just about being lazy, but about what you do with your laziness. The most intelligent goof off by posting on Slashdot.
You fall into the category of people who think they are intelligent; some of the most intelligent may goof off on Slashdot whereas others don't. But I'll tell you one thing they don't do - make categorical statements about subjective concepts.
This is my sig, there are many like it but this one is mine
Here's a free link to the paper: https://www.researchgate.net/p...
This concept is nothing new....
Choose a Lazy Person To Do a Hard Job Because That Person Will Find an Easy Way To Do It
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2...
love is just extroverted narcissism
TFA is using "lazy" to mean lack of physical activity. So if I pull an all-nighter and write 1000 lines of code, I am lazy. If I go for a walk instead, then I am not lazy.
This makes no sense. How exactly does "lack of physical activity" equal lazy? I would love to have a job that is more physically demanding than my current job. Unfortunately, most high paying intellectual jobs also tend to be low physical activity. Unless you are tracking what people are doing off the clock then this data is meaningless. Based on my experience, many people with office jobs tend to be more active in their off hours than people with physical jobs.
old news
Heretic! Of course xkcd represents reality; you just have to choose the right one. In this case, here's the one you want.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.
Douglas Adams - the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
What about all the people that comment without even RTFA? They do that because they are lazy and yet they make some of the stupidest fucking comments ever.
Lazy engineers make for the best engineers. We only want to fix a problem once, not over-and-over again.
Just one example.
If I am smarter than the next guy and gave a task to do I may get it done in half the time and go home early while the guy who is having a harder time is putting in overtime. Thus he is getting paid more for doing more work however the outcome is the same.
If you are being paid based on time spent at work, then you're most definitely not working smarter by getting the job done quicker. The smart worker will realize that he needs to find ways to put in as many hours as possible while doing as little as possible, but still keep his employer happy.
Same thing with questioning the authority that feeds (pays) you. You might think you're being smart by suggesting improvements, but if the boss doesn't want to hear them, then you're actually being stupid and working against your own interests (keeping the job).
One of the first things I learned when I started working for others is that there are things that matter more than the actual job you do. Things like getting along with others and keeping your boss happy. It's not like school where you can be an asshole, be disliked by the teacher and your classmates and still ace the test to get an A.
https://xkcd.com/1319/
also
https://xkcd.com/1205/
The one thing I've found with automation to solve repetitive tasks is that the are two things that can happen to make the time savings spiral out of control. 1) is other people getting a hold of it, using it for something it was never intended to be used for, as part of some system, which know by default you have to try and support or something. 2) Is when whoever you are providing it to see the results and how good they are, they want more, then differently, then formatted a certain way, then changes again, etc... forever until you throw yourself off a bridge. I guess that last one is where the job security comes in.
That second link while not something I use specifically, is more less what I do in my head for everything I've had to do more less twice. Sometimes it is a bit of a guessing game to try to figure out how many times you'll have to do something to make it worth the effort. In most/many I've sort of defaulted to, might as well, you never know sort of attitude. I do find myself taking a big sigh when I decide NOT to automate something, and it is usually "fcsk it I'll just do it manually" sort of thing.
True if you are in the mindset that you are trying to keep your job.
However the issue, is if you are particularly smart you get bored easy so you will try to do something to fill the boredom.
That analogy is like saying my cat is smarter than a chimpanzee. Because the cat knows enough to sit there and sleep all day and not cause trouble thus making it easy to care for and getting a steady supply of food and shelter. While a Chimpanzee if left alone will wreck the place over an extended period of time, thus making sure its life is much harder because it will need to be placed in the wild.
There is a burden of being smart. It means you more self reliant and that means you have less support backing you up. In a society like in the USA it may be a hinderance.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer. Also hence, this book. See also impatience and hubris.
--Larry Wall, Programming Perl (2nd edition) p.609
You're upgrading the hour you gained though, you'll feel better and be healthier.
Good mathematicians are lazy, extremely lazy. They will create and cultivate entire abstract theories in order to avoid having to do work (while getting the same results). Laziness and efficiency are bedfellows. The difference, however, is akin to the laziness of a lion, which will snooze and play, but work when it has to; and that of a layabout who can't be bothered to get out of bed. Laziness, however, is an evolutionary biproduct of the benefits of energy efficiency, and is a large part of our nature. Sure, the more intelligent of us may be more lazy, and laziness may be a sign of latent intelligence, but sometimes I do wish life was so easy we could all eat comfortably, watch tv and get laid regularly without needing to be intelligent about stuff.
John_Chalisque
They didn't have to come up with a whole study to figure out of slash doters are lazy, they could have just asked...
And the same applies to your trying to "yank out the leg" from diesalesmandie's argument when you said that he might be someone who thinks he's intelligent.
Oh and of course I never said anything about yanking a leg out from your argument, your own insecurities did that.
a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work
TFA says more time spent thinking correlates with less time spent in physical activity.
Work should still be considered virtuous; just be sure to include "thinking" in your definition of work. Society already does this; to the extent that it usually provides more financial rewards for intellectual labor than it does for physical labor.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Don't take offense at the being called "lazy," if the word is used in the same spirit Larry Wall uses it.
According to Larry Wall, the original author of the Perl programming language, there are three great virtues of a programmer; Laziness, Impatience and Hubris.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
And the same applies to your trying to "yank out the leg" from diesalesmandie's argument.
"You fall into the category of people who think they are intelligent; some of the most intelligent may goof off on Slashdot whereas others don't. But I'll tell you one thing they don't do - make categorical statements about subjective concepts."
He asserts that ShanghaiBill only claims to be intelligent and then makes a declaration about what intelligent people do not do. His authority to do either requires an implication of his own superior intelligence allowing him to recognize ShanghaiBill's lack thereof and to relate to what an intelligent person would or would not say. I do not need to be more intelligent than either of you to point this out. I also don't need to neccessarily be more intelligent than anyone in this thread to know there is not enough data contained within it for anyone to be able to intelligently make such a sweeping qualitative judgement.
This might lend something to the subject. I'm in the USAF. I do a technical job dealing with space stuff (satellites). I sit for long hours doing nothing, sometimes working long shifts and relying on caffeine. I am a naturally lazy person, and sit and think about solutions to things. However, that job obligation, mixed with some self awareness makes me also have to stay physically fit. I'm sure lots of "lazy nerds" also keep themselves fit. There are also plenty of "lazy nerds" who clearly don't stay fit. It really isn't a simple model at all.
I loved in my last job that I could ride my bike to work. I live on base and it was only 2 miles. Then I'd go another 3 to get lunch, so about 10 miles on the days that I had that kind of time.
Your work is meant only to enrich those who do not work (owners).
Would it make sense to say that to the millions of people who are self-employed?
And the work self-employed people do does not just benefit themselves. The other entities that voluntarily engage in transactions with them also realize a benefit from said transactions; otherwise, they would not voluntarily engage in them.
I'm not self-employed, but I do benefit quite a bit when I sell my labor to my employer. That's why I continue to do it: because I am enriched by that arrangement, not because anyone is coercing me.
If no one worked, no food, clothing, housing, or healthcare would be produced. That would be a rather unvirtuous situation, would it not?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Perhaps the typical Fat Dumb American are actually intelegent people who cannot find work to match their potential.
Dude. I just could not read the rest of your comment. You start with broad categorization issues and proceed to misspell intelligent all in the first grammatically incorrect sentence.
You may have had something intelegent to say but fuck me. I couldn't get to it.
(sorry about being pedantic, it is not my normal mode)
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
This is just an anecdote. When I was in my teen years, I noticed that when I focused on activities such as working out at the gym several times a week, it tended to leading a certain mental lifestyle which while I don't believe necessarily excludes a heavy reflective mindset, it sure felt that way at the time. While I don't know the true nature of the circumstances, my impoverished opinion is that hormones and adaptation were preparing me, making appropriate changes suitable to my activities or environment. When a soldier is training, a philosopher is not what is formed.