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> What could a daring entrepreneur start doing to change the world into a place where society, and work, is better aligned with basic human needs? IIRC, Zen an

by qb45 11y ago

> What could a daring entrepreneur start doing to change the world into a place where society, and work, is better aligned with basic human needs? IIRC, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had a few things to say about work and motivation. Reading a book certainly is actionable ;) and I think some business owners/managers could benefit from reading this one, at least in terms of employee retention rate. Or maybe they wouldn't, I've never been a business manager, actually :) But this story isn't terribly long to read and I found it interesting on its own right.

p4wnc6 11y ago
There is actually a healthy body of professional research literature on this, such as Self-Determination Theory. You don't need to rely too much on the popular presentation in books like ZATAOMM. Here's a post touching on this topic [0], and the underlying data summary post that it was based on [1]. This is exactly the sort of thing I am referring to. We have useful structures to understand human health at work (such as heteronomous vs. autonomous goals), but since we use bureaucracy as the primary means of structuring work, it shields wealthy elites from ever having to care about these aspects of the human beings who provide them with labor. I think to crack this issue, we have to devise ways to make capital deployers have no choice but to prioritize these types of human aspects of labor providers. I don't care how we do that: through heavily enforced laws and employee unionization, or through market incentives that make it more worthwhile to care about worker cognitive health than to paper over it, or any other options. But without intervention, there doesn't seem to be any natural property of market economics that enables human flourishing in this way. [0] < http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2015/05/why-hire-underemployment-autonomy-and.html http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2015/05/why-hire-underemployme... > [1] < http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/#work http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/#work >
- qb45 11y ago
  Just wanted to say that Zen... isn't a popular presentation of any such theory, did you actually read it?

by qb45 11y ago

p4wnc6 11y ago

There is actually a healthy body of professional research literature on this, such as Self-Determination Theory. You don't need to rely too much on the popular presentation in books like ZATAOMM. Here's a post touching on this topic [0], and the underlying data summary post that it was based on [1]. This is exactly the sort of thing I am referring to. We have useful structures to understand human health at work (such as heteronomous vs. autonomous goals), but since we use bureaucracy as the primary means of structuring work, it shields wealthy elites from ever having to care about these aspects of the human beings who provide them with labor. I think to crack this issue, we have to devise ways to make capital deployers have no choice but to prioritize these types of human aspects of labor providers. I don't care how we do that: through heavily enforced laws and employee unionization, or through market incentives that make it more worthwhile to care about worker cognitive health than to paper over it, or any other options. But without intervention, there doesn't seem to be any natural property of market economics that enables human flourishing in this way. [0] < http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2015/05/why-hire-underemployment-autonomy-and.html http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2015/05/why-hire-underemployme... > [1] < http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/#work http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/#work >

qb45 11y ago
Just wanted to say that Zen... isn't a popular presentation of any such theory, did you actually read it?