His worst defeat came at the hands of General Winter.

A story of ancient China, as retold by a book reviewer:

In 536 BC, toward the end of the Spring and Autumn period, the state of Zheng cast a penal code in bronze. By the standards of the time, this was absolutely shocking, an upending of the existing order—to not only have a written law code, but to prepare it for public display so everyone could read it. A minister of a neighboring state wrote a lengthy protest to his friend Zichan, then the chief minister of Zheng:

“In the beginning I expected much from you, but now I no longer do so. Long ago, the former kings consulted about matters to decide them but did not make penal codes, for they feared that the people would become contentious. When they still could not manage the people, they fenced them in with dutifulness, bound them with governance, employed them with ritual propriety, maintained them with good faith, and fostered them with nobility of spirit. They determined the correct stipends and ranks to encourage their obedience, and meted out strict punishments and penalties to overawe them in their excesses. Fearing that that still was not enough, they taught them loyalty, rewarded good conduct, instructed them in their duties, employed them harmoniously, supervised them with vigilance, oversaw them with might, and judged them with rigor. Moreover, they sought superiors who were sage and principled, officials who were brilliant and discerning, elders who were loyal and trustworthy, and teachers who were kind and generous. With this, then, the people could be employed without disaster or disorder. When the people know that there is a code, they will not be in awe of their superiors. Together they bicker, appeal to the code, and seek to achieve their goals by trying their luck. They cannot be governed.

“When there was disorder in the Xia government, they created the ‘Punishments of Yu.’ When there was disorder in the Shang government, they created the ‘Punishments of Tang.’ When there was disorder in the Zhou government, they composed the ‘Nine Punishments.’ These three penal codes in each case arose in the dynasty’s waning era. Now as chief minister in the domain of Zheng you, Zichan, have created fields and ditches, established an administration that is widely reviled, fixed the three statutes, and cast the penal code. Will it not be difficult to calm the people by such means? As it says in the Odes,

Take the virtue of King Wen as a guide, a model, a pattern;
Day by day calm the four quarters.
And as it says elsewhere,
Take as model King Wen,
And the ten thousand realms have trust.

In such an ideal case, why should there be any penal codes at all? When the people have learned how to contend over points of law, they will abandon ritual propriety and appeal to what is written. Even at chisel’s tip and knife’s edge they will contend. A chaotic litigiousness will flourish and bribes will circulate everywhere.

“Will Zheng perhaps perish at the end of your generation? I have heard that ‘when a domain is about to fall, its regulations are sure to proliferate.’ Perhaps this is what is meant?”

Zichan wrote back:

“It is as you have said, sir. I am untalented, and my good fortune will not reach as far as my sons and grandsons. I have done it to save this generation.”

I don't know if this is true, but I've heard that when the Nazis were having soldiers round up and shoot people (before the Holocaust became more industrial and systematic), as part of the preparation for having them execute civilians, the Nazi officers explicitly offered their soldiers the chance to excuse themselves (on an individual basis) from having to actually perform the executions themselves with no further consequences.

https://thethreevirtues.com/

Three Virtues

According to Larry Wall(1), the original author of the Perl programming language, there are three great virtues of a programmer; Laziness, Impatience and Hubris

Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it. Impatience: The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to. Hubris: The quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad things about.

I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

-- Frank B. Gilbreath Sr

I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.

-- Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord 1878–1943, German general; possibly apocryphal

This is silly of me, but I can't help thinking that this would make a great "Pinky and the Brain" episode.

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently what should not be done at all." - Peter Drucker

I had one as a kid along with who knows what other diagnoses. I'm not on any medication for it but I also feel like don't really need it the way my life currently is?

One case of the changing the level of friction drastically changing things was when, in the late 1990s and 2000s, Napster and successive services made spreading copyrighted files much, much easier than it had been. These days you don't need to pirate your music because you can get almost any recorded song on YouTube whenever you want for free (possibly with an ad) or on Spotify for a cheap subscription fee...