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How do you measure laziness?

Can you actually measure laziness?

  • Yes

    Votes: 11 50.0%

  • No

    Votes: 8 36.4%

  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 3 13.6%
  • Total voters
    22
Cilogy

Cilogy

Pathetic Douchebag
DP Veteran
Joined
Sep 29, 2008
Messages
1,587
Reaction score
374
Location
Texas
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
One of the most amusing lines of attack against a large portion of Americans is that they are lazy "takers" who don't want the American dream. Hilarious I know, but I love this because while many politicians embrace this ideology, they simultaneously criticize others for being divisive and waging "class warfare". To me, this is one of the biggest lies today that is unnecessarily dividing the American people when we really should be uniting with each other against the political establishment.

This idea of a significant population of Americans being lazy is purported so much that you'd think there is hard evidence for it, but is there? You can easily measure how many people are unemployed, or how many people are receiving welfare, but how do you objectively measure laziness? It's such a subjective concept but folks seem to love running to it as a way to sway voters. How can so many people claim to know this and use it as a wedge issue with such confidence?

Thoughts?
 
Kind of like obscenity...I know it when I see it.
 
Cilogy said:
One of the most amusing lines of attack against a large portion of Americans is that they are lazy "takers" who don't want the American dream. Hilarious I know, but I love this because while many politicians embrace this ideology, they simultaneously criticize others for being divisive and waging "class warfare". To me, this is one of the biggest lies today that is unnecessarily dividing the American people when we really should be uniting with each other against the political establishment.

This idea of a significant population of Americans being lazy is purported so much that you'd think there is hard evidence for it, but is there? You can easily measure how many people are unemployed, or how many people are receiving welfare, but how do you objectively measure laziness? It's such a subjective concept but folks seem to love running to it as a way to sway voters. How can so many people claim to know this and use it as a wedge issue with such confidence?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...


Most working-poor folks I know are working very hard indeed... many have two jobs, or they're busting a gut trying to find a second job. Yet their pay isn't keeping pace with cost of living and hasn't been for a long time, and things are getting tight.
 
Mycroft said:
Kind of like obscenity...I know it when I see it.
Click to expand...

This^.

I do agree with the OP in the thought that laziness is subjective AND there are varying degrees of laziness. I know people who are gainfully employed that are lazy asses... and then I know working poor who work 2 jobs in excess of 80 hours a week.
 
I always viewed laziness as the shirking of responsibilities. Not necessarily serious ones, but those that have consequences. Paying a bill late and incurring a penalty is laziness, assuming it does not have any other external cause. But rather, just "not getting around to it". Lack of ambition, meanwhile, I would not call laziness. People will strive to get what they want. They don't strive to get what you think they should want.

To describe any member of the working poor as lazy would be inaccurate. To describe the college students that Bill O'Reilley always calls "stoned slackers" as lazy would inaccurate. A lazy person is one who does not live up to the standard they have set for themselves, not someone who chooses a lower standard within their abilities.
 
lazy

1. not inclined to work or exertion
2. conducive to or causing indolence
3. moving in a languid or sluggish manner

Based on a subjective opinion, I would guess that most of us have used that word to describe others.
 
Mycroft said:
Kind of like obscenity...I know it when I see it.
Click to expand...

Yeah but obscenity usually involves some sort of physical act, laziness is a mindset.
 
I do not think it can be measured. Its more an attitude and if not its a matter of competence and ability or lack there of.
 
Cilogy said:
One of the most amusing lines of attack against a large portion of Americans is that they are lazy "takers" who don't want the American dream. Hilarious I know, but I love this because while many politicians embrace this ideology, they simultaneously criticize others for being divisive and waging "class warfare". To me, this is one of the biggest lies today that is unnecessarily dividing the American people when we really should be uniting with each other against the political establishment.

This idea of a significant population of Americans being lazy is purported so much that you'd think there is hard evidence for it, but is there? You can easily measure how many people are unemployed, or how many people are receiving welfare, but how do you objectively measure laziness? It's such a subjective concept but folks seem to love running to it as a way to sway voters. How can so many people claim to know this and use it as a wedge issue with such confidence?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...


Different people would have different definitions. I don't consider wealthy people who have worked hard, smart and honest for what they have who then PAY others fair compensation to have their meals cooked, house cleaned, yard cared for, etc. lazy. I don't consider people who cannot do for themselves adequately lazy. I don't consider people who reply upon temporary help lazy especially if they are occupied in rigorous activity to improve their lives to better become productive in the future. To me lazy is when people don't want to do for themselves, have never earned the equity that lets them afford to pay somebody else to do for them, are healthy and are not somehow disadvantaged and want others to be at their service offering nothing in return, now or in the future.
 
What's the question?

Ahhh...forget it, I cannot be bothered to look again.
 
i know a lot of people who are on some kind of assistance, and most of them work even harder than i do; multiple jobs while raising kids, **** for pay, no benefits. out of all of those people, i know maybe one or two who i suspect of gaming the system a little bit. my evidence, while anecdotal, certainly doesn't support the hyperpartisan meme of a whole nation of people spending their welfare checks on pot and fruit loops while sitting in their living room, laughing about it, and playing XBox.

if you want people to not be on assistance, give them opportunities that pay them more, and design a health care delivery system that doesn't require the employer to foot the bill. also, it helps when routine health emergencies don't cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Health Care: The Cost With and Without Insurance

most will balk at paying higher wages, so i guess our current assistance system isn't too bad of an alternative, considering.
 
Cilogy said:
One of the most amusing lines of attack against a large portion of Americans is that they are lazy "takers" who don't want the American dream. Hilarious I know, but I love this because while many politicians embrace this ideology, they simultaneously criticize others for being divisive and waging "class warfare". To me, this is one of the biggest lies today that is unnecessarily dividing the American people when we really should be uniting with each other against the political establishment.

This idea of a significant population of Americans being lazy is purported so much that you'd think there is hard evidence for it, but is there? You can easily measure how many people are unemployed, or how many people are receiving welfare, but how do you objectively measure laziness? It's such a subjective concept but folks seem to love running to it as a way to sway voters. How can so many people claim to know this and use it as a wedge issue with such confidence?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Who would you say is the greatest purveyor of laziness: Barack Obama, or Mitt Romney?
 


:peace
 
Work smart, not hard.
 
Based on the initial premise, how about dollars times months for a formula.
 
I don't know the best way to do it, but I would start with the people who have been on government assistance the longest.
 
Dooble said:
Who would you say is the greatest purveyor of laziness: Barack Obama, or Mitt Romney?
Click to expand...

I don't know them personally and I don't know their mindset. From what I see, neither of them are lazy because they both act on things, they both want things, they both do things. I can't just sit here and tell you who is lazy and who is not lazy, it's such a subjective and judgmental way to look at the world.
 
my brother, learned a good trade in the Navy, but when he got out he found that to work in his trade, he had to move about 60 miles away from mommy and daddy, who let him live for free in their house....it was a good deal until they died. He got the house, but had no income to pay the expenses of having a house. He could have sold the house and moved to where the work is, altho the house isn't worth much money, it was still a way to be independent. Instead he got an increase in his disability that now pays about $800 per month and stayed in the house. It is falling apart around him, but it is home. I knew he was lazy when we were kids, but he was mom's favorite and she enabled his laziness.
In other words, he CAN but he WON'T.....
 
Cilogy said:
I don't know them personally and I don't know their mindset. From what I see, neither of them are lazy because they both act on things, they both want things, they both do things. I can't just sit here and tell you who is lazy and who is not lazy, it's such a subjective and judgmental way to look at the world.
Click to expand...
Nice dodge.

I'm not asking which of the two are lazy, personally, I'm asking who you think is more likely to encourage laziness amongst U.S. citizens.
 
Dooble said:
Nice dodge.

I'm not asking which of the two are lazy, personally, I'm asking who you think is more likely to encourage laziness amongst U.S. citizens.
Click to expand...
lol how is that a dogde? I'm telling you that I can't judge that based on what I know. I also can't tell you who is "more likely to encourage laziness" because it's more of an opinion-based thing. It's just not objectively possible knowing that laziness is more of an individual mentality rather than some sort of activity than can be encouraged or discouraged.
 
Cilogy said:
lol how is that a dogde? I'm telling you that I can't judge that based on what I know.
Click to expand...
What do you know? What can you tell me about your choice for president? Did you even vote?
 
Cilogy said:
One of the most amusing lines of attack against a large portion of Americans is that they are lazy "takers" who don't want the American dream. Hilarious I know, but I love this because while many politicians embrace this ideology, they simultaneously criticize others for being divisive and waging "class warfare". To me, this is one of the biggest lies today that is unnecessarily dividing the American people when we really should be uniting with each other against the political establishment.

This idea of a significant population of Americans being lazy is purported so much that you'd think there is hard evidence for it, but is there? You can easily measure how many people are unemployed, or how many people are receiving welfare, but how do you objectively measure laziness? It's such a subjective concept but folks seem to love running to it as a way to sway voters. How can so many people claim to know this and use it as a wedge issue with such confidence?

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Laziness would be a ratio of accomplishment/capacity.
 
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