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Humans are just a lot better conditioned to respond to short-term stimuli than long-term goals. Maybe it's a product of our evolutionary history (avoiding preda

by mizzao 10y ago

Humans are just a lot better conditioned to respond to short-term stimuli than long-term goals. Maybe it's a product of our evolutionary history (avoiding predators, making sure we are fed) but it sure doesn't work well at global, collective scales.

RubenSandwich 10y ago
Agreed. This is why I believe that we should have regulations and rules to make certain short-term gains painful. That self-regulation is at best wishful thinking. Let's say that you have 'sustainability', fill in that word however you want, in mind when building your business. But a company who's primary concern is growth will most likely surge ahead of you, possibly squeezing them out of the market. That company can't just retrofit those 'sustainability' practices as by this time they are expected to continue their revenue and company culture is extremely difficult to change.
alexandersingh 10y ago
Are you aware of any studies or successful real-world implementations of systems to promote and incentivize long-term thinking, planning & action?
- dkarapetyan 10y ago
  Dan Ariely and folks in behavioral economics in general have written a book or two on the matter. Basically it comes down to tricking your brain into long term thinking by hijacking short term thinking habits. Like if you want to develop a running habit then eat a cake after every run and then after a while stop eating the cake. Then you start looking forward to the run because you anticipate eating cake which after a while becomes a running habit. Substitute whatever you like for the cake. It's all hacks though. Humanity is basically doomed. At some point the thinking that we can innovate ourselves out of every dilemma we got ourselves into will stop working because the complexity of the dilemma keeps growing and technology will stop being the panacea it is at a certain level of complexity.

by mizzao 10y ago

RubenSandwich 10y ago

Agreed. This is why I believe that we should have regulations and rules to make certain short-term gains painful. That self-regulation is at best wishful thinking. Let's say that you have 'sustainability', fill in that word however you want, in mind when building your business. But a company who's primary concern is growth will most likely surge ahead of you, possibly squeezing them out of the market. That company can't just retrofit those 'sustainability' practices as by this time they are expected to continue their revenue and company culture is extremely difficult to change.

alexandersingh 10y ago

Are you aware of any studies or successful real-world implementations of systems to promote and incentivize long-term thinking, planning & action?

dkarapetyan 10y ago
Dan Ariely and folks in behavioral economics in general have written a book or two on the matter. Basically it comes down to tricking your brain into long term thinking by hijacking short term thinking habits. Like if you want to develop a running habit then eat a cake after every run and then after a while stop eating the cake. Then you start looking forward to the run because you anticipate eating cake which after a while becomes a running habit. Substitute whatever you like for the cake. It's all hacks though. Humanity is basically doomed. At some point the thinking that we can innovate ourselves out of every dilemma we got ourselves into will stop working because the complexity of the dilemma keeps growing and technology will stop being the panacea it is at a certain level of complexity.