By the way, I picked up The Future History of Travel on the Kindle the other day but haven’t started yet. You should raise the price on it before too long. : )

The documentary mentioned in the article is Eating by Mike Anderson

Education has problems pretty much everywhere on Earth, I think. The US education system is not that great. But it seems to me that the things you’re comparing to the A are intrinsically motivated…

And just to clarify some other things I’ve said: When I said “Life works that way” I meant in the sense of “what comes out of it depends on what you put into it”. You put in more effort, you get a better result. And since you mentioned school, I DO have a beef with the current education system but for different reasons. Schools kill motivation to learn about their subjects mostly because they don’t let you choose what to study and don’t even try to encourage being interested in the subject. Add to that the fact that grades are a lousy extrinsic motivator (when faced between either an A or having fun with friends and maybe even getting laid, is it any surprise most teenagers choose the second?) mind you everything I said applies to my country’s education system, which is atrocious. Maybe the States or wherever is it you live have a better one.

Interesting video by the way. And thanks for keeping the argument civil and intelligent. I’ve been in the internet long enough to treasure such things in their rarity.

2. Of course intrinsic motivation is more difficult to cultivate than extrinsic–really, it can’t be cultivated, at least by others, since by definition it originates from within. All that can be done is to create the conditions which allow intrinsic motivation to thrive.

And there are people who are intrinsically motivated to clean toilets and do a good job at it… have you ever seen the show Undercover Boss? There was an episode where the company was a waste disposal company and the employee the boss interacted with was one of the happiest guys you could ever meet, and took great pride in doing his job well. In fact I’ve noticed that a lot (certainly not all, not even most, but usually at least one per episode) of the low-level employees on that show are nice, happy people who love their jobs even though they are mindless/repetitive/whatever.

Letting go of the need to “motivate” other people is the point. You don’t try to motivate someone to clean a toilet or do data entry, you find someone who is motivated to do it already or figure out another way for it to get done. For some jobs, sure, there may be no way to find enough such people, and Kohn addresses that. But we may never know until our entire society abandons extrinsic motivators, since rewards tend to give people the mindset that they are necessary when they aren’t, and can damage intrinsic motivation even for things other than what is being rewarded.

3. The best a “well-developed” system can do is promote actions that appear to represent these traits, but only when the monitoring is happening. As soon as the monitoring stops or the rewards stop being given, the behaviors stop as well. They can’t be taught, but the faulty underlying assumption there is that they have to be taught. These are our natural tendencies in the absence of extrinsic motivators, especially once we reach the age where we are more aware of the social consequences of our actions. Every system based on extrinsic motivators encourages cheating and antagonistic relationships, since it is impossible for them to actually reward what they are trying to reward (an A is intended to reward understanding of the material, but actually rewards the submission of assignments that show correct answers). There may be no system (of extrinsic motivators) that can resist corruption. That is why we need something that is much more like not having a system at all. Freedom.

You should pick up Summerhill School and Punished by Rewards; Neill and Kohn go into much more depth about this. Also, your argument that “life itself works that way too” reminded me of this video. Check it out.

And thanks for the comments. : )

http://www.tuberose.com/Algae.html

This link may explain a little more on Algae.
Nothing against veganism, just wanted to point this out.

1. “Rewards punish”: Yes, obviously, but the thing is that life itself works that way too (with a few differences). Those that put more effort into something are more likely to get better results. Those that aren’t rewarded probably didn’t work hard enough for that, so they get what they deserved, no more no less. On top of that, many of the best game systems don’t really encourage harsh competition. A reward system that only benefited the ones that did the best work (the top 3 for example) is bad because there is a big disparity between winner and looser, and between effort put and reward (the difference between the 3rd place and the 4th place may be minimal, but 4th place gets no prize). A much better system would be to give rewards according to reaching a certain standard. That way theoretically everyone can reach that level and reap maximum reward while those that don’t bother get less but work less as well. It’s their choice, essentially. The freedom you spoke of just a while ago.

2. “Rewards destroy intrinsic motivation”: The problem is that in some cases intrinsic motivation is much harder to foster than extrinsic motivators. What intrinsic motivation could make you clean toilets or do data entry quickly? It’s not impossible, sure, just VERY difficult. At least extrinsic motivation is better than ZERO motivation.

3. “They [extrinsic motivators] are especially ineffective at teaching values like honesty, generosity, and responsibility”: Actually a well-developed system can encourage these traits. They cannot actually TEACH them, true, but then again who can? If a system encourages people to cheat, be stingy and irresponsible then there is something wrong with the system (and, possibly, those who regulate and arbitrate said system. There is no system that can resist corruption).

That being said, I have to agree with one very good point you make: Games are not about their extrinsic motivators, they are not about their rewards and punishments, they are not about experience, gold, ranking, achievements and skinner boxes. For the best games playing the game is its own reward.

You sparked some fun thoughts. I’ll post more on my blog in a few minutes.

Life’s going ok. You? : )

Does this forebode some betrayal in the house of Brahe? Or, perhaps Tycho’s betrayal of himself?

dun dun dun~