Comments on: How Lazy Can You Get?

By: dewdawg

dewdawg — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:14:43 +0000

Good article, Brad. I was taught that there are five essential elements to successful living: eating, drinking, sleeping, one-ing, and two-ing. Anything in addition is metaphysical. Cheers. ld

By: michaelJ

michaelJ — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:35:31 +0000

Richard Chalmers — “Collecting as few as a half dozen articles was laborious, boring, tedious work with frequent dead ends.”

What you fail to realize, in your casual faux-intellectual bathrobe and DSL-speed academic certainty —

is that there never were any “dead ends” in visiting the actual libraries and stacks of books and manuscripts.

A great pyhsical library with actual books and shelves is guaranteed to provide revelations you did not anticipate.

What your generation lacks is any sense of desiring a surprise.

You just want to find what you already believe.

Premature certainty is killing your potential to actually think for a change.

You could not recognize genius if it fell off the library shelf and smacked you in the face.

You would view that event as an affront.

To your certainty, right?

By: John

John — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:35:06 +0000

I feel a similar guilt about our present lives of ease. I spend all day sitting in front of a computer doing work or surfing the web, then spend an hour watching television after dinner, and spend the rest of the evening playing the computer game du jour. Okay squeeze in some homework with the kids in there, but that’s it.

My grandfather built Manhattan as a union carpenter for 50 years and before that was employed by the CCC, building logging camps and dams out west.

In comparison, I feel like a lazy turd.

By: John Galt

John Galt — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:04:13 +0000

Perhaps the cyber world has become effortless, but not the real world. I wanted to put up a high gain antenna to extend my wireless network, that antenna had to be supported by a pole, and that pole had to be planted in the ground. In this neck of the woods that means several hours of hard labor with a tool called a “rock bar” followed by some nice relaxing concrete mixing. Perhaps someday my fembot wife will do all that for me.

By: Fred Z

Fred Z — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:51:07 +0000

The article sounds too much like the lament of the small town retailer who used to be able to routinely charge a lot, until Wal-Mart and the Internet hit him with competition.

This lament is odd coming from an internet journalist, a beneficiary of the internet.

Supply and demand. The supply is better so the price goes down. That’s why Times Select failed. Internet journalism, for that’s what it is, is better and there’s plenty of it. Why would I pay to read that antiquated old dolt of a Dowd when I can read this?

By: Matt Knowles

Matt Knowles — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:17:43 +0000

Jeff,

It wasn’t “ad hominem” it was “reductio ad absurdum.” I had no intention at all of suggesting that Mr. Rourke *actually* was lamenting that we no longer had to fear getting eaten by alligators…

I think I must have been clearer than you took me or others would not have gotten my point.

And my point was simply that it is a timeless thing to observe the changes in the world and declare them a “decline.” It seems, to me, pessimistic to some degree. I have a greater faith in humanity.

And, to respond to Mr. Rourke’s comment above. Was it any different at the early part of the last century when I can easily imagine someone “resent[ing] hard work” when their automobile stopped running and they had to step out and turn the hand-crank until it started again?

It’s all relative.

PS – I’m not going to announce it, but I’m quite curious what party you think I must belong to.

By: dick

dick — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:46:07 +0000

Interesting comments. I think they are making his point. If you are not working from sun-up to sun-down to put food on the table, somebody is doing it for you. The point is whether you realize that someone is doing this and if they stop you will not have food on the table. Realize that while you have access to all this technology someone has had to make it available to you. When you eat, someone has grown this and transported it and made it ready for sale. An effort has been made whether by you or not and if it is not immediately available you need to know that there is an effort you can make to resolve the situation.

What I see is too many people who when faced with a lack of technology or some other product have no idea of how to handle it. I am reminded of waiting for a check at a diner and when I asked for it the waitress was waiting for someone to give her a calculator so she could add it up.

By: JM Hanes

JM Hanes — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:30:26 +0000

We get impatient when something slows down our muli-tasking? I don’t think you’re making much of a case for the downside.

By: Flaming Phonebook

Flaming Phonebook — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:16:13 +0000

The problem with NOT having a sense of entitlement is that when something genuinely shocking to the status quo comes along, we reject it as too easy. If, tomorrow, someone came out with an immortality pill, too many people would be talking about the dangers of overpopulation and possible side effects to realize that the sensible thing to do is to give everyone the pills and alter everything.

By: BMoon

BMoon — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:34:57 +0000

The real danger, to add to Brad’s good thoughts, is when one depends upon the Mainstream Media and culture to supply you with, not only all your info, but your very worldview. Nobody reads relious works like the Bible, history, classic literature, much less philosophy anymore, which used to provide you with a age old perspective. Now its up to goofy twits like Jon Stewart and Colbert to provide you with a worldview and news. We’re sunk.

Counter to Brad’s contention though, I thank God for the Internet. If you seek there, you will find, but that does take some work.