

The surprising truth about what motivates us - aweida
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=player_embedded

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knowtheory
What a trite and naïve rephrasing of Mazlow's Hierarchy of Needs
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs> ). I will certainly
grant that Economists and Business people need to have these ideas battered
into their thick crania, however it's irritating to have the speaker present
ideas as if they were novel which are not only _not_ novel, but actually
_thousands_ of years old.

If you pay people well enough to decouple their concerns about economic
survival from their work, it shouldn't be surprising that there isn't a
relationship between increased reward leading to increased performance. That's
a pretty fundamental part of the humanist movement which predates the French
and American Revolutions (Liberté, égalité, fraternité! or Americans might
prefer Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness). Even then, Humanism was
merely the popularization and egalitarian movement to provide for everyone the
model which the wealthy and elite have been following since at least the time
of Aristotle!

Put succinctly, this guy isn't describing the Open Source movement, he's
describing at least 2500 years of Academia. You pay people a tenured salary,
because they, free of concerns regarding economic security, will produce works
for the benefit of all.

And this is telling for two reasons. First, Academia is not free from woe and
misery. Second, and i would hope that Economists would realize this, just
because you have (partially) removed monetary incentives, does not mean that
there is no currency or economics in Academia. The reason why the "Publish or
Perish" mentality exists, is because it's what's used to differentiate
academics. Academics trade on their reputation, and their reputation is
measured based on publication.

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DenisM
I think any attempt to further our common understanding should be welcome.
clearly previous attempt didn't work very well because this video is news for
most people who have seen it.

~~~
knowtheory
I certainly don't deny any such attempt. But i think that again it's a bit
naive to say that things like this are new, and ignore historical precedent. I
think that self-actualization and being able to determine the course of one's
life is important, especially for work (i certainly wouldn't be able to live
any other way). But treating that as a panacea for misery in the work place,
or saying that it'd address the ethical lapses of places like Wall Street is
naive or perhaps disingenuous.

I'm not knocking the message, i'm knocking the delivery and lack of context.

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georgecmu
Duplicate.

[<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1408731>]

