Somewhat related video from Paul Solman at PBS Newshour, on motivation and money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGyhaZnPtC4
(An interview with Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future)
Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#32I'm pretty sure I disagree with the moral. Does anyone really contribute to Wikipedia for the sense of mastery it gives them? Do you think the NSA releases their Linux kernel patches to increase the agency's autonomy? Do you think that most open source and free culture advocates are altruists motivated by a drive to give their stuff away to other people? No, they do it because it improves the world they live in - for…
Quite so. It's sometimes easy to forget that making the world a better place can still be a very selfish act. Consider the man living in a world he hates, with all the money in the world, vs. a man living in a world he enjoys, with comparatively less individual wealth. In a very real sense the 2nd man is better off. A lot of this has become baked into the cultural DNA of the west. Cooperation pays dividends. Today's J. Average Middle-class Everyman living in the 1st world is much, much better off than very nearly every king, despot, prince, and emperor throughout history.
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#33I'm pretty sure I disagree with the moral. Does anyone really contribute to Wikipedia for the sense of mastery it gives them? Do you think the NSA releases their Linux kernel patches to increase the agency's autonomy? Do you think that most open source and free culture advocates are altruists motivated by a drive to give their stuff away to other people? No, they do it because it improves the world they live in - for…
I believe he was referring to those who built and those who currently maintain Wikipedia. It is likely that those individuals set out not motivated by money but for some ideology, a "dent" in the universe.
I would assume the NSA releases their Linux kernel because the license compels them to. I could be wrong. Maybe it is a trap.
Most open source and free culture advocates are _self_ motivated by a drive to give their stuff away to other people. The entire talk is about self interest, completely the other side of the planet from altruism. It sounds like you actually agree with what he is saying but are entangling entangling money and self-interest in precisely the common way this talk seeks to dismiss.
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#34great video, almost makes one stressed looking to see if that hand will keep up with the talk though...
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#35I'm pretty sure I disagree with the moral. Does anyone really contribute to Wikipedia for the sense of mastery it gives them? Do you think the NSA releases their Linux kernel patches to increase the agency's autonomy? Do you think that most open source and free culture advocates are altruists motivated by a drive to give their stuff away to other people? No, they do it because it improves the world they live in - for…
Quite so. It's sometimes easy to forget that making the world a better place can still be a very selfish act. Consider the man living in a world he hates, with all the money in the world, vs. a man living in a world he enjoys, with comparatively less individual wealth. In a very real sense the 2nd man is better off. A lot of this has become baked into the cultural DNA of the west. Cooperation pays dividends. Today's…
> making the world a better place can still be a very selfish act
You sound like such selfness is actually concious. I don't think so. We're not Machiavellian machines, gauging the consequences of each of our deeds. For example, I bet most Wikipedia contributors don't especially want to help building the world's most comprehensive encyclopaedia, but just want to share a bit of their knowledge, or just don't like to see spelling errors.
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah-- I was just thinking that if every lecture in school was this way, how could I not stay engaged and absorb it?
Because if every lecture was that way, then that style would be the norm , and therefore almost by definition you probably wouldn't be engaged, just as you aren't engaged to the norm now, and seek out unique and interesting— novel things.
That's ridiculous -- there are plenty of aspects of my life that are in some sense "the norm" that I still find very engaging. Novelty is a component of interestingness, sure, but it's far from the only one.
This presentation is more compelling to me than a traditional lecture in many ways; its novelty really plays a fairly minor role in the difference. (YMMV, of course, but don't put words in my [or the GP's] mouth.)
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#37If what he says is true, then that means Diaspora will fail, because of the huge amount of funding they got.
No, for a simple reason: they already got the money. If this money would be delivered only upon some milestone of the project, I would have agreed.
The fact is, once the funding round is finished, once they actually start to work, they will receive naught. On the contrary, money had been put out of the equation, at least for a time. And their very first motivation wasn't money. It was Eben Moglen's talk[1]. Pure idealism.
Four geeks in their proverbial garage set out do destroy an evil corporation is exactly the right kind of incentive. They have independence, they probably seek mastery, and they have a purpose. Sure, they could become greedy and just want to get rich like an americally dreamt start-up founder, but I think this is unlikely.
Failure will come from another factors, if at all.
[1]: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2010/feb/01/freedom-clou...
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#38I'm pretty sure I disagree with the moral. Does anyone really contribute to Wikipedia for the sense of mastery it gives them? Do you think the NSA releases their Linux kernel patches to increase the agency's autonomy? Do you think that most open source and free culture advocates are altruists motivated by a drive to give their stuff away to other people? No, they do it because it improves the world they live in - for…
Quite so. It's sometimes easy to forget that making the world a better place can still be a very selfish act. Consider the man living in a world he hates, with all the money in the world, vs. a man living in a world he enjoys, with comparatively less individual wealth. In a very real sense the 2nd man is better off. A lot of this has become baked into the cultural DNA of the west. Cooperation pays dividends. Today's…
> It's sometimes easy to forget that making the world a better place can still be a very selfish act.
If only those people would not try to impose their morality on other people, that would truly make the world a better place. Unfortunately some things we never learn.
> Cooperation pays dividends
Only if you're collaborating with the right people. On the other hand you can get screwed pretty badly ... by people who either steal your work, claiming it as their own, or by people that don't appreciate you (which is a problem when willfully collaborating because that's when you have an inflated ego).
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#39If what he says is true, then that means Diaspora will fail, because of the huge amount of funding they got.
No, for a simple reason: they already got the money. If this money would be delivered only upon some milestone of the project, I would have agreed. The fact is, once the funding round is finished, once they actually start to work, they will receive naught. On the contrary, money had been put out of the equation, at least for a time. And their very first motivation wasn't money. It was Eben Moglen's talk[1]. Pure idea…
> And their very first motivation wasn't money. It was Eben Moglen's talk[1]. Pure idealism.
If you believe in pure idealism, then you must also believe in Santa Claus.
> Four geeks in their proverbial garage set out do destroy an evil corporation is exactly the right kind of incentive
Even in the open-source world, people don't brag about their pet projects until they've got at least a preliminary design to show.
I like developers that deliver ... like Linus, when he was criticized for Bitkeeper, he came out of nowhere with Git.
Re: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
#40Aww, man. I wanted it to pan out and show the whole mural at the end.
I wonder if the whole would make sense or just be a big haphazard mess with only local coherence?...