In Defense of Boredom

[forsyth]

"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." - Harry Lime

That up above? It's bullshit. Oh, it's factually true, to an extent, but it's bullshit. Yes, turmoil and disaster have helped produce innovations and art, but that doesn't justify them. Nor does it require them. But there's little chance for "heroism" in peace and prosperity. To some people, this is a bad thing. They feel like they should be facing down giant threats, like their forefathers, rather than doing all the little bullshit things that make life better. Nothing's nearly as cool as when the fate of the world's in the balance!

You know what? I'd rather be bored. Romantic visions of glory and heroism are all well and good... in stories. In reality, I'd much rather have "boring" peace and safety and trade, with only "boring" problems like figuring out how to feed everybody on the planet and keep us from turning it into a toxic waste dump. But somehow there's a perception that it's grander to go out and break something, then struggle mightily to fix it, instead of, y'know, not breaking it in the first place.

I call this "Virture through laziness." It's the entire foundation of most computer geekery, where when you make a program right, it saves you much time. In the long run, doing work right the first time gives you more time to be lazy later on.

Yeah, no more deep thoughts at 1:30 am.

Comments

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

If that's the foundation of most computer geekery, explain trojans, worms, and the startling array of nasty spyware that's around today.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

First, there was the "Hey, can I get this to do this?" curiosity.

Then, because some people are assholes, they thought it'd be funny to crash somebody else's computer. But instead of manually doing it, since they're lazy, they made a program to do it, and then spread itself, so they wouldn't have to do any more than hit "go".

Now it's gone corporate, and the Dark Side spammers have seduced a few geeks, and Microsoft's security is so bad one doesn't even need to be a geek to make a virus. So now they're used to convert other computers into spam relays and porn hosts. But it still follows the automated path of laziness, to make the virus once and let it do most of the work. It's simply been perverted to the ends of evil.

Like any tool, laziness can be used for good or bad. But intelligent laziness will work toward the good, because it's less work to improve the good than run from the cops.

[frustratedpilot]

When was "The Third Man" re-made? Or was this just a "Python"-variety skit you're quoting?

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Um, I don't know. I stole the quote from somebody else, who may have misattributed it. I almost thought it was in A Fish Called Wanda, but I'm probably remembering one of the OTHER crazed rants.

I'll fix the attribution.