It's an argument against the claim that there's virtue in doing things and that those who don't are lazy.
There's a huge gap between any "natural" instincts (needing to eat, needing to sleep, breathe, keep warm, social connections) and the sort of tasks you need to do in your modern life, like writing a boring report. The idea of laziness - and that there's virtue in doing such things - is a cultural trueism, not a "natural" state of humans.
> Why are we so hard on ourselves? I think it’s because we have a bad theory about how our minds work, one so dastardly that it could have only been devised by the devil himself. It goes like this:
>> We humans are, deep down, lazy and gluttonous creatures. If left to our own devices, we will do nothing but eat Pringles and watch Netflix. The only way we can escape our indolent nature is to exert our higher faculties over our base instincts.
There's a huge gap between any "natural" instincts (needing to eat, needing to sleep, breathe, keep warm, social connections) and the sort of tasks you need to do in your modern life, like writing a boring report. The idea of laziness - and that there's virtue in doing such things - is a cultural trueism, not a "natural" state of humans.
> Why are we so hard on ourselves? I think it’s because we have a bad theory about how our minds work, one so dastardly that it could have only been devised by the devil himself. It goes like this:
>> We humans are, deep down, lazy and gluttonous creatures. If left to our own devices, we will do nothing but eat Pringles and watch Netflix. The only way we can escape our indolent nature is to exert our higher faculties over our base instincts.