Is laziness a trait of autism?

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Probably. My mom told me about other young adults with AS that she's heard about, and most of them just sit around in their parents' basements playing video games and munching on Cheetos.

It's probably more autistic inertia than laziness.

I can't sit still long enough to be lazy.

I agree with this.

Don't see the point of trying to describe actual disabilities and impairments as personal failings. Maybe I have too much abuse based on exactly this kind of thing in my personal history, but it doesn't help when I'm putting out at least as much effort (if not more) as everyone around me to barely keep up at all, and be constantly told I'm lazy because I don't manage to get things done.

I'm going with autistic inertia, with accompanying fatigue/exhaustion (autistic fatigue?) from trying to keep up - Depends on baseline stress level for me. Underlying depression can make things even worse.

"Lazy" is a tricky word.

"Inertia" might be a more accurate/precise way to describe it, but it's probably a more accurate way to describe laziness in anyone, autistic or otherwise.

Saying "It's not laziness, it's intertia" or "It's not laziness, it's executive dysfunction" is ultimately nonsensical.

"It's not gravity, it's the curvature of spacetime"--well, no, it's both. The second description is more "accurate", but both describe the same phenomenon.

Except that "laziness" describes a personal failing and is often a moral judgment, whereas "autistic inertia" describes a cognitive difficulty. "Lazy" suggests a lack of willingness to work and a desire to do nothing. "Autistic inertia" means you can be doing one thing, know that you have to do another thing, even want to do that other thing, but it is difficult to shift to doing that other thing.

It is one of many ways that disabled people are shamed for not being able to just "overcome" our disabilities and function like everyone else.

Maybe we suffer more from "avolition", as opposed to laziness.

Personal failing, cognitive difficulty--where does the one end and the other begin?

You're doing exactly what you wish other people would not do--making assumptions regarding the basis for "lazy" behavior.

PS) "Moral judgment"--what a quaint notion.

A personal failing is a matter of choice. A cognitive difficulty is not. You can't choose to eliminate it, cognitive behavioral therapy won't help you get around it, and maybe some kinds of medication will resolve it to some extent (say, stimulants for ADHD).

When I have been called lazy, it was with the assumption that I was choosing to behave in a certain way.

I do not think you understand what I mean when I say "moral judgment." I am not personally interested in making moral judgments but when I have been judged a morally bad person because I have difficulties organizing, initiating, transitioning, and so on, one of the words used to describe me as oppositional, unwilling to put forth effort, and the like was "lazy." It was a fundamental attribution error, but it was also a moral judgment. This was not an assumption because it was explained to me in detail how I was failing at whatever it was I was expected to be doing. I don't know what you mean by me making assumptions when "lazy" is frequently used exactly as I described.

Do you know what "lazy" means?

Wikipedia describes it as:



If someone has cognitive issues that make it difficult to accomplish things, then the ability to do so is not in fact present, or is at least impaired. Pejorative means that it is often used as an insult.

The inertia thing happens to me sometimes, but I am usually a workaholic. I find that, the more I keep busy, the less often I end up staring off into space.

"Choice" is a very tricky concept.

In short, if a person is lazy, there's a reason. There is something in their neuropsychological makeup that produces their lazy behavior. You just feel that, because the neuropsychological basis for your "laziness" is well-documented/diagnosed/understood that it's somehow more meaningful or "real" than the one that's at work in people that you think are at "fault" for their laziness.

That's really what's in question here, the notion of "fault". Fault, if examined closely enough, is bullshit--an illusion. There is a reason, a basis, for all behavior. No behavior comes about as a purely free "choice" exempt from stimulus/influence.



You're simply more "in tune" with the basis of your laziness. You think that other lazy people who don't suffer exactly the sort of difficulties you do (who says they don't?) are at "fault" because they could've been otherwise. What an odd concept.



And why shouldn't this apply to anyone who's lazy? "Cognitive issues"="neuropsychological basis", and there's a neuropsychological basis for all behavior.

What about people who commit murder, or steal? Are they "choosing" to do those things, or is their neuropsychological makeup such that they are predisposed to those behaviors? The whole of brain science leans strongly toward the latter. Even if you want to describe their behavior in terms of "choice", is it not clear that the "choice-making mechanism" of these people doesn't work the way it's supposed to?

There are differences between inertia and laziness.

Laziness is, say, you have to split and stack 4 cords of wood, but you quit after half an hour.

Inertia is when you end up stuck in your computer chair until the next day, when, once you get started, you work 12 solid hours without a break with no difficulty (in fact, maybe you end up over-exerting yourself because it's hard to stop once you've started -- hence the term "inertia").

Inertia works in both 'directions,' laziness only works in one. They aren't the same thing.

This could be described as inertia as well, and it illustrates where the classical physical principle differs from what you're talking about.

What did that person do before and after the wood-chopping? If the answer is, say, "sit in front of a computer", all the wood-chopping represents is an effort to break out of an "autistic inertia" that more-or-less failed. This is where the comparison to the physical principle breaks down. If a ball is rolling across a flat surface and you stop it with your hand, the ball doesn't go back to rolling once your take your hand away--"inertia" causes it to stay put until another force acts upon it. But "autistic inertia" could easily involve this return to a prior state.

Not sure I get what you mean. If a ball starts rolling and then stops, under classical dynamics, it must have had one instance of a force being applied to it to start, and another for it to stop. So, once you've started, you've started -- there is no kinda-started-but-it-didn't-last-so-I'm-not-going-to-count-that-as-really-starting.

I'm saying that if you do start the job, but then slip back without any additional 'force' being required, then that that isn't inertia. Inertia is when it takes 'force' to both start and stop.



Not sure I understand what you mean. The ball stops when it hits your hand because your hand exerted a force on it.



I don't know where you're getting that from. I've never heard or read of starting, but then stopping after a short time as being related to autistic inertia.

It is my understanding that the term "inertia" is used because it does match the physical principle. Difficulty with both starting and stopping. Laziness is not typically associated with having problems with stopping. "Inertia" doesn't mean only difficulty starting (as a physical principle or in terms of "autistic inertia").

Say I spend ten days straight in front of my computer. Then I give wood-chopping a shot in the way you describe. I stop before I finish and return to my computer for another ten days.

My sitting at the computer could quite rightly be described as inertia, despite the fact that it was disrupted by an attempt to do something else. My failure to "stick to" the task of chopping wood doesn't mean that the larger picture of my behavior can't be described as inertia. We aren't talking about absolutes, we're talking about generalities (as always is the case when dealing with humans). "Autistic inertia" need not resemble "physical" inertia under absolutely every circumstance.