If you want stronger “optimization forces”, take away the safety net. Hunger and pain are excellent incentives.
Actual experiments in doing this have proven it to be extremely counterproductive. The more human effort needs to be poured into avoiding hunger, homelessness, and base pain, the less ends up available for serving “self-actualizing” goals, conforming to socially-approved-of lifestyles, or even increasing economic productivity.
If you have an intuition which tells you that punishing people makes them act smarter, it is wrong. Punishing people makes them spend mental effort on avoiding getting caught transgressing your norms when they could have spent that effort on something that was actually important.
the less ends up available for serving “self-actualizing” goals, conforming to socially-approved-of lifestyles,
LOL. For a lot of people “self-actualization” ends up with sitting on a couch in front of an idiot box, eating chips. Nowadays it might be in front of their FB feed, but that’s essentially the same. And I’m not sure what are “socially-approved-of lifestyles”—that seem to depend a lot on the society in question.
If you have an intuition which tells you that punishing people makes them act smarter, it is wrong.
No. My intuition is that the threat of pain/hunger/etc. makes people act. Incentives matter.
LOL. For a lot of people “self-actualization” ends up with sitting on a couch in front of an idiot box, eating chips. Nowadays it might be in front of their FB feed, but that’s essentially the same. And I’m not sure what are “socially-approved-of lifestyles”—that seem to depend a lot on the society in question.
Look, the mere fact that you condescend at and disapprove of the actions of others doesn’t mean you’ve proposed any kind of alternative (no, survivalism does not count, that problem was already solved), let alone demonstrated a metric by which your non-proposed alternative is superior (not even the “I like it” metric).
No. My intuition is that the threat of pain/hunger/etc. makes people act. Incentives matter.
Now explain why those actions or incentives matter, that is, what makes them superior to alternatives. No, sneering does not count.
Actual experiments in doing this have proven it to be extremely counterproductive. The more human effort needs to be poured into avoiding hunger, homelessness, and base pain, the less ends up available for serving “self-actualizing” goals, conforming to socially-approved-of lifestyles, or even increasing economic productivity.
If you have an intuition which tells you that punishing people makes them act smarter, it is wrong. Punishing people makes them spend mental effort on avoiding getting caught transgressing your norms when they could have spent that effort on something that was actually important.
LOL. For a lot of people “self-actualization” ends up with sitting on a couch in front of an idiot box, eating chips. Nowadays it might be in front of their FB feed, but that’s essentially the same. And I’m not sure what are “socially-approved-of lifestyles”—that seem to depend a lot on the society in question.
No. My intuition is that the threat of pain/hunger/etc. makes people act. Incentives matter.
Look, the mere fact that you condescend at and disapprove of the actions of others doesn’t mean you’ve proposed any kind of alternative (no, survivalism does not count, that problem was already solved), let alone demonstrated a metric by which your non-proposed alternative is superior (not even the “I like it” metric).
Now explain why those actions or incentives matter, that is, what makes them superior to alternatives. No, sneering does not count.