By the way, when Kelly says that work and learning new skills is admired but not working or not doing anything with your life is frowned upon, it seems to imply that there is an unspoken (or perhaps not unspoken) social or peer pressure in the Union. Basically, people in the Union will likely feel pressure to do something in order to avoid society looking down on them. Furthermore, Kelly mentions that reputation has taken the place of physical currency. So it is likely that the person who is seen as lazy would have a low reputation. They would be the equivalent of a poor person. The Union would not let them starve or go homeless but they might lose access to nicer things while the person with a higher reputation because they work hard and seek new skills would have more "open doors" in life.
Essentially this. If you live in a society where money as we know it has no real value because we've moved beyond it (fingers crossed), there has to be something to establish credibility, to establish confidence in trade. Someone's reputation would honestly be an excellent way to do it. You couldn't lie and cheat your way into starvation and homelessness, but you won't be able to reach quite as far, either.
I also think it could have helped that Kelly emphasized that unlike our current system, a person can rest, can take vacations, can enjoy life, it's just they can't contribute nothing and expect to get everything handed to them. It goes back to her explaining to Lysella that the Union isn't a utopia, because such a system still requires effort put in by a majority of people, but the fruits of that labor is shared amongst everyone, which is why so many people live far, far better lives compared to Lysella's homeworld: essentially, in her world, hyper-individualism is key, and people only come together to bring harm to others, whereas in the Union, group effort is the key, and individuals are responsible for their own negative actions.
So the idea of laziness in the universe of The Orville is more in tune with lack of contribution, the belief that one is owed everything without contributing to the whole in some form or fashion (whether it be art, science, etc.,) whereas, sadly, laziness in our world means not working yourself to death in a hyper-individualistic environment. In our world, CEOs are seen as paragons of work and its virtues, whereas in Seth's world, CEOs would likely meet the definition of lazy, as they contribute little but reap the benefits of thousands or millions of other laborers at the cost of those laborers lives and livelihoods.
