
Laziness Does Not Exist but unseen barriers do - mmt
https://medium.com/@dr_eprice/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01
======
mmt
Although I posted this article (it was referenced in a comment in another
thread and didn't get much discussion the first time), I don't necessarily
agree with with all the author's assertions.

In particular, the author seems to extrapolate all of humanity from college
students. I'm not convinced that anecdotal evidence, from a sample that's
highly likely to be motivated to begin with, is enough to conclude the non-
existence of laziness. [1]

I did, however, appreciate the alternate perspective, which may be
particularly applicable here on HN, in our professional lives, another area
where the selection is more likely to be biased toward those who are highly
likely to be motivated, in which case laziness is less likely to be the
explanation for inaction.

[1] At least for certain definitions of laziness that include, for example, a
preference for "fun" such as sitting on the couch playing video games or
watching tv over "work" such as washing dishes or mowing the lawn.

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fallingfrog
Wish I had this professor in college. I had one final exam where due to
undiagnosed ADHD I wasn't listening when they announced they had moved the
location of the final, so when I showed up to take it, nobody was there. I was
not allowed to take the test later. So I flunked out of school and blamed
myself, felt like a useless loser, suicidal, for years.

~~~
growlist
I think the time pressure element of learning is silly. Is the purpose of an
exam to test learning speed or understanding of the material? If the former,
why not have a specific test for it, as opposed to using a test of
understanding of arbitrary material as a proxy? If the latter, why can't you
pay to take the test at a later date? Why should it matter how long it took
you to learn if your results are up to scratch in the end? Thank god life
gives us a chance to accomplish things at our own pace!

~~~
jhayward
I sympathize with your view, but I think the time pressure is a very valid
thing to be using.

If we view higher education as being more about learning how to learn, rather
than simply mastering a set of facts, we have to have limited time resources
to measure how effectively a student learns.

In life, business, etc. we are almost always under time pressure. These tasks
often include learning something - new facts, new concepts, new context.
People who can make better decisions, produce higher quality results, etc. in
limited time are precious. The time element of study time/test time is
effective at measuring that.

~~~
growlist
Which is fine, but completely denying someone the chance to get any type of
qualification whatsoever due to a single event seems very harsh. There is
precedent of a sort for softening assessment, in that here in the UK the
introduction of GCSEs swung assessment toward coursework rather than exams.

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Nasrudith
Considering laziness a vice in itself is highly silly considering its inherit
virtue in labor reduction and innovation - it just requires some hard work to
do so. Digging a canal despite being hard work is inherently a lazy way to
spare future labor. As any familiar with algorithms knows laziness is itself a
strategy.

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User23
I came here to explain that laziness does in fact exist, but eh whatever

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modells
It’s easy for people whom work “hard” to unreasonably and ignorantly prejudge
others to “get a job,” when there’s various individuals whom have invisible
disabilities: can’t get along with other people, understand or perform
traditional work. Some also can’t perform useful work because either
accommodations would be costly/extreme or they have debilitating socio- or
psychological conditions like psychosis, bad memories or are too
kinematically-slow.

It’s even worse that in the US, Social Security disability is focused mainly
on physical disabilities and randomly excludes certain social/mental
imparements due to a patchwork of dumb laws. As such, people in social
services are often unilaterally-declared (Abled-Bodied Adult Without
Dependents) ABAWD, and have their food (SNAP) and other benefits withdrawn
without mandatory participation in programs that basically ignore and discount
the reasons why they got there in the first place. In California, for example,
SNAP goes away for ABAWD’s for 9 months out of the year beginning September 1,
2018. IOW, penniless homeless people are having their food benefits cut off
for most of the year if they’re randomly assigned this status.

This is what “falling between the cracks” looks like.

~~~
taxicabjesus
I knocked myself out when I was 17 years old, don't remember two weeks... I
used to think I mostly recovered from that head injury, but I've recently
realized that it left me rather non-functional. I'm making progress, but I
guess I'm "invisibly disabled", in certain ways. Thanks for that description.

I took to taxi driving because of the flexibility: no direct supervision,
breaks whenever I wanted, etc. I get nerve pain, so breaks were necessary. I
was perfectly happy working 12-hour shifts, though...

> It’s even worse that in the US, Social Security disability is focused mainly
> on physical disabilities and randomly excludes certain social/mental
> imparements due to a patchwork of dumb laws. As such, people in social
> services are often unilaterally-declared (Abled-Bodied Adult Without
> Dependents) ABAWD, and have their food (SNAP) and other benefits withdrawn
> without mandatory participation in programs that basically ignore and
> discount the reasons why they got there in the first place.

America is very much "sink or swim". The politicians don't appreciate that
sometimes people need floaters to keep their head above water, while they
figure out how to get the concrete block off their feet...

