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Young children would rather explore than get rewards

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Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#221

Post by acituan »

andrepd wrote: post #138
acituan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the case of suicide there is a potential mechanism in which there is a benefit for genes to pass. We can imagine a hardship scenario in which removal of oneself leaves more resources to the remainder of one’s group, which is likely to be their kin and have shared genes. In this case suicide would be adaptive for the genes to pass on. This is nor far fetched because we see other self sacrifice behavior (e.g. betwe…

People almost never commit suicide for "leaving more resources to the tribe". They do because they are complex persons living in a complex environment that is radically different from the savannahs for which our genes evolved. Likewise, your evolutionary arguments for motivation are equally useless. Evolution takes place on much larger timescales than the changes in our environment. 3000 years is almost nothing in te…

> People almost never commit suicide for "leaving more resources to the tribe". They do because they are complex persons living in a complex environment that is radically different from the savannahs for which our genes evolved.

We are not talking about why people might be committing suicide now, we are talking about how the genetic disposition for suicadility might have passed along. To give context, 50% of the people will seriously have suicidal thoughts in their lifetime for about a week or two (so few actually do).

> Likewise, your evolutionary arguments for motivation are equally useless.

You misunderstand. We are not talking about an environment - gene mismatch, therefore the timescales are not relevant at all. I am positing a near impossibility of complete lack of intrinsic motivation to have passed genetically, regardless of timescale or even species.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#222

Post by acituan »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #144
acituan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the case of suicide there is a potential mechanism in which there is a benefit for genes to pass. We can imagine a hardship scenario in which removal of oneself leaves more resources to the remainder of one’s group, which is likely to be their kin and have shared genes. In this case suicide would be adaptive for the genes to pass on. This is nor far fetched because we see other self sacrifice behavior (e.g. betwe…

But identical arguments to the suicide-logic can be made about a lack of intrinsic motivation - someone without intrinsic motivation but who is easily externally motivated could be a great asset to a group with more plans than people to enact them. I could imagine plenty of situations where strong intrinsic motivation relative to external motivation could be detrimental to either the individual or the group.

That is a fair point. But wouldn't an intrinsic motivation for group conformity be a competitive advantage here, instead of being coerced or convinced for it? For example ants must have high intrinsic motivation for following the group, they don't need to be motivated or convinced. Likewise, humans come with factory settings for many prosocial behaviors somewhat instinctively (e.g. mother-infant behavior), therefore the group benefit and intrinsic motivations being in alignment can be a selective advantage.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#223

Post by fxtentacle »

cyberlurker wrote: post #199
fxtentacle wrote: post #32

While the study classifies it as exploration and claims an intrinsic reward that will die out later in life, I would describe the behavior as novelty-seeking. I'd wager that for adults, a game on a screen is just not new enough. But if you'd give adult males a choice of which female to undress, I'm pretty sure they would value "exploration" very highly again. In a similar vain, when smartphones were new, the adult po…

Let me just be the one to say your choice of topic for exploration is incredibly cringeworthy in 2020. Also inaccurate for some parts of the adult male population. Use a better example next time.

Why I chose sex as the example?

It is scientific concensus that our genes survive through sex and that by optimizing for their own survival our genes have made sex the strongest possible behavioral motivator. It is also agreed upon that the desire for sexual exploration is higher for males, because their genes can spread more widely through additional partners, while a typical female can only get pregnant by one partner at a time.

You'll find that non-traditional pairings will have very little effect on genetic evolution, because they tend to not produce genetically related offspring.

So the study says "adults are less interested in exploration" and to that I reply "we have literally optimized our genes for adult male exploration over hundreds of thousands of years".

Isn't that a rather large omission in the study, that they didn't mention the single most powerful motivator for exploration?

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#225

Post by acituan »

cyberlurker wrote: post #199
fxtentacle wrote: post #32

While the study classifies it as exploration and claims an intrinsic reward that will die out later in life, I would describe the behavior as novelty-seeking. I'd wager that for adults, a game on a screen is just not new enough. But if you'd give adult males a choice of which female to undress, I'm pretty sure they would value "exploration" very highly again. In a similar vain, when smartphones were new, the adult po…

Let me just be the one to say your choice of topic for exploration is incredibly cringeworthy in 2020. Also inaccurate for some parts of the adult male population. Use a better example next time.

FWIW, I find "in year XXXX" arguments equally frustrating. It is an entitled, condescending perspective that automatically dismisses the counter-point as a "thing of the past" and "regressive" without adding any substance.

Which also happens to be factually misleading. Views on sexuality normativity does not have a linear progression over time, nor through societies [1].

Name dropping the current year not only doesn't add anything to the argument, it is also fallacious for any domain that doesn't progress strictly monotonically.

[1] For example in contrast to attitudes towards homosexuality in certain Middle Eastern countries today, little would consider that heteronormativity might have increased as more of a result of 19th century colonial European influence on those cultures. See this r/AskHistorians post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4r17fc/what_...

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#226

Post by cyberlurker »

fxtentacle wrote: post #223
cyberlurker wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me just be the one to say your choice of topic for exploration is incredibly cringeworthy in 2020. Also inaccurate for some parts of the adult male population. Use a better example next time.

Why I chose sex as the example? It is scientific concensus that our genes survive through sex and that by optimizing for their own survival our genes have made sex the strongest possible behavioral motivator. It is also agreed upon that the desire for sexual exploration is higher for males, because their genes can spread more widely through additional partners, while a typical female can only get pregnant by one part…

I think what you are calling exploration through multiple sex partners is more of an urge to procreate, which would be different from what the study found in children, a systematic learning attempt to see if they missed anything. The sex example isn’t cognitive. But I take no issue with your choice of sex as an example or debating this and considering this argument for a potential flaw in the study.

My reason for calling it cringeworthy was your choice of words of adult males undressing females. It seems cringeworthy to talk about females as an object in this way and ignore sexual orientation when you could have phrased it (if it had to be about sex) as exploring sex partners or any other hundreds of ways.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#227

Post by aaron695 »

rubidium wrote: post #165
aaron695 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The schooling system, with its grades, signed slips, and whatnot, is set up through extrinsic motivation to teach obedience, conformity, and smothering the intrinsic drive so necessary for the creative work we will expect from the children later in life. We finish 50 million kids in school each year. 100's of millions have been through the US system alone over it's history. If this was simply true then I feel like…

I don’t think anyone is encouraging total unstructured freedom. I went to a school without grades. It encourages cultivating a love of learning. There was concrete feedback on quality of work and assessments of knowledge (tests). But no public grading scale. It’s been awarded 3 blue ribbon awards and consistently outperformed its grading-based peers.

I know it's a lame answer because I can answer it to most new schooling concepts

Cohorts.

If all the students you schooled with could easily come from the other available systems and your school could only expel them at the same rates as the other schools I'd be happier.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#228

Post by fxtentacle »

cyberlurker wrote: post #226
fxtentacle wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why I chose sex as the example? It is scientific concensus that our genes survive through sex and that by optimizing for their own survival our genes have made sex the strongest possible behavioral motivator. It is also agreed upon that the desire for sexual exploration is higher for males, because their genes can spread more widely through additional partners, while a typical female can only get pregnant by one part…

I think what you are calling exploration through multiple sex partners is more of an urge to procreate, which would be different from what the study found in children, a systematic learning attempt to see if they missed anything. The sex example isn’t cognitive. But I take no issue with your choice of sex as an example or debating this and considering this argument for a potential flaw in the study. My reason for cal…

That is a very valid point, I should have phrased it in a more generical / biological way from the start.

My hope with the original formulation was that it'd be easy to understand and relate to, but I agree that I should have put in more time to find a better way of saying it.

As for the argument itself, I believe that novelty seeking in general might be an unintended side effect of that urge to procreate. That would also explain why people use words like "love" for new technical gadgets and develop a highly emotional and irrational attachment to their newest toy. Plus, there is evidence that the raw attraction fades more quickly for couples that spend more time together, which would suggest that one aspect of sexual attraction is in fact exactly the novelty of the partner. And since genetic compatibility is difficult to determine in advance, there would be benefits to a systematic exploration strategy.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#229

Post by rpastuszak »

batty_alex wrote: post #126
rpastuszak wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+100000 > Even if most students suck as tutors [...] Teaching is such a valuable skill in itself! And, it can be improved. I'd argue that you can't say that you understand something unless you can explain it to someone a step away from your current level of depth in the domain. Now, imagine every developer spend 5%, 1% of their (coding) time learning how to teach or communicate ideas in a succinct, empathetic way. We…

> We'd not only have less 40yo ranting at some 15yo project, because they used React, but also the quality of our work would improve drastically. I’m not sure what you have against people in their 40s but, it might be worth it to spend 5% of your time learning to respect and have empathy for them. Side note, people in their 40s aren’t old. Damn.

Whoa, I meant something completely different! My point was that when you're in your 40s your emotional intelligence is probably well developed.

Context: As I was replying to this post I saw another one where a bunch of senior 10x developers were bashing a 15yo who came up with a personal project, because the poor guy/gal used React(!).

I mean, surely we can do better than that. I'm really tired of seeing senior engineers, often fairly intelligent people acting as if being kind to others wasn't their responsibility because how smart they perceive themselves. HN is a prime example of that (despite some amazing content that can be found here too).

I'm sorry if my comment hurt you in any way. I hope it's a bit more clear now. (I won't edit the parent comment—to keep the context of your reply and remind myself to be more specific).

> Side note, people in their 40s aren’t old. Damn.

Personal note: I hope so!

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#230

Post by narag »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #167
kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

I think you might like this interview with the now deceased but brilliant contrarian educator John Taylor Gatto, in which he speaks about just that in the schooling system and the crazy changes he saw when he said he moved towards a more intrinsic motivation system, though he didn't use those terms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQiW_l848t8&list=PL463AA90FD...

Not a native speaker, I can understand but his speech gives me a hard time. Could you share a pointer to a relevant segment? The complete interview is five hours!
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