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Incentives are for losers

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Re: Incentives are for losers

#31

Post by discarded1023 »

ngruhn wrote: post #28

I know it's kinda beside the point but I like incentives compared to hard rules as a policy measure. They are much more effective, less bureaucratic and easier to push through. They are like weights vs. booleans. Don't like smoking? Try out right banning it. It's impossible. You have to fight the lobbyist, the addicted consumers, the workers employed by the industry, ... Slapping a tax on it is much easier. A soft NO…

Sounds great mate, come to Australia! [0]

[0] https://theconversation.com/three-things-australia-must-do-t...

Re: Incentives are for losers

#32

Post by thelastgallon »

I remember this book: Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn

"The basic strategy we use for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train a family pet. The quick fix of rewards may seem to be effective, but manipulating people with external incentives actually kills their interest in what they are doing and lowers the quality of their work."

Re: Incentives are for losers

#33

Post by ngruhn »

ngruhn wrote: post #28

I know it's kinda beside the point but I like incentives compared to hard rules as a policy measure. They are much more effective, less bureaucratic and easier to push through. They are like weights vs. booleans. Don't like smoking? Try out right banning it. It's impossible. You have to fight the lobbyist, the addicted consumers, the workers employed by the industry, ... Slapping a tax on it is much easier. A soft NO…

Another example: In Germany the chancellor decided that workers take too much "sick leave". Fair enough (probably) but they decided to clamp down on it by requiring a doctor's certificate from day one. Rookie mistake! For the doctors it piles on extra bureaucracy. Everyone who's actually sick is either miserable waiting in a doctor's office just to get some paperwork done or picks the lesser evil and goes to work sick where they infect the remaining colleagues.

An incentive based solution is: reduced pay on sick days. With _no pay_ you get sick people at work. With _full pay_ you get healthy people at home. With _reduced pay_ you can find a sweet spot. That adds no bureaucracy for doctors. For employers there is some but it directly translates into cost savings.

Re: Incentives are for losers

#34

Post by herbst »

ngruhn wrote: post #33
ngruhn wrote: post #28

I know it's kinda beside the point but I like incentives compared to hard rules as a policy measure. They are much more effective, less bureaucratic and easier to push through. They are like weights vs. booleans. Don't like smoking? Try out right banning it. It's impossible. You have to fight the lobbyist, the addicted consumers, the workers employed by the industry, ... Slapping a tax on it is much easier. A soft NO…

Another example: In Germany the chancellor decided that workers take too much "sick leave". Fair enough (probably) but they decided to clamp down on it by requiring a doctor's certificate from day one. Rookie mistake! For the doctors it piles on extra bureaucracy. Everyone who's actually sick is either miserable waiting in a doctor's office just to get some paperwork done or picks the lesser evil and goes to work sic…

If I've got told, "oh btw, when you are sick you only get 70% of your wage" my risk management system would go full alarm mode. That's a risk I wouldn't want to take on me.

However whatever Germany is doing right now definitely isn't the way to to either.

Re: Incentives are for losers

#35

Post by thelastgallon »

I think as a culture, we teach the wrong things to kids.

1) Bribe/corruption is okay: Do this (eat broccoli, finish homework, etc) and I'll give you an incentive/bribe (candy, play time, screen time).

2) Magic: Kids are scientific and curious, they ask millions of questions. Explain everything away by magic (fairytales), religion, god, govt, economics, etc. Nobody has the knowledge or patience to deal with the continuous stream of questions.

We train kids to accept these things as defaults of culture.

The only parent that comes to mind who seems to have understood this is Richard Feynman's dad who taught him to think like a scientist, question authority, etc: https://www.wondersofphysics.com/2021/06/what-did-feynman-le...

Re: Incentives are for losers

#36

Post by ngruhn »

discarded1023 wrote: post #31
ngruhn wrote: post #28

I know it's kinda beside the point but I like incentives compared to hard rules as a policy measure. They are much more effective, less bureaucratic and easier to push through. They are like weights vs. booleans. Don't like smoking? Try out right banning it. It's impossible. You have to fight the lobbyist, the addicted consumers, the workers employed by the industry, ... Slapping a tax on it is much easier. A soft NO…

Sounds great mate, come to Australia! [0] [0] https://theconversation.com/three-things-australia-must-do-t...

Fair enough but cutting the tax is another incentive measure: make the legal way to buy cigarettes the cheapest way. As the article states: the fact illicit tobacco is illegal does not prevent it and poses massive enforcement costs.

Re: Incentives are for losers

#37

Post by kstenerud »

> We can all agree: the incentives are bad.

No, we don't.

> Everywhere you look, people are being rewarded for doing the wrong thing.

And, people are also being rewarded for doing the right thing. Don't conflate the two.

Just because some incentives are rewarding the wrong behavior doesn't invalidate the concept. We're surrounded by incentives at work in every part of our life.

Fiat money only works because we are incentivized to believe in it.

Democracy works because we're mostly incentivized to support it.

Governments, countries, companies, parks, global trade, science, and shipping only work because of the complex web of positive and negative incentives we've built up to support them. They're not perfect, and never will be. And they also shouldn't be perfect (despite our natural inclination to want the "perfect"). The worst atrocities humankind has seen were driven by the pursuit of perfection and purity.

The cobra effect is what happens when you choose your incentives poorly. That's not a fault of the concept.

Re: Incentives are for losers

#39

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

ElProlactin wrote: post #24
laserlight wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is actually a fairly recent concept. Whether people think it's God dictated or it's self invented, sounds to me like people acquire purpose.

There's a difference between being born into a world where you are taught you have a purpose defined by God, the universe, etc., and being born into a culture where you are taught you need to find your own purpose.

It's both. You have a purpose defined by God, but you have to understand what it is and the journey is your own. There are a lot of hints, explanations, personal stories, but you have to do some work to understand what they mean.

Re: Incentives are for losers

#40

Post by rf15 »

thelastgallon wrote: post #32

I remember this book: Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn "The basic strategy we use for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train a family pet. The quick fix of rewards may seem to be effective, but manipulating people with external in…

Thanks to something (possibly the ruinous adhd medication regime I went through for my entire childhood) I don't really get any motivation from promises of carrots, only the sticks I try to avoid. Works great though, not unhappy, because doing good work still intrinsically satisfies me. I just really don't care about pleasing people (and yet I often do)
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