Sometimes it pays to be speculative, not with the intention
of digging up something new but in the hope of finding another aspect of familiar situations. Laziness for example. We all understand laziness. Well I do - which is close enough for a blog post.
One might begin by suggesting that laziness is linked to the
natural law of least action. In the absence of confounding factors, nature
selects processes with the lowest expenditure of energy. The laziest natural
processes are the most energy efficient and that includes moderately important human processes such
as thinking.
Which may be why democracy doesn’t work. If a large
electorate is supposed to do the thinking for a comparatively small number of
legislators then that has the principle of least action the wrong way round. Least action would require the legislators to do all the thinking. A more rigorous version would be one where neither body does any thinking. Hmm...
The dark side of this is obvious enough – it is easier to
think predigested thoughts than construct new ones via imagination, research
and analysis. Not only is it easier but it the problem gets worse - it is
easier to adopt a predigested justification for the predigested
idea. Easy begets easy and that is the problem. Or maybe that idea is also too
easy.
There is no way out of lazy thinking unless things go so
badly wrong that even the laziest folk are prodded into peering out of their
ruts. They may even summon up enough energy to ask Google what the blue blazes
is going on. Sometimes it appears that our entire civilisation arose as a
support for laziness, as if that was always the point of it.
On the other hand – no that’s enough of that.
7 comments:
There are many quotes along the lines of "Choose a lazy person to do a hard job because that person will find an easy way to do it." Some, no doubt, are apocryphal. However, in the 1920s, Frank B. Gilbreth Sr. (pioneer of time-and-motion studies) found that he could learn most from the lazy man: so lazy that every needless step counted and got eliminated.
Lisboeta
"If a large electorate is supposed to do the thinking for a comparatively small number of legislators then that has the principle of least action the wrong way round. Least action would require the legislators to do all the thinking."
I think the legislators (and their associates in the political elite) do do all the thinking. They are the ones who rig the agendas such that only certain specified issues get raised and voted upon. They also manipulate the wants and desires of the electorate such that they only want things that are "safe" for the political elite. Come polling day, all the hard work has been done, and the voters merely exercise a mindless choice between carefully selected safe alternatives.
You know Frank Davis' Idle Theory?
E.g. https://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/a-little-idle-theory/
... and again today:
https://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/a-new-voice-stephen-hicks/
The problem with democracy is its alternative.
I'd like to comment but it is time for a cup of tea.
Lisboeta - I remember encountering my first time and motion man round about 1973. Work Study it was called. To my eyes he was pretty idle himself.
Sam - yes it's the problem with our democracy - never really was a democracy.
Sackers - I seem to come across Frank Davis occasionally but don't visit his blog. I probably ought to.
James - that's it. May be no good but the alternatives are worse.
Demetrius - I'd like a cup of tea too, but having to boil the kettle, choose a type of tea and so on. I think I'll just have a drink of water.
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