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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?


It's still a real and meaningful term, even if you don't like what the meaning is and disagree with using it.




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