Against Efficiency

Productivity is great, but some inefficiency is essential for the good life.

Written by Bo Winegard.

“I bought a movie I already own on DVD on iTunes, just so I wouldn’t have to get out of bed.”

So joked comedian Gary Gullman, mocking our technology-induced indolence. The insight isn’t new, even if the line is. Technology makes life easier, and in making it easier, it makes us lazier. It eliminates the frictions, inconveniences, inefficiencies and delays that once structured (one might say “burdened”) our days. Order online, date online, work online. Everything one needs just a few clicks away.

This efficiency brings real advantages. Whatever romance we may attach to the past, daily life only a few centuries ago involved exhausting drudgery. Simply fetching water meant hauling buckets from a well or stream, often for hours. In 2025, we simply turn the tap. And we can have hot water or ice in mere seconds. Many who fantasize about medieval village life, imagining in it a more communal and organic existence, would flee in despair after a few days. The work, the pests, the stench would overwhelm them.