Javascript

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

slacker theory, sedulously researched

Excerpt from AIM session... er, well, actually, the entire session:
(2005-04-04 20:59:16) you_know_who_you_are: what's that theory that states that it's easier to have everything disorganized than to work to keep it clean

Hmm. Excellent question - except, that message had ended up being routed to my office computer's instant messenger so only this morning did I read it, at which time you were offline, and you are conveniently continuing to remain offline. After having Google scour its corpus for me on a variety of search phrases, all to no avail, I settled on the idea of using Wikipedia. While nothing useful came up on 'disorganization' and its variants, I felt I was gaining traction when I searched for 'slacker'. Indeed, it was close; and, ideally, the content answering your question should have been there. Aha, I thought to myself, here's my chance to help the open-source encyclopedia! Below is my personal - and probably myopic and faulty - answer about how slacker theory partially revolves around the notion that it's easier to have everything disorganized than to work to keep it clean. Criticism welcomed. Dodging the highlighter pens I throw at you in a fit of rage is not.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, slacker entry:
Apart from meaning lazy, slacker may also be used to insinuate habitual procrastination and a disorganized, slovenly lifestyle. Proponents of slacker theory assert that managing to survive by doing things at the last possible moment improves intellect as a compensatory way to cope, fashioning a wily yet lazy person. Similarly, a disorganized lifestyle may be superior to an organized one from the pragmatic perspective that a slacker will adapt to disorderliness by improving skills at memorization and at effortlessly rummaging, whereas actively organizing would require serious effort. Hence, the epithet slacker, while often used in the pejorative, is growingly signifying a complimentary, cerebral quality of an unconventional person. For another example of a bimodally pejorative and affectionate term, see hacker. There is also a slight overlap between slacker culture, stoner culture, and hippie culture insofar as they all are implying a disheveled appearance; however, many slackers are straight-edge, and their relative apathy precludes their involvement in any hippie movement.

Adhering to the slacker principium, I found it easier to forge the results I was looking for than to invest time into researching the matter. Classical texts' veracity notwithstanding, does anyone genuinely assume a compiler diligently winnows out bullshit from available resources? The average compilation is rife with conjecture, and Wikipedia gallantly distinguishes itself from the average by employing even greater guesswork. We can only hope that assiduous researchers will catch on and surreptitiously learn, like everyone else has, to quote themselves, misquote others, and quote out of context anybody with antithetical views; perhaps, then, we may finally escape the irksome face of truth recurrently coming to contradict us.

1 comment:

Frankenmint said...

Thanks for "completing me" Its the truth, all of it. Thats all that everyone really wants to do: Use Somebody else's hard work, "out of context", and "propose" originality on using a persuasive argument. This is why logic and emotion drive the world in crossing paths, and the educated "bullshiters" are going the motions that they are taught to adhere to. The educational/corrections system is to humans as obediance school/the pound is to dogs. Didn't you know that a GPA is just a "This is how much to the T that I will obey your orders" scorecard. And guess what happens when I'm right and that Magma Kum Laude is all blushing flustered? "Well WTF?! If you're so smart then you come up with a just as effective way to allocate the labor pool for the greatest efficiency while promoting utilitarianism! Do some research on Denmark then move their if it makes you happy. I'll stay lazy and still end up rich - slacker for life You Beezy!!