Do you use a saw instead of an electric thingy? Do you avoid the use of electric/electronic thingies because you think they make you SOFT?

You are making a most valid point, Rosie.  We always lose when we use a tool instead of our physical selves to do an operation.  

If we drive, we are not walking.  But you can totally overdo.  But if you compare a soft, lazy American, no matter how hard they work?  I doubt that more than 1.1 percent of the populace, no matter how great of shape they are in, could do the work of a rickshaw driver in India for just one day.

They would die of a heart-attack.  

SO?  YOU ARE SO RIGHT.

BUT?   Using a manual saw versus a buzz saw not only does not make you soft, it makes you terrified to use the big, heavy and very VERY dangerous electronic tool which makes you have nerves of steel if you can manage to saw a tree down with that thing.

I had a friend. He had a chainsaw lurch and hit him in his face.  It cut his face in half.  I'm not kidding.   He looked perfect.  I did not believe him.  Then he showed me the pictures.  It looked like he was murdered.  It missed his eyes.  But it sliced through bone from his skull.  Forehead, nose, and mouth and teeth.

I shudder remembering that picture and it was 40 years ago now.  AND?  HE LOOKED AMAZING.  SO, the miracles of plastic surgery if you have good insurance?  KNOWS NO BOUNDS. This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at September 19, 2019 2:28 AM MDT

I prefer to use a manual saw, unless I have to cut a lot in a short time.
Why?  Because I don't have an easy time starting power saws.  
I don't care if it has an "instant on" switch ... they just don't want to start for me.  lol

I use the tool most appropriate for the task but there are some hand-held power tools I have not used and am very wary of, because they are so powerful.

One is the chain-saw - which I would never use without proper "Personal Protective Equipment" as industrial safety law calls it, and guidance on its use. The other is the large angle-grinder with 9" diameter cutting-discs. Actually, I have used one, once, to cut some concrete blocks, but I was not happy!

Power-tools and workshop machinery don't make anyone lazy, but allow you to do things very difficult or impossible, or extremely time-consuming, otherwise,. They also increase your productivity, whether in a commercial context or at home. For example, my brother and sister-in-law are building an extension to their home. The original building is all brick but the extension is timber-framed. Although it's not huge, and is single-story, there's no way they could be expected to build it in a reasonable time to proper standards without power tools! For my part I have spent much of today making parts for a model I am building - I could not do that without appropriate workshop machines.

As for electronic rather than electrical devices making us lazy... That's been a charge levelled at the television almost from the earliest days of broadcast TV services. It's not the device itself that's the problem but how it's used. Never seen the point of some things appearing now though, whose primary aim seems to be avoiding the physical labour of walking across a room to a switch!