Political Crossfire Forums

[The Grandmaster]

ieatfood wrote: What's wrong with being lazy?

Capitalism is about freedom. People should have the freedom to be as lazy or as hardworking as they want. Who the hell are YOU to judge them?

Indeed. That's a good point.

[The Comrade]

The Grandmaster wrote: ieatfood wrote: What's wrong with being lazy?

Capitalism is about freedom. People should have the freedom to be as lazy or as hardworking as they want. Who the hell are YOU to judge them?

Indeed. That's a good point.


not really. i have every right to judge someone who is lazy and lives off of the system while i bust my hump day in and day out to make a living.

[patrickt]

I am old. I remember life before computers, before television, before air conditioning. I remember life before transistors. Many people then were as lazy as they could get away with but, especially around the house, modern conveniences have made life much easier.

[Red Flag]

The Grandmaster wrote: Red Flag wrote: I firmly believe that the technology we use breeds laziness, and apathy. Look at yourself right at this moment, typing away on a machine that really serves you no purpose besides entertainment... and maybe knowledge in some very RARE cases.

Oh, I forgot to mention. All computers are are entertainment and fun huh? That's odd. I pay my rent, electricity, gas, cable, insurance, and eat, because of what I do on a computer.

Seems like paying the bills might be another purpose those glorified playstations are good for. I yield, apparently online employment is a more common occurence than I previously thought.

[The Grandmaster]

Red Flag wrote: The Grandmaster wrote: Red Flag wrote: I firmly believe that the technology we use breeds laziness, and apathy. Look at yourself right at this moment, typing away on a machine that really serves you no purpose besides entertainment... and maybe knowledge in some very RARE cases.

Oh, I forgot to mention. All computers are are entertainment and fun huh? That's odd. I pay my rent, electricity, gas, cable, insurance, and eat, because of what I do on a computer.

Seems like paying the bills might be another purpose those glorified playstations are good for. I yield, apparently online employment is a more common occurence than I previously thought.

I work for Purdue University as a Computer Graphics Artist. I do 3D modeling, rendering, animation and illustration (Kind of like Pixar type stuff) for a research center . I don't really work "online." My illustrations are published in journals, the web, magazines, and textbooks.

[ieatfood]

The Comrade wrote: The Grandmaster wrote: ieatfood wrote: What's wrong with being lazy?

Capitalism is about freedom. People should have the freedom to be as lazy or as hardworking as they want. Who the hell are YOU to judge them?

Indeed. That's a good point.


not really. i have every right to judge someone who is lazy and lives off of the system while i bust my hump day in and day out to make a living.

no one is forcing you to work--you can be lazy and live off the system too

everyone makes their own choices and lives the consequences of those choices. If you are bitter about the choices that you have made, no reason to take it out on others who have made different choices.

[patrickt]

You're right but everyone I know who is living of "the system" is really bitter that they aren't living better.

[Maricela]

patrickt wrote: You're right but everyone I know who is living of "the system" is really bitter that they aren't living better.

That really bothers me. If you're upset about your current position, do something about it. I've known a lot of people who expects the world to hand everything to them on a silver platter because of whatever happened to them in the past; basically for people to feel sorry for them, but it doesn't work that way.

When I read the title to this post, it reminded me of Larry Miller's new book called "Spoiled Rotten in America", it's hilarious, but oh so true.

A portion of what's in his book:

"I have a Spoiled Rotten story that just happened to me here, just now, and I’d like to tell you mine; and then I’d like you to tell me yours. But first…

I went downstairs here in the office for lunch. There’s a nice kitchen that’s always stocked with all sorts of stuff, and I took some frozen soy buffalo wings out of the freezer.

That’s right: frozen, soy buffalo wings. (Pretty spoiled of us right there, isn’t it?) They look like nuggets, and because they’re veggie we all get the illusion they’re good for us, but they’re most likely no more nourishing than chopped, diced, plastic six-pack holders. In a thousand years, the only things in our coffins that will still be undissolved and inorganic are probably fake breasts… and frozen, soy buffalo wings.

But they’re fast, and actually pretty good for pressed food/thing/nourishment/matter. So I read the directions, spread them on a plate, put them in the oven, closed the door and read the directions: Let’s see… microwavable plate, spread without touching, uh-huh, microwave on high for two minutes… turning over halfway through…

And that’s when I had my Spoiled Rotten moment. Folks, I swear, I actually thought: Oh, man, now I have to turn them over halfway through?! Why do I have to be the one to turn them over? Can’t I just let them go? What happens if I just leave them in there for two minutes on the same side? Do they explode? Do I explode? Will they turn into poison? Is that how the flesh-eating thing starts?

Is that spoiled enough for you? We have all the food in the world in our country, I have an office over a loaded kitchen and can pop in anything I want, anytime I want (and am not exactly starving in the first place, by the way), but suddenly, having to turn nine dry, breaded hunks of bean-thing over on a melmac dish and place them back onto the clear, off-its-track, stained, rotating cook-plate inside the over-used, ultra-violet-ray-leaking oven for another sixty seconds is the greatest imposition any soul has ever endured on Earth. The Great Depression? Yeah, I’m sure that was pretty bad, too, Grandma, but what about my soy wings?

So I laughed, and cooked them — and turned them over — and poured some God-only-knows-what’s-in-it-that-keeps-it-fresh-for-a-hundred-years ranch over them out of the giant, squeezable, extra-wide plastic dressing bottle with the permanently attached top that made a sound we’ve all heard before, but not in the kitchen."

[The Grandmaster]

I don't think I'd like that book.
The author sounds just like another person bitching that things, for some odd reason, should be harder than they actually are, and that somehow would make things better.

The simple solution if you think things are just too easy, is move to some country where everything is miserable. Why look how happy you'd be. s**t on the ground, eat grasshoppers and berries, wipe with leaves, and sleep in huts. Hey, you won't be lazy. How noble! To hell with science, it's so much better to live like a neanderthal!

No, I'll take my modern lifestyle anyday. And yes, I'll b**** if I don't want to turn over the soy wings. That's okay though, soon enough, they'll have a machine that does it for me. I'm looking forward to it.

[LostSoul3412]

I don't think that I would like it either.

People are on welfare programs to keep them alive, and in a state of basic sustenance. If that is "spoiling" Americans, then so be it; but I would rather have people being spoiled than starving.

[Maricela]

Ugh, stop being so damn serious. It's comedy, it's okay to laugh..seriously. :wink:

As for the statement about being okay in spoiling people on welfare as long as they don't go hungry, sounds to me like someone doesn't know the welfare system very well, and how easy it is to manipulate it. I don't mind helping people out when they're down on their luck, when they can't make ends meet, when they have children to feed, etc., I have absolutely NO problem in these type of people going on the welfare. BUT I do have a problem when people REFUSES to work, because it's easier and convenient to just be on the welfare program. Then they have a family, and they teach their children how they too can go on the welfare, and then they grow up, and they're on the welfare as well.. Vicious, vicious cycle that has got to stop. (There, I had my serious moment.)

But come on, don't tell me you guys never had a similar experience as the Miller guy, and just laughed at yourselves when you realized what just took place.

[The Comrade]

ieatfood wrote:

no one is forcing you to work--you can be lazy and live off the system too

everyone makes their own choices and lives the consequences of those choices. If you are bitter about the choices that you have made, no reason to take it out on others who have made different choices.


i have every reason to. getting everything for free is bulls**t, especially when you have every ability to work, and choose not to because you're LAZY

[Somebloke]

I've recently moved into a new place in London- near a train station. The main shops are maybe a 20-25 minute walk, with connecting buses. On the first day I asked my new housemates where it was, and they gave me bus connection instructions. Since I didn't have work- I've been in the country a little over a week, for pete's sake- I thought the idea of a long walk would be a good break in the tedium of sitting in front of the computer/checking the newspapers for jobs. I told them that I would be walking it, and was met with stunned silence; they have serious issues with the idea that a half-hour walk was a stroll rather than a grand undertaking.

It's just as well I didn't tell them about how I used to go on 30k bike-rides because I was bored on trains to and fro uni.

[toddytodd]

F'losrix wrote: toddytodd wrote: Have people become even more lazy in the past few years? On the elevator at work, people use it to go up and down one flight. Many times, it is the people who need to walk the stairs. Of course, there are those who can't walk the stairs. I find it hard to believe everyone of these people can't use the stairs. Also, my work has handicapped doors - push a button an the doors open slowly. There are a few people in my building that require this. For them, or for people that have their hands full (vendors, maintenance guys, etc) these are great. I have lost count how many times I have had to stand behind someone with no handicap and empty hands, while the door opens slowly because they don't want to physically pull open the door.

Perhaps it is just the area I live in....?
Any thoughts?
Just because someone looks like they're fit enough to climb stairs or open a heavy door, that doesn't mean they are. I get this crap all the time from people who tell me "You're still young, you should take the stairs", etc. You can't tell an asthmatic by looking at them. I don't wheeze all the time (thanks to daily medication), but a walk up a flight of stairs is enough to get it started. I'm still trying to train my boss to understand that just because I'm out of breath, it doesn't mean I'm agitated or upset about something. It just means the elevator is out of order, or that I momentarily forgot that I can't move as fast as I did in my youth.

My sister has nerve damage from being hit by a car and struck by lightning (twice). The upshot is that there are certain arm movements that cause her intense pain. But to look at her, you wouldn't initially think she has a reason to use the automated door button.

I'm not saying there aren't lazy people out there. Just asking that you think twice, three and four times before making judgments like this based on appearances. The person you might think is in perfect health may in fact have physical problems that aren't readily apparent and that they don't go around publicizing.

Edit: Oh, and some of those people you think are fat? They just might be having weight issues due to stereoid or other medications. A friend of mine had thyroid cancer last year and she has balooned, allegedly thanks to her meds.

There is a difference in people who can't take the stairs for physical reasons and people who don't because they 'don't want to'. My mother is a young 55, but needs to have a knee replaced so she has to take the elevator. Ironically, it is easier for her to go up the stairs than down. The appearances of being healthy isn't always a true indicator of actually being healthy.
Of course I am not the 'lazy police' (I would have to arrest myself sometimes if I were), but let's be truthful: many people take elevators or use automatically opening doors for no other reason than they don't want to 'over exert' themselves. That, is true laziness.

[toddytodd]

ieatfood wrote: What's wrong with being lazy?

Capitalism is about freedom. People should have the freedom to be as lazy or as hardworking as they want. Who the hell are YOU to judge them?


Personally, I do not judge, as that is condemning someone, in my point of view. Knowing that someone is lazy because they don't want to open a door on their own power, so they stand at the door while it opens, holding everyone up behind them, that is true laziness, not being judgmental. If someone wants to be lazy, a slave to the automatically opening door, and gain hundreds of pounds as they grow older because they don't want to exert themselves to walk up one flight of stairs (which in my building is between four and ten steps), or walk across the street to a fast food establishment (so they drive out of the garage, around the block and park fifty feet from the door of their building) by all means knock yourself out. But know that is being lazy.

[slitedeviance]

Somebloke wrote: I've recently moved into a new place in London- near a train station. The main shops are maybe a 20-25 minute walk, with connecting buses. On the first day I asked my new housemates where it was, and they gave me bus connection instructions. Since I didn't have work- I've been in the country a little over a week, for pete's sake- I thought the idea of a long walk would be a good break in the tedium of sitting in front of the computer/checking the newspapers for jobs. I told them that I would be walking it, and was met with stunned silence; they have serious issues with the idea that a half-hour walk was a stroll rather than a grand undertaking.

It's just as well I didn't tell them about how I used to go on 30k bike-rides because I was bored on trains to and fro uni.

Yeah, sounds like everyone I work with. I'm about 2 miles from my work, and I'll get called in at times when buses aren't running and there is no public transport due to the type of work I do. I don't drive and don't have a bike at the mo. So I walk. Takes me maybe 30 minutes at most, by which time I'm awake enough to actually work, and ready for the shift ahead.

Generally when I get in, everyone else on my team will be arriving. None of them walk, all of them drive the less than 2 miles they live away from work.

They then proceed to give me stick for getting the elevator up two floors rather than running up some nastily steep stairs...

Laxy b*ggers. Still, it's their right to be lazy.

[The Grandmaster]

The Comrade wrote: ieatfood wrote:

no one is forcing you to work--you can be lazy and live off the system too

everyone makes their own choices and lives the consequences of those choices. If you are bitter about the choices that you have made, no reason to take it out on others who have made different choices.

i have every reason to. getting everything for free is bulls**t, especially when you have every ability to work, and choose not to because you're LAZY

Why do you care? If their life is so objectionable, then just write them off as losers that you're glad your not like. Like Ieatfood said, if it bothers you so much, just do the same thing, you probably can. It seems the only thing that bothers you is a sort of "I have to work but they don't" type mentality. So don't work. Be lazy. "Well I don't want to be pathetic" you might say? If doing that is so pathetic, laugh at the poeple getting paid to be lazy instead of being bitter by them.

[Somebloke]

toddytodd wrote: F'losrix wrote: toddytodd wrote: Have people become even more lazy in the past few years? On the elevator at work, people use it to go up and down one flight. Many times, it is the people who need to walk the stairs. Of course, there are those who can't walk the stairs. I find it hard to believe everyone of these people can't use the stairs. Also, my work has handicapped doors - push a button an the doors open slowly. There are a few people in my building that require this. For them, or for people that have their hands full (vendors, maintenance guys, etc) these are great. I have lost count how many times I have had to stand behind someone with no handicap and empty hands, while the door opens slowly because they don't want to physically pull open the door.

Perhaps it is just the area I live in....?
Any thoughts?
Just because someone looks like they're fit enough to climb stairs or open a heavy door, that doesn't mean they are. I get this crap all the time from people who tell me "You're still young, you should take the stairs", etc. You can't tell an asthmatic by looking at them. I don't wheeze all the time (thanks to daily medication), but a walk up a flight of stairs is enough to get it started. I'm still trying to train my boss to understand that just because I'm out of breath, it doesn't mean I'm agitated or upset about something. It just means the elevator is out of order, or that I momentarily forgot that I can't move as fast as I did in my youth.

My sister has nerve damage from being hit by a car and struck by lightning (twice). The upshot is that there are certain arm movements that cause her intense pain. But to look at her, you wouldn't initially think she has a reason to use the automated door button.

I'm not saying there aren't lazy people out there. Just asking that you think twice, three and four times before making judgments like this based on appearances. The person you might think is in perfect health may in fact have physical problems that aren't readily apparent and that they don't go around publicizing.

Edit: Oh, and some of those people you think are fat? They just might be having weight issues due to stereoid or other medications. A friend of mine had thyroid cancer last year and she has balooned, allegedly thanks to her meds.

There is a difference in people who can't take the stairs for physical reasons and people who don't because they 'don't want to'. My mother is a young 55, but needs to have a knee replaced so she has to take the elevator. Ironically, it is easier for her to go up the stairs than down. The appearances of being healthy isn't always a true indicator of actually being healthy.
Of course I am not the 'lazy police' (I would have to arrest myself sometimes if I were), but let's be truthful: many people take elevators or use automatically opening doors for no other reason than they don't want to 'over exert' themselves. That, is true laziness.

My brother loved to windsurf, travel the world, etc. Then he was hit by a car while on a motornike. While he's relatively fine, the tendons in his groin were damaged; now strenuous physical activity causes him strong muscle pain.

Some conditions are hard to spot.

[The Comrade]

The Grandmaster wrote: Why do you care? If their life is so objectionable, then just write them off as losers that you're glad your not like. Like Ieatfood said, if it bothers you so much, just do the same thing, you probably can. It seems the only thing that bothers you is a sort of "I have to work but they don't" type mentality. So don't work. Be lazy. "Well I don't want to be pathetic" you might say? If doing that is so pathetic, laugh at the poeple getting paid to be lazy instead of being bitter by them.

okay?


i still have the right to judge them for being useless slobs.

[toddytodd]

Somebloke wrote: toddytodd wrote: F'losrix wrote: toddytodd wrote: Have people become even more lazy in the past few years? On the elevator at work, people use it to go up and down one flight. Many times, it is the people who need to walk the stairs. Of course, there are those who can't walk the stairs. I find it hard to believe everyone of these people can't use the stairs. Also, my work has handicapped doors - push a button an the doors open slowly. There are a few people in my building that require this. For them, or for people that have their hands full (vendors, maintenance guys, etc) these are great. I have lost count how many times I have had to stand behind someone with no handicap and empty hands, while the door opens slowly because they don't want to physically pull open the door.

Perhaps it is just the area I live in....?
Any thoughts?
Just because someone looks like they're fit enough to climb stairs or open a heavy door, that doesn't mean they are. I get this crap all the time from people who tell me "You're still young, you should take the stairs", etc. You can't tell an asthmatic by looking at them. I don't wheeze all the time (thanks to daily medication), but a walk up a flight of stairs is enough to get it started. I'm still trying to train my boss to understand that just because I'm out of breath, it doesn't mean I'm agitated or upset about something. It just means the elevator is out of order, or that I momentarily forgot that I can't move as fast as I did in my youth.

My sister has nerve damage from being hit by a car and struck by lightning (twice). The upshot is that there are certain arm movements that cause her intense pain. But to look at her, you wouldn't initially think she has a reason to use the automated door button.

I'm not saying there aren't lazy people out there. Just asking that you think twice, three and four times before making judgments like this based on appearances. The person you might think is in perfect health may in fact have physical problems that aren't readily apparent and that they don't go around publicizing.

Edit: Oh, and some of those people you think are fat? They just might be having weight issues due to stereoid or other medications. A friend of mine had thyroid cancer last year and she has balooned, allegedly thanks to her meds.

There is a difference in people who can't take the stairs for physical reasons and people who don't because they 'don't want to'. My mother is a young 55, but needs to have a knee replaced so she has to take the elevator. Ironically, it is easier for her to go up the stairs than down. The appearances of being healthy isn't always a true indicator of actually being healthy.
Of course I am not the 'lazy police' (I would have to arrest myself sometimes if I were), but let's be truthful: many people take elevators or use automatically opening doors for no other reason than they don't want to 'over exert' themselves. That, is true laziness.

My brother loved to windsurf, travel the world, etc. Then he was hit by a car while on a motornike. While he's relatively fine, the tendons in his groin were damaged; now strenuous physical activity causes him strong muscle pain.

Some conditions are hard to spot.

I agree 100%.