The title is clickbaity and the content a bit overboard, but this statement resonates:
> If a person’s behavior doesn’t make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context.
Working in a large company with lots of stakeholders pulling in different directions, I've lost count of how many times I've heard X complain that Y is an idiot and what they're doing makes no sense, and then talked to Y directly and realized that from their point of view Y's actions are entirely rational.
Maybe so, but sometimes that need is grounded in a completely mistaken belief - or in a misguided search for approval of a peer group - such as being the loudest person at the ballgame, or the one who gets shot breaking into the senate chamber, or the one who straps explosives to his chest. These people do make an amazing impression on normies and institutions alike, but the basic need they're trying to address is not one that reflects a deeper meaning or bears a great deal of weighty analysis as to its merits. It's the common need of Twitter. It can be reduced to "I'll make you all shut up and listen to me." It deserves no reward - and it should probably not be countered with nonviolence.
So all political protest, especially if it's annoying to others or dangerous to the protestor? No. You clearly are just judging political protests that you personally don't happen to support the aims of. You're entirely missing the point of understanding people's needs and what empathy is.
Everyone automatically has empathy for people they feel aligned or connected with. You don't even have to try.
I'm talking about style, not substance. I find myself these days having empathy with people and agreeing with what they're protesting for, but hating the fact that they are historically ignorant and are only trying to score twitter points. So that doesn't mean they don't have a right to protest, it just means they're an embarrassment.
"only"? What if that's their main goal? You're still judging them for having values that are different from yours, which is something that comes naturally to anyone. The whole point of learning to have empathy is so you can empathize with people whose values are incompatible with your own. You probably don't even understand their values and take their superficial statements literally because you're too keen to judge them as bad instead of understand their underlying feelings that they may not even be able to articulate themselves.
the basic need they're trying to address is not one that reflects a deeper meaning or bears a great deal of weighty analysis as to its merits
This depends on who's doing the analysis. For example, self-immolation is often seen as an extreme form of desperate but rational protest. The only way to understand and prevent these types of events is to understand and address the underlying needs.
Suicide is never a rational response, and can't be taken into account on the spectrum of human needs, since it's an abnegation of all human need. It doesn't need to be considered within the spectrum of rational economic responses. Viktor Frankl made it through without committing suicide, while thousands of happily brainwashed and well-fed kamikaze pilots went to their deaths. We are then in the philosophical realm of whether this is a world you simply choose not to live in. The living need to keep living. Who knows why people kill themselves. Lots of incoherent reasons, basically.
Your self-immolating monk might be the clearest version, but still falls short of doing anything for this world. We don't and shouldn't take suicidal people's thoughts seriously. They failed to make a point, and gave up. Even if they think they're going to 72 virgins (which is even more cowardly). We are discussing the people who go on living and how to arrange the living world.
It's rational for an individual in the face of terminal illness; all I'm saying is that it's not a rational form of protest to change the world, e.g., in the form of suicide vests or death-by-cop.
> Maybe it doesn't change the way the suiciders wanted, but it does change.
But that gets to the central point. The actor with the suicide vest no longer has a voice. He can't verify the outcome. He can't modify his course. He can't run for president, or parliament. He can't start a movement. He is finished; how the world responds is not his concern. It's not that nothing happens, it's that whatever happens, the protest itself was incoherent.
You seem to be taking a highly individualistic view here, which is not an appropriate framework.
Suicide is not an effective way of making the world better for yourself, no. But it turns out that people care about more than that. People do commit suicide for political aims, all the time - including soldiers who sacrifice themselves in the service of some larger cause. This fact seems to confuse you - you call them "irrational" and "incoherent". Since you are the one who is confused, perhaps you are the one whose worldview lacks explanatory power.
You do care about things outside yourself, don't you?
>> You seem to be taking a highly individualistic view here
I don't believe in an afterlife. I also don't believe that the most effective way to accomplish something is to take yourself out if the equation. And I also don't place all my money on bets that I'll never know the results of. So remaining in the world is, among other things, the only rational way an individual can know whether their efforts bore any fruit.
>> which is not an appropriate framework
According to whom? From an individual's perspective, it's actually the only rational framework.
>> You do care about things outside yourself, don't you?
People or movements? I don't consider jumping on a grenade to protect your friends to be suicidal. I don't consider pushing someone you love out of the way of a train to be suicidal. But to set yourself on fire or blow yourself up to make a statement on behalf of an ideological group? Whose leaders are too cowardly to blow themselves up? Yeah, I have more respect for my own individuality, and more respect for life than that.
One guy to takes it upon himself to kill 50 people. Or a million people take it upon themselves to kill one guy and his family. From the perspective of someone who doesn't care about life, the first case is brave and the second case is cowardice. Sure. From the perspective of someone who does care about life, and doesn't want innocent people blown up by random assholes, the drone strike is justified... if done with 100% accuracy. This is in no way a justification of what happened last week, which was a war crime. But society has an obligation to defend itself against individuals who want to mass-murder and don't care about their own lives or others'.
Just wondering, are you defending suicide bombings?
There are plenty of meaningful suicides in history, where agents killed themselves before they give up secrets that can hurt their countries, or went on to fight hopeless missions for some essential tactical goal. Assisted suicide for terminal patients is one way people can retain meaning and freedom in their last days.
People who want to die with dignity are not trying to make a point about how the world should be run. People who strap bombs to themselves or take down planes, are, but their point should not be taken seriously; they don't intend to live here. You can make a point with your death, suicide or otherwise. You can't expect it to matter to people who are still alive.
> Suicide is never a rational response, and can't be taken into account on the spectrum of human needs, since it's an abnegation of all human need. It doesn't need to be considered within the spectrum of rational economic responses
I mean it totally can be:
1. Assume materialism/naturalism.
2. Experience pain or some other unpleasantness and dislike it.
3. Suicide solves the pain problem completely, and creates no further problems from the perspective of the person commuting suicide.
"In 1941 [...] Jews were killing themselves at the rate of about 10 a day, and Frankl was determined to save them. Frankl tried to bring the suicidal patients back by injecting them with amphetamines, but it didn’t work.
And so, Frankl bored holes in the skulls of his Jewish patients, who had taken overdoses of pills in the hope of escaping their Nazi tormentors, and jolted their brains with Pervitin, an amphetamine popular in the Third Reich.
The suicidal patients revived, but only for 24 hours. One wonders what agonies they went through in their last day of life, with Frankl’s amphetamines coursing through their trepanned heads.
[...] Frankl wrote, “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. … His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.” The suicidal Jews had not borne their burden properly. If they lived they could still stake a claim to their suffering as a “unique opportunity,” Frankl believed.
What Frankl failed to see was that Austrian Jews were making a political statement by killing themselves, sometimes at the Gestapo’s deportation office. As Frankl’s biographer Timothy Pytell points out, their “Masada tactic” was an act of protest.
The Nazis in fact shared Frankl’s goal of preventing Jews from killing themselves, since they had decreed Jewish suicide to be “illegal.” Jews belonged to the Reich, to be disposed of as the Germans saw fit."
Sadism. That's what nazism was/is. It's no fun on the eastern front if there's no one left to torture. Hitler allegedly said "if Jews didn't exist we would have to invent them." The quote has been disputed, but it's telling that neo-nazi websites repeat it frequently, then follow it up with, "who would want to invent Jews?" The reality is: A lot of people who suffered severe physical, sexual and psychological abuse as children in places like rural Germany, modern Russia and Plano, Texas, are pathologically incapable of stopping themselves from taking their abuse out on others. That implies their ability to justify being monstrous sadists, on top of lying and gaslighting people into believing flat-earth theory or conspiracies about stolen elections. This is the kind of generational psycho-sexual abuse that leads to people applauding policies like "keep 'em [**racist terms**] alive so we can torture them to death."
Just want to say here, Frankl was trying to keep people alive to keep them alive. Inept as that may have been. There's a huge difference between that and getting your jollies by wanting to torture people... and only people who want to torture people would want to draw a similarity between those two things.
The problem is not ineptitude. He rejected their self evident wishes for a death they chose, revived them and subjected them to torture and experimentation that Mengele might approve of. I wouldn't wish the experience of having your head drilled open for cranial drug injections on my worst enemy. He's a torture porn peddler glorifying suffering instead of alleviating it, like Teresa of Calcutta.
No. There's a vast difference between cutting someone's head open to save their life because they'll be dead otherwise, and doing it to a totally okay, healthy living person with the intention of killing them.
Afaik, by all I read, Hitler was completely genuine in his anti-semitism. And also, the explanation of nazism as being caused by unique levels of child abuse in rural Germany would be novel one.
If you take the idea that suicide is a rational, meaningful form of protest, then like the nazis you would want to prohibit the people you're murdering from killing themselves first. The nazis were sadists who wanted the act of murder all to themselves, so they overlooked the existential aspect: The dead can't talk either way. Frankl at least wanted to keep them alive, to prove that existence did have meaning, even in the worst suffering. So? He was a humanist and they were nihilists, and you think that amounts to the same thing?
History can be quite ugly. In a way that makes suicide the better option.
> thousands of happily brainwashed and well-fed kamikaze pilots
The source is needed for "happily".
> The living need to keep living. Who knows why people kill themselves. Lots of incoherent reasons, basically. Your self-immolating monk might be the clearest version
> The living need to keep living. Who knows why people kill themselves. Lots of incoherent reasons, basically. Your self-immolating monk might be the clearest version
>> This is incoherent.
The living cannot - and don't - live for the dead, or the causes that the dead chose to die for. Dying for a cause doesn't make the cause nobler. It just takes you out of the conversation. That's why suicide is, by definition, incoherent.
First, not every suicide is "for cause". Minority of them are.
Second, many living in fact do value self sacrifice.
Third, the "for cause" suicides are fairly often organized by living in the hope the living will get what they want. The one killing himself is agreeing to do it on behalf of other living. You may or may not disagree with cause, it does not really matter.
This is a view that reduces humanity to ants, or bots, or Borg. Especially divorced from any particular ideology or necessity, what you are advocating is the treatment of individuals as disposable units, directed to die by a faceless and unaccountable power structure. That was the case with the Kamikaze, and it's the case with jihadis now. Interestingly, it only seems to happen in the service of totalitarian ideologies. Revolutionaries who advocate for human rights or democracy don't tend to obliterate themselves. They want to be around to take care of their families.
In short, your view doesn't just prioritize the group over the individual - it prioritizes the worst possible groups.
Since you're talking about kamikazes, those attacks were rational - the goal was to destroy enemy ships, at the expense of their own lives. Commendable, even, it takes a lot of courage.
Suicide in normal life is just people escaping unbearable pain. Of course, someone with a properly functioning brain could probably never understand what it feels like.
Someone with a properly functioning brain may think about suicide anytime, but can do the math that an emperor or a mullah asking you to blow yourself up for him is a phony, and that the feeling that everything is ruined is belied by the fact that there's always tomorrow. A properly functioning brain takes suicide into account as a possible choice all the time. It's just not a meaningful choice as pertains to the daily life and economy of the rest of people who keep living. That's really all I was trying to get across.
9/11 started a trillion dollar war that ended in massive failure, destabilized several countries, created mass migration that resulted in many democratic countries becoming more authoritarian, and more.
> 9/11 (...) created mass migration that resulted in many democratic countries becoming more authoritarian
That's a very bizarre interpretation. Sorry in advance for my long dissection of this comment.
First, saying that 9/11 created mass migration. Migrations have always occurred throughout human history, whether to flee political persecution, bad economic conditions, environmental disasters (both natural and human-made). There are more migrants and refugees now than in the past decades, but that could (partially) be attributed to factors which have nothing to do with 9/11: harsher climate, neocolonial military (or economic) "interventions" in the global south (venezuela, mali, etc), automation of work without wealth redistribution, development of larger transnational chains favoring outsource exploitation in poorer countries (eg. Bangladesh labor is cheaper to exploit than Tunisian/Mexican), and many others.
Second, implying that global north ("democratic") countries are the ones welcoming the migrants and refugees. I don't have recent stats on the topic, but a few years back it appeared a vast majority of people sought refuge in neighboring countries, not in Europe/USA. Moreover, the Global North has a serious history of exploiting undocumented/refugee labor in slave-like conditions (minus the shackles) and broad Internet access has made such information available/verifiable to many people, who no longer look up to France (for example) as a haven of peace and prosperity, but (rightfully) as a place of despair and endless abuse in the hands of the powerful elites. European countries are very good at pretending they can't host more asylum seekers and other immigrants, but are among the richest countries on Earth with incredible levels of food/housing waste... and they sure find resources to pay for their walls, prisons and ~thugs~ cops.
Third, considering that authoritarianism is a new development in "democratic countries". I don't know of a single country who has a well-earned reputation as a democracy. To my knowledge, all pretend-democracies (such as France where i reside) have a strong history of political repression, secret services plots, neo-nazi (or otherwise fascist-inclined) infiltration and cooperation with law enforcement and the military, non-monetary forms of corruption on every level (and less obvious forms of monetary corruption, see "Outrage" for a french example of police filling their pockets from ordinary citizens). Authoritarianism and racism has been on the rise for a few decades now: our parents' teachings from WWII are long gone. In France specifically, there were quite a few authoritarian setbacks throughout the 80s-90s (see for example the Pasqua-Debré racist laws), but it's really with Sarkozy as Ministry of Interior (2005) that the nomenklatura's discourse started shifting towards outright fascism. It started with the threat within, the dangerous young people from popular districts and the engineering of an "insecurity feeling" via state/industry-controlled media. Then when Sarkozy became president (2007), he made a famous stigmatization campaign against Rroma people.
Sarkozy may have been presented as a right-wing president, but a more apt description is a fascist candidate. Because, as Mussolini suggested back in the day, fascism is the merging of Corporate and State powers, and Sarkozy represented just that: he was a close friend of Bolloré and many other neo-colonial fortunes, and made sure the State intervened in favor of big business at every turn. At that time, a new far-right international was forming around the ideas of a "clash of civilizations" and immigration as "reverse colonization"... and you could see Marine Le Pen dancing at balls in Vienna with neo-nazis from all across Europe. Over the next decade, their vocabulary/concepts were imposed on all publications by private-owned media, while public media contributed to the same climate of fear without spelling the concepts out. And here we are now fast forward almost 15y, with Macron elected as a shield against Le Pen's racism, who himself took very racist measures as soon as he was elected (such as doubling from 45 to 90 days maximum time in retention centers for undocumented people who are not accused of any crime), and insisted a refugee boat (the Aquarius) should just be left to rot and sink in the Mediterranean sea, despite some local governments offering them asylum.
How did we arrive to this strange place in history? I'm not sure, but i'm very sure immigrants doesn't have the mystical powers you attributed them. What happened is the product of our oligarchy and political police, not ordinary folk who just want to live a "normal" life. How do we leave this strange place in history and aim for democracy? We need to understand the failures and inadequacies of past and present systems: elections have proved time and time again they're nothing more than a scam, and as long as we delegate power unconditionally to power-hungry psychopaths, all we'll get is dictatorship with a pretty and colorful sugar coating (don't even get me started on actual political repression in Europe, the topic is long and scary). We need power to, by and from the people now. That means abolish every election and everything that resembles a Nation-State: let the people orgnaize in their communities and let no community ever dictate their way of life to others. Anarchism and self-organization are the only path that can divert us from that future we're headed towards that consists of ever-increasing inequality, political repression, climate catastrophes and refugees, and civil war over basic abundant-yet-not-shared resources.
I'm not so sure. I went to existential therapy for some years. My therapist was fairly certain I wouldn't kill myself, and my ideation was just an open examination of the various options. I used to talk about being embarrassed after a social situation and wanting to walk into a plane propeller and be turned into red mist. She'd casually ask if I was going to do it and I was like, of course not. She said she wasn't worried about me.
My whole point in this thread is that suicide is always, fundamentally irrational. I keep getting downvoted for it, but I think it's an important point - especially for people who consider themselves rational beings but also include suicide in the list of things they'd consider as options.
But the therapist did not said that "properly functioning brain takes suicide into account as a possible choice all the time". That is much stronger statement then "you are not at risk of suicide".
If is completely normal and usual for properly functioning adults to not see suicide as a possible choice all the time. Suicide ideation is not normal state of being.
I have to disagree. This is like saying that most people never consider sleeping with their neighbor's wife. Bullshit. I think people who claim that they never have such "bad thoughts" are lying - either to the world or to themselves. If you refuse to admit to yourself that you've considered it, you can never have an honest conversation with yourself and work out the rational reasons why you shouldn't do it. This is how "normal" people end up suddenly doing things totally seemingly out of character; they failed to be honest with themselves.
The belief may be mistaken but the need is always real.
Examples: Anti-Vaxxers’ protest - need for autonomy, for being heard.
“I'll make you all shut up and listen to me.” - is the strategy to meet the needs to matter, to feel heard, need for competency.
Explosives to the chest - need for autonomy (from occupation/apartheid/oppression), for understanding (“see how it feels for your people to die?!”), control (powerless to do anything except this),
breaking into the senate chamber - need for autonomy (“freedom”), to matter (“stolen elections”), agency (being able to change things)
In some cases the beliefs which caused these particular needs to arise can be manipulated (and were), and the strategies for meeting the needs are flawed (insurrection, boom best etc. ) but the needs are simple, universal and deeply human.
I can never condone terrorism but can understand the powerlessness and pain behind it, the lack of agency, and the need to matter and have a voice that drive some of its acts.
So stopping terrorism has to do with addressing oppression etc.
>> I can never condone terrorism but can understand the powerlessness and pain behind it, the lack of agency, and the need to matter and have a voice that drive some of its acts.
>> So stopping terrorism has to do with addressing oppression etc.
This sounds so much like my former teacher and mentor - who was also an erstwhile member of the weathermen in the 60s. I do think that addressing oppression is half of the problem. But if you consider the problem to be humans killing other humans while taking their own lives in service of a belief ("right" or not), then it really can't be addressed without also giving individual humans the sense that their own individuality is wonderful and unique and worth preserving, even in the face of oppression or injustice. It goes deeper than whether the belief is wrong or right. It requires a form of self-respect and respect for life that can't come from a group identity. That overrides group identity and comes to its own conclusions. That is the basis of morality - the decision to refuse a wrongful order. It requires an internal moral compass and a desire for self-preservation and a sense of one's own life being valuable. And that's something that no organization or ideology will ever try to inculcate in its disciples, and which can't be achieved by e.g. America addressing oppression.
Yes, suicide bombing is horrible and does not solve oppression.
And yes, I understand the needs for agency, for autonomy, and the feelings of powerlessness and frustration behind such outrageous, inhumane and fruitless acts. I am also informed about the extensive preparation and brainwashing that go into it which also meet the person’s need for belonging and to matter (announced as martyr in their community). (See Syriana for a depiction in film?)
But solving oppression and murder by state terrorism will likely reduce suicide bombings, too.
>it should probably not be countered with nonviolence
Just to be clear - we are still talking about "nonviolent communication", right? Because a careless reading would interpret this as a call to hit people with sticks solely because we hold their actions to be motivated by incorrect beliefs.
In any case, it's still not true. Unless you have resigned yourself to hitting them with sticks, you're still in the realm of communication and persuasion. You'll always get further with that if you try to understand where they are coming from, which is what "nonviolent communication" is all about.
Having patience and compassion for our fellow humans is important. I often remind myself that people generally take actions that make sense to them. The fact that they don't make sense to me does not mean that they are wrong or stupid, it means I have not taken time to see their perspective.
Yes, but is every person you think is stupid, actually stupid? Do they actually lack intelligence? Are they reacting to something they see, that you do not?
The whole point is to understand the context and look for solutions. Not just dismiss people you don’t like or don’t want to deal with by labeling them as stupid or lazy.
If you’ve exhausted the other options or ways to approach the problem, perhaps stupid is the explanation.
The classic Hanlon's razor is "Don't attribute to malice what which is adequately explained by stupidity."
I like the variations that take it one step further, "Don't attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by ignorance", and "Don't attribute to ignorance that which is adequately explained by bad luck."
>> "Don't attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by ignorance from your part
+1 for this. Techy types are too quick to judge others as "idiots". And yet, the same type of people will get very outraged when others or their boss does the same to them
> Techy types are too quick to judge others as "idiots".
I wouldn't say too quick, probably just quick. Have you thought about that why that is ?
My running theory is that because people and skills in the tech industry have historically been discredited, they have developed a distaste for people who can't "deal with this computer shit".
What seems stupid to you is usually reasonable in their reference frame. The example du jour is any type of strongly held belief, whether that be in religion or politics, or whatever else. Someone can hold a fundamental, axiomatic view such that the logical consequences of that view might seem stupid to us, but we don't hold those same axioms.
So, we had manager who systematically misinterpreted what people said. Sometimes with bad intention, other times honestly no understanding and making absurd guesses.
Having to watch the consequences of that, that person was not doing something reasonable from different point of view. It was not about axioms. It was harming everyone including that manager. (That the manager got or kept position is indictment of our company. I am fully aware.)
This is such a lazy answer to a complex problem-set. The reason why it always breaks down too this, is that we can not perceive "different". All we have is "similar" to us comparison. Not similar to us is judged by outcome - which is why stupid/godlike flickers. Genius is repeatedly not getting it, judging it stupid, but the outcome is working/superior.
The sad truth is, we cant really see other people behaviour-wise. Aliens could be walking in our midst and we couldn't perceive them.
> There are always barriers. Recognizing those barriers— and viewing them as legitimate — is often the first step to breaking "lazy" behavior patterns.
One thing that the article encouraged me to do is view the situation from the other person's perspective. What may appear ill-intentioned may not seem that way once we gain context.
Just to mention: It can also mean that the other person is missing some of the context you have (and knowing this can also be considered context information).
Everybody is trying to achieve or maintain a sense of well-being. Part of well-being is understanding, so the (inevitably) missing parts of the context are rationalized?
This statement is equivalent to saying that everyone is perfectly rational though, which we know is not true. Sometimes people are different because they are different, not because we are all one identical mind cloned and put in different bodies and circumstances.
Human problems can always be redefined. This reminds me of something on (the old) SSC, about how new psychological frameworks for treatment always look promising at discovery, then tail off in effectiveness down to the rest of the pack as they're adopted more widely. The author here has something to give: enthusiasm, understanding, compassion, and it's not surprising that he is finding outsized results.
My own experience with procrastination is one of failing to clear mental hurdles. I always did assignments at the last minute, and relied on adrenaline and unconscious skill to carry me over the finish line. The bar eventually got high enough that I couldn't clear it in one late-night coffee-fueled panic, and I started balking at the line.
I wish I could find the talk by a professor who gave a lecture on this topic. It really helped drive home the need to break tasks down into bite sized chunks. He basically found that if his grad students weren’t making progress on their thesis, it was invariably because they basically didn’t know what to do next. So he would work with them on finding a next thing to work on, which almost invariably required breaking some bigger task down. I don’t remember the field so this might not work as well for topics that require a eureka moment, but I’ve certainly found if I’m not making progress on something it’s often necessary for me to find a more time boxable thing to work on next.
This seems less clever when you realize the same argument applies to every other personality trait, because they're all dependent on something. Nobody does anything truly nonsensical because the brain is not capable of it. Every attitude and behavior is the result of circumstance. Despite that we've as a society decided that some behaviors deserve moral judgment. If you want to argue that judgment is a mistake go ahead, but laziness isn't any more real or fake than boredom or talkativeness or pedophilia or rudeness.
Eh I don't think that's entirely true. Not all traits are so circumstantial. Some biologically inherited or genetic conditions (eg. ADHD or Aspergers) correlate highly with personality "traits" that can hold pretty consistently across different environments and circumstances. There are people with brain damage that are observed to be consistently more aggressive, consistent enough to be identifiable as a trait. In some cases, purely physical medication on its own can substantially alter or eliminate certain behaviors and "traits".
They're all dependent on something, but they're not all highly dependent on the surrounding circumstance like the article suggests laziness is.
My understanding is that yes, it can sometimes be dependent on biology, but the really interesting part is that it's also highly dependent on circumstance and your work environment. ADHD & procrastination is a good example: the behavior of people with ADHD is not uncommonly described as "lazy" because ADHD delays the brain's development of executive function capability. Well as the article points out, for decades procrastination has been shown to be a problem of executive function, so if your ADHD brain isn't fully capable of executive function you're practically guaranteed to fail at executive function in the same way that causes procrastination. The behavior is almost identical: you're continually putting off the required task.
But not all procrastination is caused by a literal brain disorder. Your neurotypical brain can be capable of executive function but still fail at it. The article points out some reasons why:
> When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well.
You don't need to be biologically impaired to be confused about what the first steps are. You don't need to be biologically prone to anxiety to be anxious. More importantly, you can change your surrounding environment/circumstance to change these factors and therefore change this particular behavior.
ADHD is actually really interesting because its executive dysfunction can be so effectively compensated by the environment. The same environmental aids that might compensate for the executive function failure of a neurotypical procrastinator can also compensate in someone with ADHD to the extent that they perform at the same level as their neurotypical peers.
Subjectively, I think that's a really surprising and clever finding. This high circumstantiality isn't necessarily true for all psychological traits. Research suggests that homosexuality in males, for example, is not so easily changed or predicted by circumstantial changes. It's also not clear that you can compensate for the dysfunction of Aspergers/Autism and its resultant behavior.
(feel free to correct my science, I admit I'm not so well versed in it!)
> When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well.
Very frankly, this is not my experience and sounds like pseudo-pop-psychology. Yes, sometimes the task is too hard for me and consequently I dont know where to start.
But really, I am way more likely to fail to do boring "I know exactly what to do" projects and chores. I know exactly where to start with vacuum cleaning or washing dishes. I have zero worry that I will fail. It is just that, well watching videos is more fun and require less effort. Quite similar to what people normally call laziness.
This all can be broken down all the way to "do we have free will at all". Maybe literally everything is predetermined and is purely a response to the inputs.
And then does it even matter what the answer to that question is? Is it useful to think "Well they are just biologically lazy" instead of trying to find ways to motivate people to be less lazy.
But we do have to make moral judgments. That's just a consequence of valuing some things over others. And we have to be answerable for our actions. You can make that part of the circumstances if you will, if you really believe that people have no free will.
It dulls the senses and temporarily increases blood flow around a lot of your skin where temperature is monitored, which makes you feel warmer. So it could make a bad situation seem better than it is, could also lead to hypothermia because you've tricked your brain into thinking it's warmer than it actually is.
Also, alcohol typically has a misconception of improving sleep. In some situations, maybe, but it tends to give you a lighter sleep and leaving less refreshed if you consume a lot.
I interpreted this as drinking alcohol so that you could sleep even if the cold would have made you too uncomfortable normally. It's not always adaptive obviously (you could freeze to death, etc), but the idea is that the alcohol allows you to sleep when you would otherwise be kept awake by discomforts that cannot be fixed tonight, and the night of full sleep will serve you better.
It feels like it's making you warm. It doesn't make much sense from calories per dollar perspective though, so not a great example of valid decision making by homeless people.
Strangely I've noticed recently that I get to stuff a lot more easier then before. For a long time everything felt like a chore, and I could only ever think about forcing myself and it was bloody hard. But a couple weeks ago some things happened that shook me up, so maybe it's easier to e.g. empty the dishwasher than to think about things I don't want to think about. Now I do the e.g. dishwasher in 5 minutes and think -- wait is it done, is there something else there?
People that could see me now would think what a hard worker I am, and three weeks or months ago they would've gotten a different impression. So there I think he's right. I think it's still possible to be lazy, by virtue of not caring about accomplishing anything, but I don't know how possible this is.
I used to be "lazy" by not working. Then Covid lockdown happened and suddenly everybody else wasn't working either. It truly made me feel better about my own behavior. It's pretty relative.
Yesterday, Sunday I knew I had to move the brush pile in my back yard into the front yard because municipal brush pickup was on Monday. I also knew it was going to be 90°f by about noon and not going to taper off until after dark. I knew perfectly well I should do it in the AM before it got hot.
Yet, about 3pm I hauled the brush and got drenched in sweat and honestly felt sick. Why? I was being lazy and didn't want to get out of bed. It's 100% a thing.
The post is just suggesting that you (and the people around you) keep digging through the Whys and don't stop at "I can attribute this to laziness".
> The solution, instead, is to look for what is holding the procrastinator back. If anxiety is the major barrier, the procrastinator actually needs to walk away from the computer/book/word document and engage in a relaxing activity. Being branded “lazy” by other people is likely to lead to the exact opposite behavior.
And the article is wrong, plain and simple. Written by someone who is apparently not lazy and can’t comprehend the idea. Just because you can’t fathom something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, that’s a logical fallacy.
Being lazy is absolutely a thing, and just a person unreasonably weighting the value of the now over the later. I weighted the value of being in bed right now higher than the value of not moving brush in 90°F weather later, which I then even later regretted. And I will do it again. Why? My value weighting function in my brain is flawed; that’s what it means to be lazy. There is no deeper reason.
I wish the article provided actionable advice. Mostly it seems to diagnose a problem but then not provide a solution. Except maybe empathy and understanding.
HN is a way to procrastinate. So it leads to conversations about procrastination.
It's like if a bar were full of people having a conversation about how they need to quit drinking.
Or to put it more sympathetically, in the language of the article, it's because there's some need that isn't being met. Given that HN provides something like socialization, I'd bet it's that.
I'm curious what the author thinks about the navy seals. Would they be successful taking his approach? I don't think so.
I think some people respond to the lovey-dovey caring approach that he takes and others respond better to the strong, aggressive approach that the navy seals, and his coworker take.
My biggest criticism of the author is that he makes a strong moral judgment that his way is the right way and any other way is wrong. For example, he paints his fellow teacher as an evil person who abuses her students.
I'd even go so far as saying this encapsulates one of the reasons we are so politically polarized these days. I think the left has a tendency to act like this guy and the right wingers get sick of people thinking they're evil.
Perhaps it's the ones that progress in that environment that have the problems. It would be interesting to look at rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce and violence amongst this group.
Yes. The same argument that he uses to defend “lazy” people can also be applied to “morally repugnant” people (e.g., they haven’t been taught to think correctly about these things and therefor draw erroneous conclusions). That doesn’t make the argument wrong, but it does mean that you have to give pretty much anyone a pass. Most people aren’t willing to do this.
The author directly stated seeing repeated procrastination in many situations, yet stated that laziness does not exist. The premise of this article is literally founded on intellectual laziness.
When a person takes a course twice without ever managing to turn in homework, the situation of the student is not completely to blame, since the student didn't take the time to do something - the work, withdrawing in time, discussing options with the professor, something.
It seems fairly clear that the author has a "schtick" or a unique "angle" on social psychology that is being promulgated. As it turns out, they released a book this year called, "Laziness Does Not Exist", three years after this article was written.
I can only speak for my own procrastination, but it is certainly not rooted in anything I would identify as laziness. It’s rooted in my experience of ADHD, and the corresponding anxiety it produces.
How can I be so sure? Because I will often go to great effort to avoid minimal-effort tasks. Or I’ll continue an effort that I sense is likely a sunk cost to abandon in favor of a better solution, because I’m determined to see the first effort through.
Interestingly (to me), these were major influences on me becoming a programmer. I’m self taught, I didn’t learn to start a career. I thought I would probably work crappy retail jobs and be broke for the rest of my life.
I learned to program because there were tasks I would prefer not to do, so I learned how to automate them out of my purview. Work avoidance, it turns out, is a hallmark of the craft. Why put off for tomorrow what can be put off entirely?
Is that laziness? A younger me joked that it is along the lines of: I'm a lazy programmer; the good kind of lazy.
I no longer see it that way. I see it as one lens among many into my state of mind which ultimately gives me both drive and difficulty—that makes me incredibly effective and also prone to forgetting to do simple chores for weeks at a time.
Edit: that said, I wasn’t motivated to get around the paywall, so I have no idea if the article discusses similar concepts making my reply potentially redundant.
> I learned to program because there were tasks I would prefer not to do, so I learned how to automate them out of my purview. Work avoidance, it turns out, is a hallmark of the craft. Why put off for tomorrow what can be put off entirely?
> Is that laziness?
> Edit: that said, I wasn’t motivated to get around the paywall, so I have no idea if the article discusses similar concepts making my reply potentially redundant.
Laziness is the quality of not being willing to work or use any effort [1]
Lazy: averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent. [2]
According to Larry Wall, the original author of the Perl programming language, there are three great virtues of a programmer; Laziness, Impatience and Hubris [3]
I think my younger self’s quip was indirectly a reference to Wall’s list of virtues. That said, it’s ambiguous (to me) whether working to avoid work satisfies the first cited definition. It’s simultaneously lazy and non-lazy.
Of course that dichotomy is applied frequently in programming. It could easily be described as “redefining the problem”.
But in my early programming experience it was trading time dedicated to education and hacking in exchange for avoiding manual effort. I learned to programmatically access MP3 metadata so I could update my blog when I posted new songs I recorded, rather than typing out the information directly. That’s literally why I became a programmer, because I got tired of typing some stuff twice (as I had already typed it in iTunes when converting to MP3).
That certainly feels more like what I colloquially understand laziness to mean, than the cleverer reinterpretation used by Wall to describe what I understand as work substitution in programming as a non-novice.
It takes willpower to do something different and raise above the “operational”/“manual typing” level; I can’t see how that’s laziness. Long-term thinking isn’t associated with “laziness” either afaik.
Fixing problems through programming is all about thinking, not typing. If you try to fix something merely by typing, you’re avoiding the main work we’re supposed to do. Otherwise, why even have computers?
This is 99% my point, the only difference I was trying to introduce was that in my initial foray into programming I wasn’t actually a programmer. I didn’t have those insights. I was actually just learning how to make machines let me type less. I had no idea what that impulse would open up for me.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
Some are more disinclined to work though. It is why ADHD exists. Stimulants helps you become more inclined to work, so laziness is at least partially dependent on chemicals.
I mean, if taking a pill can make someone less lazy then laziness must be a thing, right?
I hope you’re not speaking to my up-thread mention of ADHD. A pill has not made me less, or more, lazy. Or +- prone to procrastinating. To the extent it’s helped with executive function it’s just made me less at odds with the world’s assumptions about how I exist.
In a similar way that "broken" is a thing. If you have a device which doesn't work, you can call it "broken" but that doesn't help you do anything about it. It's useful if you want to filter out broken things from functional things, but if you want your device to work again you need more than that.
If you want to avoid lazy employees, and hire motivated self-starters, then "lazy" might work as a description. If a good employee is suddenly having problems and you would prefer to keep them, all "lazy" does is put a non-explanation insult on them, it doesn't tell you anything. "They lost a family member and haven't been sleeping properly and are exhausted" tells you something. "They just saw another team's project get cancelled on a whim" tells you something else. "They feel micromanaged and are frustrated" tells you something else.
That’s really not true. Some people genuinely love their jobs and continue to work well into old age even if the remuneration is basically irrelevant. It’s perfectly possible to love your job to the point where the salary is as much to just pay the bills, and I’ve been fortunate to be in that position several times in my career.
> It seems fairly clear that the author has a "schtick" or a unique "angle" on social psychology that is being promulgated.
You mean they have an opinion based on their research? That's shocking.
> As it turns out, they released a book this year called, "Laziness Does Not Exist", three years after this article was written.
And that's relevant how?
> When a person takes a course twice without ever managing to turn in homework, the situation of the student is not completely to blame, since the student didn't take the time to do something - the work, withdrawing in time, discussing options with the professor, something.
See, you're trying to place blame. The author is in the mindset of looking for solutions. He's got my respect.
The author’s point is that labeling someone as “lazy” is intellectually lazy. Every person, throughout their lives, exhibits behaviors ranging the full spectrum from lazy to diligent. They might be lazy about one thing but diligent about another, all at different times, for reasons others may never find out about. Labeling a person as lazy ignores all of that, and lays judgement based on a specific things the labeler wish the labeled was more diligent about, and at the time of their choosing. It’s entirely subjective, and rarely constructive. Laziness, as a description of a person’s measurable, inherent attributes, is inherently vindictive, intellectually lazy, and generally unhelpful. It’s a way of saying “I give up on you, I don’t want to know your story, and I think you can’t change” without acknowledging your part in that judgement.
Is labeling someone the opposite of lazy ("tenacious, hard-working, full of grit") similarly intellectually lazy? The same types of factors go into their non-average behavior, just inverted. And it can be a negative trait, although it's less common for that effect to manifest.
Technically, I guess so. Point is, we can’t be diligent about everything at all times; and that includes intellectually. Difference is that negative judgements are more readily wielded as verbal weapons than compliments.
What if you’re not diligent with the main thing you’re “there for”, as in, doing the work you’re paid for and spend 8 hours/day doing? It’s not “just anything.”
This is getting into ontology. I think the point is that laziness is a meaningless term with no explanatory power, and therefore may as well not exist.
Having provoked you so with a daring headline, the author’s ploy is to draw you into their actual writing, in which they will explain the nuances of their arguments. If you cannot be bothered to move past the headlines, you’ll just be provoked. If you’ve read all the text and are still not convinced, you’re entitled to your opinion.
Calling someone lazy is meant to provoke them with a daring insult. Just like headlines insults doesn't have to be true, they just have to provoke you. Taking the insult at face value and writing a scientific argument against it mean that he doesn't understand the point of insults to begin with.
And he can't really blame others for being lazy with their insults when he is lazy with his headlines and articles like this. It is exactly the same thing, it gives him clicks and fame and he can make a living.
I think that’s the point. There is no reason for a student to get an F twice in a course they paid for without turning in any work. They could at least get a W or Audit if they withdraw late, but most schools also provide refunds if you withdraw in the first weeks.
This means the individual couldn’t perform the basic unskilled task of withdrawing, something which usually just involves an email but in 2021 is usually done via button click. This doesn’t sound so much like laziness as depression.
> When a person takes a course twice without ever managing to turn in homework, the situation of the student is not completely to blame, since the student didn't take the time to do something - the work, withdrawing in time, discussing options with the professor, something.
And yet, any number of other words might legitimately describe the student's behavior - hesitant, confused, indifferent, passive, distracted etc. etc.
So, is "lazy" the correct term to use? And if so, why? All that we know about this particular student is that they took a class twice without turning in any assignments! Perhaps they simply enjoyed how the professor lectured and weren't actually interested in getting a degree - though I'll grant that that's a less likely possibility, given the context of the discussion.
> TFA explains that procrastination is not laziness.
I didn't say that procrastination is identical with laziness. I did give a direct example drawn from the article showing how a person exhibited laziness.
The difference between procrastination and laziness is obvious from their definitions. TFA is not needed to know they differ. Procrastination is postponing something, while laziness is being unwilling to act. But, none of that matters. The blanket assertion is that Laziness Does Not Exist, which is obviously false. There are people who are unwilling to act in certain situations.
> The author directly stated seeing repeated procrastination in many situations, yet stated that laziness does not exist.
This phrasing, with its use of "yet" to contrast procrastination and laziness, strongly implies that from your perspective procrastination IS laziness.
So, while you didn't literally say "procrastination is identical with laziness" maybe you can see how you might have given that impression?
For what it's worth, I agree with you that the title "Laziness Does Not Exist" is not literally true; "laziness" is a real term that people use to describe behavior, and it "exists" in that sense, at least. Do you feel there is some deeper relevance to the term, though? For example, do you think it's more accurate to say that "laziness" is an inherent character trait that explains behavior, rather than merely describing it?
> So, while you didn't literally say "procrastination is identical with laziness" maybe you can see how you might have given that impression?
That might be perceived, but only when people pluck phrases and sentences out of content. What you quoted was directly followed by an example of laziness from the article. "The premise of this article is literally founded on intellectual laziness. When a person takes a course twice without ever managing to turn in homework, the situation of the student is not completely to blame, since the student didn't take the time to do something - the work, withdrawing in time, discussing options with the professor, something."
> Do you feel there is some deeper relevance to the term, though? For example, do you think it's more accurate to say that "laziness" is an inherent character trait that explains behavior, rather than merely describing it?
It is not about how I feel but the meanings of words. Procrastination describes behavior. Laziness can describe an attitude of being unwilling to act but also the behavior of indolence or lack of action.
> What you quoted was directly followed by an example of laziness from the article.
Well, it was DIRECTLY followed by an assertion of intellectual laziness in the premise of the article, as your quote so helpfully shows. Perhaps if you were a bit less lazy you might have caught that?
> It is not about how I feel but the meanings of words.
Ah! An interesting assertion, considering that what you have repeatedly described as "an example of laziness" from the article could easily be described in another way, as my other reply to you hints at. For example, we could say it was "stubbornness" [1] or "passivity" [2] or even "dysfunction" [3] with as much justification as you use "laziness." So on what basis do you choose the one, and not another?
> Well, it was DIRECTLY followed by an assertion of intellectual laziness in the premise of the article, as your quote so helpfully shows. Perhaps if you were a bit less lazy you might have caught that?
You're confused. Those were my words not words from the article.
> Ah! An interesting assertion, considering that what you have repeatedly described as "an example of laziness" from the article could easily be described in another way, as my other reply to you hints at. For example, we could say it was "stubbornness" [1] or "passivity" [2] or even "dysfunction" [3] with as much justification as you use "laziness.
Some lazy actions may also be stubborn actions. I'm sure that you know this.
> So on what basis do you choose the one, and not another?
Are you serious? The word is the subject of the article, and the given situation was an example from the article that shows the existence of laziness, which is in contradiction to the premise from the aricle that was apparently created in order to sell books.
Laziness exists. . It's nice to think of humans as noble and well intentioned despite some externalities, but some people are consciously, deliberately, knowingly manipulative and deceitful and lazy.
Not everyone is good. Most people aren't. We're vicious, tribal, vengeful, resentful, always looking out for whatever the biggest circle is we feel responsible for, whether it's a country, a company, a team, family, friends, or just ourselves.
The reasons might make sense to the person doing the rationalizing, but that doesn't negate the fact that bad traits exist. You can't rationalize away the consequences of choice in individual life circumstances.
This person is why I have very little respect for academia. If they're a "PhD," then the term means nothing.
> deliberately, knowingly manipulative and deceitful
I would argue that none of those traits correspond with laziness in any way. In fact, it takes a lot of work to become really good at these skills (for most people), and performing them is not lazy, but it can appear so to someone who doesn't realize they are being manipulated.
Actually it really depends who is the subject of the "good" judgement. Everyone is doing what they think/feel/sense is good for them. So in this sense there is no good or bad: it is just acting out on self wants/needs.
The good or bad makes sense when changing the frame or point of view from self to someone else. So good and bad appears only in relation with other people. In this sense it is subjective and history is a proof of this.
> If a person’s behavior doesn’t make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context.
Working in a large company with lots of stakeholders pulling in different directions, I've lost count of how many times I've heard X complain that Y is an idiot and what they're doing makes no sense, and then talked to Y directly and realized that from their point of view Y's actions are entirely rational.