
What Makes People Do What They Do? (2013) - DVassallo
http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/
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karmakaze
I had pretty much this exact thing happen to me. I had left one company to go
work for a startup. The startup failed. I was contracted to come back to the
first company to cover for a former teammate who was going on maternity leave.

For insurance they put a sizeable early leave monetary penalty into the
contract. I thought just giving my word would be sufficient but I had no plans
to leave so didn't matter either way.

During the contract I did well on an online programming contest that turned
out to be a recruiting tool. I was made a now or never offer I shouldn't
refuse but I did explaining that I was committed to my current contract. When
discussed, they we're willing to payout the penalty to have me start earlier.

At this point I thought hard about my personal ethics on this and it came down
to if it was based on trust, I would have stuck it out to the end but since
they made it monetary I was playing by their set out rules and had no qualms
(well maybe still a little) about going before the end.

~~~
Eyght
In my admittedly limited experience working sales, a personal relationship is
incredibly important for customer retention. I guess the same goes for
employees.

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aflag
If they wanted to completely end tardiness from parents they should fine the
teacher when parents are late. The guilt would be overwhelming.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
This was the thinking behind the "whipping boy". Ultimately, I don't think it
worked out.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_boy)

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pontifier
I took a very interesting class at university simply called "Power". The
textbook was "The 48 laws of power" and power seemed to boil down to one
thing: Making someone do something they otherwise wouldn't do.

Money is a type of distilled power, but it's often better to use non-monetary
power to influence behavior if possible.

~~~
HNLurker2
Robert Greene book can be easily skimmed with this 3 hours video(assuming you
got the time and attention):
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LLB4UrCXOq0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LLB4UrCXOq0)

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1ark
When I read this, I thought it was a bit psychology 101. Monetary punishment
has nothing to do with being late to pickup a child. While the punishment of
apologizing to a teacher has a direct link to the event. As wrong as taking a
child's console/phone/tablet away when they punched someone at school or w/e.

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DVassallo
The original study is here:
[https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine...](https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine.pdf)

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pieterk
Great, the way out of capitalism! Time > money.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Money is just a representation of time spent on some productive work that the
market sees value in. We have money to make trade more granular, and to have
fewer exchange rates.

Furthermore, this article isn't at all about finding "a way out of
Capitalism". It just shows that _to a certain degree_ , people value not being
burdened with guilt.

Does that mean a society would work without money, and with people just "doing
the right thing" so as not to be burdened with the guilt of not having done
the right thing?

No. History has shown — over and over — that this just does not work.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
History has shown over and over that societies based on money don't work
either. They're inherently unstable politically and ecologically and make very
poor use of human potential.

If your idea of human potential is an iPhone and an app for controlling your
washing machine from the sofa, you're going to disagree with this.

If your idea of human potential is a peaceful and sustainable culture with the
resources to maximise education, personal inventiveness, and creativity; to
make consistently game-changing leaps in scientific understanding; and to
colonise the solar system, you're not going to be quite as impressed.

The idea that there's a trade-off between money and "people doing the right
thing" is not convincing.

Belonging to a successful culture requires some form of dues-paying. That's
not avoidable.

The challenge is to make sure that the dues aren't just a tithe to bad-actor
opportunists - which is the basis of the current system, especially in the US
- but provide unquestionable economy-of-scale opportunities and benefits that
are disproportionate to their "cost" \- however that cost is realised in
practice.

~~~
mruts
My idea of human potential is giving them the freedom i decide what they
value. Incidentally, capitalism does exactly this. Free markets, free minds.
All societies fall short of this ideal, but America definately delivers more
than anyone else at the moment.

~~~
jarsbe
How does capitalism provide freedom?

The American laissez faire system seems to be falling apart at the seams.
Power and wealth is becoming more concentrated while seeking to solidify that
position through limiting the freedoms of the lower classes.

Regular people are burdened with student debt and health care costs all within
a back drop of little to no social support. Unions striking for better working
conditions have their corporate controlled health insurance stripped away.
Banks write balance sheets as they see fit, devaluing your wealth and causing
financial crises. The list goes on.

Being forced in to wage slavery to survive in this system doesn't sound
particularly free.

~~~
mruts
> Being forced in to wage slavery to survive in this system doesn't sound
> particularly free.

That's like saying I was forced into heroin addiction because I felt bad.
Let's be real for a second: people have choices, and the concept of being
forced to do something or be something simply does not exist. Or,
alternatively, you could say that everyone is forced to do everything they do.
But either way, it means the same thing.

