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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7883 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026

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One of the issues I keep coming back to is the unspoken assumption a lot of society have that stupidity is a moral failure.

Not nearly as much as laziness!

If someone asks "why didn't you complete the assignment correctly?", "I'm incompetent" (phrased in a more tactful mannerof course) is actually a pretty decent answer. They'll be sympathetic (depending on context) and will help try to ameliorate your incompetence.

But if you say instead "I'm perfectly competent, and could have completed the assignment correctly, but instead it seemed more fun to just sit here and do nothing," that's a totally unacceptable answer. Many people just won't understand at all. They'll assume that you're being actively malicious.

Life is hard for us lazy people.

I think it stems from the fact that weakness of the intellect does not present as many philosophical difficulties as weakness of the will.

A truly competent lazy person would not say that, they would find the quickest way to get an okay mark without being hassled by the teacher. Or they would simply cheat and do just fine.

Similarily, I learned at a young age that "I forgot" received much less pushback from parents & teachers than "I though this assignment was stupid and boring and so I didn't bother to do it."

Teacher: “Did you finish that book report on Abe Lincoln’s biography and how he was best President ever for freeing the slaves and why he’s an example of how honesty is the best policy?”

Young Mantergeistmann: "I thought this assignment was stupid and boring and so I didn't bother to do it."

Teacher: “Nooo, not like that!”

stupid and boring and so I didn't bother to do it

I suspect a big part of it is the challenge to authority implied by exercising agency and choosing not to do something.

That and @Primaprimaprima's phrasing:

seemed more fun to just sit here and do nothing

Sounds more like something vaguely in the ADHD cluster than pure laziness. As @Rosencrantz2 said, the truly lazy thing to do is the minimum required effort to avoid getting hassled. Supposedly, for normies, the "completion" → get the check mark → dopamine, feedback cycle is stronger. Whereas, for others, the novelty, interest, attention, comprehension pathway is more motivating.

"I'm perfectly competent, and could have completed the assignment correctly, but instead it seemed more fun to just sit here and do nothing,"

I thought the up-to-date version of this sounded more like "I have chronic fatigue syndrome, long covid, demand avoidance pathology and/or a tragic case of depression, and YOU are malicious for expecting more of me!".

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