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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'
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.
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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.
See. I've always said, Me Smart!
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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.
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"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
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active." - Leonardo da Vinci
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.
This looks more like the people who *think* they are intelligent are lazy. Physical activity is good for both the body and mind.
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++
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.
If you want to know the easiest way to do a job, give it to the laziest man and he will find the way.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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You're upgrading the hour you gained though, you'll feel better and be healthier.