I do tend to agree with the authors views. However, because I'm a contrarian I feel compelled to nitpick a little bit. The author focuses a fair bit on the acquisition of skills to discretize a...
I do tend to agree with the authors views. However, because I'm a contrarian I feel compelled to nitpick a little bit.
The author focuses a fair bit on the acquisition of skills to discretize a problem, the fear of failure, learned helplessness, and other situational factors. And I agree with her in these situations. It is often times attributable to these functioning issues that she describes.
Still, there are some people that really are lazy, just not as many as are assigned the term. And I'm not thinking of people receiving public benefits, or even in particularly disparaging terms. From the definition:
disinclined to activity or exertion : not energetic or vigorous
Or
not easily aroused to activity
Now, for many reasons society tends to view being industrious or energetic as a virtue, and as such, lack of those qualities as a vice.
But plenty of people are difficult to rouse to exertion, but hold down jobs, and otherwise manage their affairs. In my opinion, the author, unintentionally I'm sure, feeds into the notion that people who have set a bar for "satisfactory" for themselves that is lower than their "potential" and won't put in further effort are in need of fixing.
This is similar to the mindset bad managers have who don't understand someone who is happy where they are, doesn't want to advance, or climb the corporate ladder.
Everyone has a different threshold for what amount of juice is worth what amount of squeezing. And that is ok.
That said, to the authors point, helping people overcome functional deficits is laudible. We should also be mindful to recognize when someone has set work/academic/life boundaries around efforts and outcomes, and respect that.
Edit: please forgive typos, I've been switching languages a lot lately, and my swype and intellisense is all over the map.
Edit 2, boogaloo: and we could play a semantic game about the difference between laziness and learned behaviors over years of disincentives to greater effort and unfairness in our systems, but ultimately we still observe the characteristics of laziness, even if the contributing cause might be "fixable." It would also be difficult to differentiate between people who have this learned disinclination to effort because of unfair outcomes, vs those that have just set a satisfactory boundary.
FYI the author's listed pronouns are "He/Him or It/Its". That was on his medium page, and I wasn't sure if it was outdated since he's using substack now, but last month he posted this article...
What about people who have set the bar below the point where they take care of their own needs and instead rely on welfare while still having the actual ability to earn if they would only bother...
In my opinion, the author, unintentionally I'm sure, feeds into the notion that people who have set a bar for "satisfactory" for themselves that is lower than their "potential" and won't put in further effort are in need of fixing.
What about people who have set the bar below the point where they take care of their own needs and instead rely on welfare while still having the actual ability to earn if they would only bother to do so? In my opinion, those people do need “fixing”.
In other words, there is a form of laziness that is a result of selfishness, and I think we should all be able to agree that selfishness is real.
I'm sure that happens, and would tend to agree that people using public benefits they don't need out of selfishness is a form of antisocial behavior that should be discouraged or prevented....
Exemplary
I'm sure that happens, and would tend to agree that people using public benefits they don't need out of selfishness is a form of antisocial behavior that should be discouraged or prevented.
However, given the substantial amount of grief that the systems in place (in the US anyway) cause people in need, the frequency with which people who need services are shamed or scapegoated, and how the benefits can trap people into poverty, I would hesitate to make snap judgements in that space to avoid heaping on problems for people already struggling.
Given the topic, I also highly reccomend Wait But Why's procrastination post from 2013. It's hands-down the most I've ever felt 'seen' by a random blogger, and fits well with what the author here...
Exemplary
Given the topic, I also highly reccomend Wait But Why's procrastination post from 2013.
It's hands-down the most I've ever felt 'seen' by a random blogger, and fits well with what the author here is discussing.
The thing that neither the dictionary nor fake procrastinators understand is that for a real procrastinator, procrastination isn’t optional—it’s something they don’t know how to not do.
I was blessed with learning this early, when I was still a teen. It was a theology school field trip, guided by someone who used to do survival prostitution on the very same downtown Toronto...
Kim is the person who taught me that judging a homeless person for wanting to buy alcohol or cigarettes is utter folly. [...] Few people who haven’t been homeless think this way.
I was blessed with learning this early, when I was still a teen. It was a theology school field trip, guided by someone who used to do survival prostitution on the very same downtown Toronto streets that we were walking through. Our class consisted of mostly white (okay fine I was the only visible minority) kids from stereotypical "good homes", enjoying our first year away from the shelter of our usual church communities. Most of us couldn't even conceive of a world where parents could hurt their children or a world where strangers would hurt random kids on the street. That guided tour became part of the core of how I saw others' invisible, extenuating circumstances and an introduction to what trauma looks like on the surface.
If you have nicese and nephews and young people you know, it's a good idea to guide them to experiences that empathize with the downtrodden or those who are very different from their usual circles. Maybe join some hobby groups in a "bad" area of town. Hang out at their local art hives or go eat a meal at a soup kitchen or go line up for food bank. Don't just volunteer from above, go in as an equal, too.
Very cool to read this. I used to lead students on those trips. Did one to the eastside of Vancouver, Canada's lowest income, most addicted neighborhood. Also did one to La Carpio, a very poor...
Very cool to read this. I used to lead students on those trips. Did one to the eastside of Vancouver, Canada's lowest income, most addicted neighborhood. Also did one to La Carpio, a very poor shantytown built on a garbage dump in Costa Rica. And to the Dream Center in LA. All were really inspiring trips and VERY eye opening for the young people (my school students) we brought along. It also fostered an outreach to street kids in my home city thats still running 32 years later.
What a wonderful gift to those young people. Even if only half of them learned something that's a lot of kids armed with insight they couldn't learn from school, about a world they will only grow...
What a wonderful gift to those young people. Even if only half of them learned something that's a lot of kids armed with insight they couldn't learn from school, about a world they will only grow further away from every year as they make their way upwards in life.
When was the last time you've been to DTES by the way? I grew up in Vancouver and never thought it was that terrible (mostly day time. Night time I'm with people) but two years ago I drove through and it looked 100 times worse
And how does it compare to LA and Costa Rica?
Personally I would love to follow you on one of these tours still, at my age
They were all about 20 years ago already. Havent been to the east side since then... but the big difference is that in Vancouver you're still surrounded by infrastructure that functions. The...
They were all about 20 years ago already. Havent been to the east side since then... but the big difference is that in Vancouver you're still surrounded by infrastructure that functions. The buildings might be old, the street's dirty and a lot of people just hanging out doing nothing or openly doing drugs but it still functioned as part of a city.
In La Carpio, it was abject poverty. Like no one owned much and there was barely any infrastructure - mostly dirt pathways, not roads and sidewalks. No shops, no hospitals, no gas station, no services to speak of. Might have a community well and a pump but not running water in the house. Some of the houses had electricity but not all of them. And the odd home had a tv, and that was about it. Very few possessions and living in a tin hut made out of scraps they found.
The biggest contrast is that people there wanted to work and those who had jobs (mostly service jobs, housekeeping, groundskeeping) in San Jose would emerge from these tin huts with no running water immaculately dressed in clean clothes and ready to go to work. It was quite an amazing feat.
And LA was just on a different level. Lots of homeless people in tents on sidewalks for blocks and blocks. Survival prostitution, drug use, gang activity - it was definitely the scariest of the three. Was quite relieved to get the kids off the street and onto our bus at the end of each evening as it felt much darker and more oppressive than Vancouver ever did.
They were all great trips though. Created some indelible memories for all of us and definitely blew apart some world views.
I couldn't disagree with this article more. There are a Hell of lot of obstacles which get in the way of achieving. Some of those factors may well be blockers, such as learnt helplessness....
I couldn't disagree with this article more.
There are a Hell of lot of obstacles which get in the way of achieving. Some of those factors may well be blockers, such as learnt helplessness. However, I have met and live on the same street as people that live off of benefits because it makes their life easier. They could get jobs, they are literally bone-idle lazy.
These people have learnt the bare minimum way to do things to get money in their grubby hands. They'll be super apt when needs be, such as filling in the right forms to claim as much as possible in state welfare handouts, in the UK we simply call them 'benefits', which is an awful term to use.
My kids can struggle and be distracted, they're not necessarily lazy. When they cannot be bothered to put away clothes because they would rather game or death-scroll TikTok, that then makes them 'lazy' and you'll struggle to change my mind. But only in the short term. They're going to go on and do well, I don't suppose for a second they'll be dumpster divers or benefit cheats like the grubbies down the road.
It sounds like you made up your mind before even reading the article. There really isn't anything to engage with in this comment other than your opinions on who these people are and the dismissal...
It sounds like you made up your mind before even reading the article. There really isn't anything to engage with in this comment other than your opinions on who these people are and the dismissal of their struggles as moral failures. It's upsetting to me to hear this kind of dismissal of fellow human beings.
Yeah I'm not particularly keen on listening to someone who says being able to fill out the paperwork required to receive social benefits makes you a welfare queen. Not a perspective that I think...
Yeah I'm not particularly keen on listening to someone who says being able to fill out the paperwork required to receive social benefits makes you a welfare queen. Not a perspective that I think contributes to the conversation in any positive way and not a position I feel like expending the energy to argue against. Even ignoring any discussion of neurodivergency, I just don't want to have to try and argue that people's worth isn't defined by their ability to be productive with someone who talks about people like that.
This is a good point. They're framing the issue as if the only people who deserve social support are people who are unable to fill out the forms which would enable social support. A...
This is a good point. They're framing the issue as if the only people who deserve social support are people who are unable to fill out the forms which would enable social support. A self-contradictory standard by design.
There are also issues with how people can be disqualified from welfare programs in the US. For example, I have a friend who needs a motorized wheelchair and many other medical devices due to a...
There are also issues with how people can be disqualified from welfare programs in the US.
For example, I have a friend who needs a motorized wheelchair and many other medical devices due to a disability he was born with. He receives SSI disability payments and health insurance from the government to help with his expenses. His chair costs $30k to replace without the help of the government. If he makes over a certain income, which is much lower than the amount needed to afford a $30k wheelchair, he gets his benefits cut off. He could make more money someday if he worked hard, but he would lose the support he needs to survive before he could afford to support himself.
Welfare programs incentivize people to never try to support themselves because they lose the support they need before they are able to even hope of being self-sufficient.
Germany has the same problem. Every cent you make gets deducted from the welfare fund. This has the consequence of feeling "punished" for trying to get out of poverty. There is no way to start...
Germany has the same problem.
Every cent you make gets deducted from the welfare fund. This has the consequence of feeling "punished" for trying to get out of poverty. There is no way to start saving for future opportunities (like moving cities for a new job).
I fear ever getting the benefits, because once you're in there it's almost impossible to ever get out and the longer you stay the higher the hurdle becomes.
You're pretty actively demonstrating the claims of the article by so easily and immediately assuming the people around you could have jobs and choose not to. How can you expect to know the...
You're pretty actively demonstrating the claims of the article by so easily and immediately assuming the people around you could have jobs and choose not to. How can you expect to know the intricacies of their struggles and their barriers (profoundly personal and private information) keeping them dependent on state assistance if you're clearly so unempathetic to their difficulties and so sure that they're gaming the system? I feel based on your comment any legitimate reason a person might have for struggling would be band waved away as an excuse.
I don't understand why it's still so hard for people to wrap their head around the fact that you cannot understand a person just by looking at them. You can't know identity or disability or trauma or anything else that affects a person day in and day out just by looking at them.
In the spirit of the article: g33kphr33k is probably not choosing to seem judgemental. They are likely trying to be the best person they can be, and we often don't have much control over who that...
In the spirit of the article: g33kphr33k is probably not choosing to seem judgemental. They are likely trying to be the best person they can be, and we often don't have much control over who that is.
g33kphr33k, I appreciate you despite disagreeing with you. I think your neighbors are likely very similar to you inside, sometimes struggling, sometimes happy, sometimes confident, sometimes unsure of themselves and whether they are doing the right thing. I have a hard time believing that someone would consciously sit down and plan out their life. and end up deciding to get a check from the government for their whole life and then die having done nothing productive. It's hard to imagine someone having options but consciously choosing that path instead as their best possible life. How well do you really know them? Is it at all possible there is more depth to their life than just being "grubbies"?
I run my own small business and make a good living. but it's mostly because my life just led me to it. I had plenty of privileges, luck, and obstacles. I'm still forced to work hard to keep it going, but I don't really feel like I earned the relatively comfortable situation I'm in. I think life is really complicated, and we barely have any control over what is happening to us. We're all just being carried on down the river, trying to avoid the rocks and hold onto anything important to us. So maybe have some compassion? For your own sake, be easy on yourself, too.
Beautifully said. I think the second-to-last line might be the most important here; so many people for whom the status quo is a constant struggle are also the ones railing the hardest against...
Beautifully said. I think the second-to-last line might be the most important here; so many people for whom the status quo is a constant struggle are also the ones railing the hardest against benefits/support for others. "I fight every day against X, so everyone else must also/should have to, too." If those folks could get whatever help they need, they might not be so opposed to others needing more help than they do.
I was lucky and got nearly every major advantage a human being can have. I don’t want to enumerate them because that would be gross, but trust me. I do good work and am a contributing member to...
I was lucky and got nearly every major advantage a human being can have. I don’t want to enumerate them because that would be gross, but trust me. I do good work and am a contributing member to society. But conversely, someone could have gotten nearly every disadvantage. And most of those will be artificial and fixable, we just choose not to fix them. They might be racially discriminated against, disabled in a way that could be addressed by better healthcare, born poor without access to good education, etc. And in the 1st world we are mostly past our stage of expansion. You can’t easily catch a ride to the middle class by working hard. You’ll just be working to exhaust yourself.
So I don’t blame people for giving up and living off of government assistance. If you want these people to work harder you should vote to fix the problems that make them hopeless.
Bingo. A lot of the people that society will label as lazy simply can't see a clear path forward that a normal amount of effort can achieve. There are outliers of course, folks who put in maximum...
You can’t easily catch a ride to the middle class by working hard. You’ll just be working to exhaust yourself.
Bingo.
A lot of the people that society will label as lazy simply can't see a clear path forward that a normal amount of effort can achieve. There are outliers of course, folks who put in maximum effort and with some luck move on up. But a lot of those who have given up have also seen others try super hard and get nowhere. They do some mental maths and figure the odds are bad, so they don't put their bets down.
And as far as govt assistance goes, those at the top still write in for grants and refunds and credits don't they. They fill in some form and get money don't they. They rearrange their assets to maximize yield and minimize losses dont they. There's no difference in "amount of work" being done to better society between a welfare recipient and a trust fund kid, a retiree, or even someone who retired early and is living off passive income.
That's why there's a whole generation now laying flat, eating grass, being a hikikomori, and other sociological terms for giving up.
BUT. Having said all that. From extremely anecdotal evidence I will say that my volunteering circles have always consisted of nearly entirely the one type versus the other. I don't know what to make of that. maslow's hierarchy of needs?
Edit:
I’ve known homeless people who worked full-time jobs, and who devoted themselves to the care of other people in their communities.
Answering my own question -- because I dont get out and volunteer enough. They're busy doing good out there, not being online making content for me to consume while shoving handfuls of chips into my mouth. My bad.
I do tend to agree with the authors views. However, because I'm a contrarian I feel compelled to nitpick a little bit.
The author focuses a fair bit on the acquisition of skills to discretize a problem, the fear of failure, learned helplessness, and other situational factors. And I agree with her in these situations. It is often times attributable to these functioning issues that she describes.
Still, there are some people that really are lazy, just not as many as are assigned the term. And I'm not thinking of people receiving public benefits, or even in particularly disparaging terms. From the definition:
Or
Now, for many reasons society tends to view being industrious or energetic as a virtue, and as such, lack of those qualities as a vice.
But plenty of people are difficult to rouse to exertion, but hold down jobs, and otherwise manage their affairs. In my opinion, the author, unintentionally I'm sure, feeds into the notion that people who have set a bar for "satisfactory" for themselves that is lower than their "potential" and won't put in further effort are in need of fixing.
This is similar to the mindset bad managers have who don't understand someone who is happy where they are, doesn't want to advance, or climb the corporate ladder.
Everyone has a different threshold for what amount of juice is worth what amount of squeezing. And that is ok.
That said, to the authors point, helping people overcome functional deficits is laudible. We should also be mindful to recognize when someone has set work/academic/life boundaries around efforts and outcomes, and respect that.
Edit: please forgive typos, I've been switching languages a lot lately, and my swype and intellisense is all over the map.
Edit 2, boogaloo: and we could play a semantic game about the difference between laziness and learned behaviors over years of disincentives to greater effort and unfairness in our systems, but ultimately we still observe the characteristics of laziness, even if the contributing cause might be "fixable." It would also be difficult to differentiate between people who have this learned disinclination to effort because of unfair outcomes, vs those that have just set a satisfactory boundary.
FYI the author's listed pronouns are "He/Him or It/Its".
That was on his medium page, and I wasn't sure if it was outdated since he's using substack now, but last month he posted this article about having transitioned to male, detransitioned, and transitioned again.
holy shit I'm glad I clicked on this thread and saw this comment, that article fucking spoke to me and I'm so glad I read it.
Thanks for linking that article specifically, I missed that and it fucking rules so much I love it.
What about people who have set the bar below the point where they take care of their own needs and instead rely on welfare while still having the actual ability to earn if they would only bother to do so? In my opinion, those people do need “fixing”.
In other words, there is a form of laziness that is a result of selfishness, and I think we should all be able to agree that selfishness is real.
I'm sure that happens, and would tend to agree that people using public benefits they don't need out of selfishness is a form of antisocial behavior that should be discouraged or prevented.
However, given the substantial amount of grief that the systems in place (in the US anyway) cause people in need, the frequency with which people who need services are shamed or scapegoated, and how the benefits can trap people into poverty, I would hesitate to make snap judgements in that space to avoid heaping on problems for people already struggling.
Given the topic, I also highly reccomend Wait But Why's procrastination post from 2013.
It's hands-down the most I've ever felt 'seen' by a random blogger, and fits well with what the author here is discussing.
I was blessed with learning this early, when I was still a teen. It was a theology school field trip, guided by someone who used to do survival prostitution on the very same downtown Toronto streets that we were walking through. Our class consisted of mostly white (okay fine I was the only visible minority) kids from stereotypical "good homes", enjoying our first year away from the shelter of our usual church communities. Most of us couldn't even conceive of a world where parents could hurt their children or a world where strangers would hurt random kids on the street. That guided tour became part of the core of how I saw others' invisible, extenuating circumstances and an introduction to what trauma looks like on the surface.
If you have nicese and nephews and young people you know, it's a good idea to guide them to experiences that empathize with the downtrodden or those who are very different from their usual circles. Maybe join some hobby groups in a "bad" area of town. Hang out at their local art hives or go eat a meal at a soup kitchen or go line up for food bank. Don't just volunteer from above, go in as an equal, too.
Very cool to read this. I used to lead students on those trips. Did one to the eastside of Vancouver, Canada's lowest income, most addicted neighborhood. Also did one to La Carpio, a very poor shantytown built on a garbage dump in Costa Rica. And to the Dream Center in LA. All were really inspiring trips and VERY eye opening for the young people (my school students) we brought along. It also fostered an outreach to street kids in my home city thats still running 32 years later.
What a wonderful gift to those young people. Even if only half of them learned something that's a lot of kids armed with insight they couldn't learn from school, about a world they will only grow further away from every year as they make their way upwards in life.
When was the last time you've been to DTES by the way? I grew up in Vancouver and never thought it was that terrible (mostly day time. Night time I'm with people) but two years ago I drove through and it looked 100 times worse
And how does it compare to LA and Costa Rica?
Personally I would love to follow you on one of these tours still, at my age
They were all about 20 years ago already. Havent been to the east side since then... but the big difference is that in Vancouver you're still surrounded by infrastructure that functions. The buildings might be old, the street's dirty and a lot of people just hanging out doing nothing or openly doing drugs but it still functioned as part of a city.
In La Carpio, it was abject poverty. Like no one owned much and there was barely any infrastructure - mostly dirt pathways, not roads and sidewalks. No shops, no hospitals, no gas station, no services to speak of. Might have a community well and a pump but not running water in the house. Some of the houses had electricity but not all of them. And the odd home had a tv, and that was about it. Very few possessions and living in a tin hut made out of scraps they found.
The biggest contrast is that people there wanted to work and those who had jobs (mostly service jobs, housekeeping, groundskeeping) in San Jose would emerge from these tin huts with no running water immaculately dressed in clean clothes and ready to go to work. It was quite an amazing feat.
And LA was just on a different level. Lots of homeless people in tents on sidewalks for blocks and blocks. Survival prostitution, drug use, gang activity - it was definitely the scariest of the three. Was quite relieved to get the kids off the street and onto our bus at the end of each evening as it felt much darker and more oppressive than Vancouver ever did.
They were all great trips though. Created some indelible memories for all of us and definitely blew apart some world views.
I couldn't disagree with this article more.
There are a Hell of lot of obstacles which get in the way of achieving. Some of those factors may well be blockers, such as learnt helplessness. However, I have met and live on the same street as people that live off of benefits because it makes their life easier. They could get jobs, they are literally bone-idle lazy.
These people have learnt the bare minimum way to do things to get money in their grubby hands. They'll be super apt when needs be, such as filling in the right forms to claim as much as possible in state welfare handouts, in the UK we simply call them 'benefits', which is an awful term to use.
My kids can struggle and be distracted, they're not necessarily lazy. When they cannot be bothered to put away clothes because they would rather game or death-scroll TikTok, that then makes them 'lazy' and you'll struggle to change my mind. But only in the short term. They're going to go on and do well, I don't suppose for a second they'll be dumpster divers or benefit cheats like the grubbies down the road.
It sounds like you made up your mind before even reading the article. There really isn't anything to engage with in this comment other than your opinions on who these people are and the dismissal of their struggles as moral failures. It's upsetting to me to hear this kind of dismissal of fellow human beings.
Yeah I'm not particularly keen on listening to someone who says being able to fill out the paperwork required to receive social benefits makes you a welfare queen. Not a perspective that I think contributes to the conversation in any positive way and not a position I feel like expending the energy to argue against. Even ignoring any discussion of neurodivergency, I just don't want to have to try and argue that people's worth isn't defined by their ability to be productive with someone who talks about people like that.
This is a good point. They're framing the issue as if the only people who deserve social support are people who are unable to fill out the forms which would enable social support. A self-contradictory standard by design.
There are also issues with how people can be disqualified from welfare programs in the US.
For example, I have a friend who needs a motorized wheelchair and many other medical devices due to a disability he was born with. He receives SSI disability payments and health insurance from the government to help with his expenses. His chair costs $30k to replace without the help of the government. If he makes over a certain income, which is much lower than the amount needed to afford a $30k wheelchair, he gets his benefits cut off. He could make more money someday if he worked hard, but he would lose the support he needs to survive before he could afford to support himself.
Welfare programs incentivize people to never try to support themselves because they lose the support they need before they are able to even hope of being self-sufficient.
Germany has the same problem.
Every cent you make gets deducted from the welfare fund. This has the consequence of feeling "punished" for trying to get out of poverty. There is no way to start saving for future opportunities (like moving cities for a new job).
I fear ever getting the benefits, because once you're in there it's almost impossible to ever get out and the longer you stay the higher the hurdle becomes.
You're pretty actively demonstrating the claims of the article by so easily and immediately assuming the people around you could have jobs and choose not to. How can you expect to know the intricacies of their struggles and their barriers (profoundly personal and private information) keeping them dependent on state assistance if you're clearly so unempathetic to their difficulties and so sure that they're gaming the system? I feel based on your comment any legitimate reason a person might have for struggling would be band waved away as an excuse.
I don't understand why it's still so hard for people to wrap their head around the fact that you cannot understand a person just by looking at them. You can't know identity or disability or trauma or anything else that affects a person day in and day out just by looking at them.
In the spirit of the article: g33kphr33k is probably not choosing to seem judgemental. They are likely trying to be the best person they can be, and we often don't have much control over who that is.
g33kphr33k, I appreciate you despite disagreeing with you. I think your neighbors are likely very similar to you inside, sometimes struggling, sometimes happy, sometimes confident, sometimes unsure of themselves and whether they are doing the right thing. I have a hard time believing that someone would consciously sit down and plan out their life. and end up deciding to get a check from the government for their whole life and then die having done nothing productive. It's hard to imagine someone having options but consciously choosing that path instead as their best possible life. How well do you really know them? Is it at all possible there is more depth to their life than just being "grubbies"?
I run my own small business and make a good living. but it's mostly because my life just led me to it. I had plenty of privileges, luck, and obstacles. I'm still forced to work hard to keep it going, but I don't really feel like I earned the relatively comfortable situation I'm in. I think life is really complicated, and we barely have any control over what is happening to us. We're all just being carried on down the river, trying to avoid the rocks and hold onto anything important to us. So maybe have some compassion? For your own sake, be easy on yourself, too.
I hope you have a good weekend.
Beautifully said. I think the second-to-last line might be the most important here; so many people for whom the status quo is a constant struggle are also the ones railing the hardest against benefits/support for others. "I fight every day against X, so everyone else must also/should have to, too." If those folks could get whatever help they need, they might not be so opposed to others needing more help than they do.
I was lucky and got nearly every major advantage a human being can have. I don’t want to enumerate them because that would be gross, but trust me. I do good work and am a contributing member to society. But conversely, someone could have gotten nearly every disadvantage. And most of those will be artificial and fixable, we just choose not to fix them. They might be racially discriminated against, disabled in a way that could be addressed by better healthcare, born poor without access to good education, etc. And in the 1st world we are mostly past our stage of expansion. You can’t easily catch a ride to the middle class by working hard. You’ll just be working to exhaust yourself.
So I don’t blame people for giving up and living off of government assistance. If you want these people to work harder you should vote to fix the problems that make them hopeless.
Bingo.
A lot of the people that society will label as lazy simply can't see a clear path forward that a normal amount of effort can achieve. There are outliers of course, folks who put in maximum effort and with some luck move on up. But a lot of those who have given up have also seen others try super hard and get nowhere. They do some mental maths and figure the odds are bad, so they don't put their bets down.
And as far as govt assistance goes, those at the top still write in for grants and refunds and credits don't they. They fill in some form and get money don't they. They rearrange their assets to maximize yield and minimize losses dont they. There's no difference in "amount of work" being done to better society between a welfare recipient and a trust fund kid, a retiree, or even someone who retired early and is living off passive income.
That's why there's a whole generation now laying flat, eating grass, being a hikikomori, and other sociological terms for giving up.
BUT. Having said all that. From extremely anecdotal evidence I will say that my volunteering circles have always consisted of nearly entirely the one type versus the other. I don't know what to make of that. maslow's hierarchy of needs?
Edit:
Answering my own question -- because I dont get out and volunteer enough. They're busy doing good out there, not being online making content for me to consume while shoving handfuls of chips into my mouth. My bad.