Ode to Laziness

"Laziness is the mother of human progress" asserts Ikta Solork the main character of japanese anime "Nejimaki Seirei Senki: Tenkyou no Alderamin". He professes the scientific way of thinking which is logical, streamlined, and efficient; and as a result allows you to be very lazy.

"People started to grow crops because going to hunt without knowing if you'd catch anything was a pain. People dug wells because going all the way to the river was a pain. Laziness is the mother of human progress" - Solork proclaims!

He joins Robert Heinlein, a science fiction writer, who proclaims that "Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."

A danger looming ahead

Curiously enough the aforementioned examples do not result in just achieving the same goal with less effort, but also take out (or at least diminish) the degree of uncertainty! Ceteris paribus (everything else being equal) humans are normally risk averse. The need for safety features as almost essential Maslow's hierarchy of  human needs; only second the basic physiological needs. The prize of "certainty" might also be a member of the secretive innovation fostering club.

But wasn't necessity the mother of invention?

Well being stuck with your back against the wall is definitely a great incentive to create a solution to a pressing problem or concern. However, being able to reap the same reward (or even better) while enduring a lower level of effort can be quite alluring too!
If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness should be its father; after all it takes much less work to father a child than to mother it.

Bill Gates seems to agree with Solork as he declared he would rather employ a lazy person to carry out the hardest tasks. Bill Gates is quoted to have said: "I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job... Because, He will find an easy way to do it." His position seems to be backed by another Software celebrity; Larry Wall, the creator of the Perl programming language once reputedly said: "The three attributes of a programmer are; impatience, laziness and hubris".

Something more brewing

A recent study by the Florida Gulf Coast University established a correlation between "intelligence" and "laziness". Of course the media didn't waist the opportunity to publish a sensational headline under the guise of reporting science. If you are interested you can read one of such articles here - a reader was even nice enough to post the address link to the actual scientific article in the comments section.

The main concept is that more intelligent people are already busy enough with their own thoughts, and need less external stimulation than their less gifted peers. On the other hand, we should beware of the negative impact of a sedentary lifestyle. After all, "mens sana in corpore sano" - a healthy mind performs better in a healthy body - the ancient wisdom dictates.

For now to my sloth I shall return as this endeavour proved ending up being a heftier undertaking than originally planned!