April 8, 2011 · 11:59 am

The surprising (to economists) truth about what motivates

I’ve been watching really fun 10 minute talks lately on youtuble. They are put together by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers, and Commerce (weird name, huh? It seems they prefer “RSA” for short. But I’m still enough of a computer scientist to think that acronym is taken.)

Here is one that crossed my inbox yesterday, a talk by Dan Pink about what motivates us:

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2 responses to “The surprising (to economists) truth about what motivates”

  1. max
    May 1, 2011 at 5:13 pm

    hey abie.
    that was a fun video. it made me think a bit about this recent paper by sam bowles in PNAS, The Cultivation of Cereals by the First Farmers Was Not More Productive than Foraging. Where he shows that farming did not arise because of its economic benefit over foraging but rather for perhaps social reasons or maybe (my own extrapolation) just from a desire to innovate or develop mastery.

  2. Abraham Flaxman
    May 12, 2011 at 11:48 pm

    Thanks for that link Max. Looks interesting, I’ll read it. From my quick glance Bowels doesn’t acknowledge the role of malaria parasites in the rise of farming.