June 19th, 2024

Laziness is the source of Innovation and Creativity

Laziness can spur innovation in programming by encouraging efficiency and problem-solving. Embracing laziness responsibly can lead to creative and efficient solutions, promoting a balance between productivity and creativity.

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Laziness is the source of Innovation and Creativity

The article discusses the concept that laziness can be a source of innovation and creativity, particularly in the field of programming. The author argues that by seeking ways to write less code and avoid repetitive tasks, programmers can focus more on problem-solving and innovation. An anecdote about a child finding a clever solution to reach her toy without exerting much effort is used to illustrate the idea that laziness can lead to creative solutions. The article emphasizes the importance of taking time to think about problems before rushing into writing code, aiming for elegant and efficient solutions. Laziness is reframed as a positive quality when balanced with responsibility. The overall message is that embracing a certain level of laziness can drive individuals to find innovative and efficient solutions to challenges they face.

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Link Icon 8 comments
By @thinkingemote - 4 months
It's not efficiency or improving performance or more marketability that it gives but creativity.

It's also not about laziness, it's about ending the lazy feeling.

Feeling lazy should prompt us to find solutions. That is where the creation is.

The solutions we come up with use our creative spark but they are not intrinsically efficient or economically good.

Don't run away from feeling lazy.

Today we tend to hate lazy feeling and distract or procrastinate ourselves away from it. Many feel guilty from not being productive and useful to their employer. We should instead wallow in it and let our imaginations play.

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From a tech point of view I would think many interesting but 80% finished projects from solo devs are the results of such play.

By @buckyfull - 4 months
Why do people write headlines like this? It would be so much better to say laziness is a source, a possible source, of innovation and creativity. We live in an information world for people are clawing and grabbing for attention by writing inaccurate and dramatic headlines. As someone who came of age when the web went online, it is so sad to see how we have muck it up.

I wish there were a magic button. I could press to silence all this kind of garbage thought that entirely litters are information landscape. I’m not sure whether to hate people like this or hate the system that causes them to behave this way. The old saying, “don’t hate the player, hate the game”, Seems a little quaint these days. Lately, I’ve been thinking that we maybe should hate the player a little bit since they are willingly contributing to an overall worse existence for everybody. People trying to “explain” complex topics with platitudes and absolutes are real barriers to the understanding of the topic. I wish they would find another hobby.

By @renegade-otter - 4 months
In my view - it's scarcity. You are the most inventive when you have little to work with. Laziness doesn't do that - it just makes you watch Netflix.
By @hiAndrewQuinn - 4 months
Mmm, I used to believe this, but now I think it's wrong. Or worse - inaccurate.

Being good at what you do both makes what you can do when you're at the peak of your grind better, and makes what you can put out even when you're lazy better. However, only the former pushes your skill ceiling consistently higher over time, and that leads to exponentially increasing rewards in a modern marketplace.

By @Log_out_ - 4 months
Combinig concepts that are not affiliated and then filter out the bad ones. Recombination is the source of creativity. Laziness is the Motivation driving that process. Iterrative processes can only iterrate over ideas and concepts already existing, unless you manage zo create some shizoid TRIZ NN that can halucinate new permutations.
By @omnimike - 4 months
Necessity is the mother of invention (not laziness). The internet was invented for surviving nuclear war with Russia.

We say laziness motivates us to become more efficient, but I can’t agree. It’s people who want or need to get things done faster that find innovative and creative ways of doing so.

By @apantel - 4 months
Strong disagree. The only way to get to the simplest, truest, most elegant, and most performant solution to a problem is to try a lot of things iteratively, write a ton of code in the process, (and throwing almost all of it away in the process). Then once you’ve understood the domain fully and realized what the simple, true, elegant solution is, THEN you can settle on a couple hundred lines of the right code. But in the process you wrote ten thousand lines.
By @musicale - 4 months
I'm not lazy, I'm conserving energy.