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> for nearly every kid there is intrinsic motivations you can find I think this can be generalized to all humans. It would be near impossible for a true lack o

> for nearly every kid there is intrinsic motivations you can find I think this can be generalized to all humans. It would be near impossible for a true lack of intrinsic motivation to have made it through evolutionary selection. Like you say, what matters is matching the child's potential with what is available in their current environment, and institutional schooling might be a very blunt tool for that. Not only it is necessarily inadequate for every individual kid, it can also occupy too much time and deprive them from the opportunity to experiment and explore to their niche in society in their unstructured free time.

adrianN 6y ago
I don't like evolutionary arguments because society changes much faster than genetic adaption can keep up with. There was no industry making money off distracting people when our intrinsic motivation system was shaped.
- acituan 6y ago
  Certainly our environment changes very fast but assuming all adaptation has to happen in the genetic space is fallacious. Humans are already the most generalist species ever existed; even at the most basic level we can live in environments ranging from deserts to arctic, just using our bodies we can locomote through walking, climbing, swimming, and on top of that our offsprings take the most time to raise because so much of our adaptive machinery is installed memetically on that generalist hardware (genes). Besides, even the society we change is part of our niche construction, so we do have influence over it. Maybe not huge as single individuals, but that industry making money off distracting people is still our own making, not a "force of nature", and most of what is done by us can be undone by us.
coddle-hark 6y ago
> It would be near impossible for a true lack of intrinsic motivation to have made it through evolutionary selection. Be careful making assumptions like that. Suicidal tendencies made it through evolutionary selection, after all.
- acituan 6y ago
  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. between parents and offspring) too. True lack of motivation both consumes resources and doesn’t contribute to back to the individual or group survival. It is a mode of being that approximates non-living with extra costs. And to be clear I am not talking about a temporary state like depression, or a disease state like chronic depression. I just can’t imagine a permanently stagnant reservoir of genes really passing on without any form of intrinsic motivation. Even at the lowest end of mammalian bioeconomics like sloths, there is motivation, if is just fulfilled it with a different strategy.
  - andrepd 6y ago
    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 terms of meaningful evolution through natural selection, and the world has drastically changed in the last 400, or 150, or even 70!
    - heavenlyblue 6y ago
      Have you seen “natural” watermelons?
    - acituan 6y ago
      > 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.

adrianN 6y ago

I don't like evolutionary arguments because society changes much faster than genetic adaption can keep up with. There was no industry making money off distracting people when our intrinsic motivation system was shaped.

acituan 6y ago
Certainly our environment changes very fast but assuming all adaptation has to happen in the genetic space is fallacious. Humans are already the most generalist species ever existed; even at the most basic level we can live in environments ranging from deserts to arctic, just using our bodies we can locomote through walking, climbing, swimming, and on top of that our offsprings take the most time to raise because so much of our adaptive machinery is installed memetically on that generalist hardware (genes). Besides, even the society we change is part of our niche construction, so we do have influence over it. Maybe not huge as single individuals, but that industry making money off distracting people is still our own making, not a "force of nature", and most of what is done by us can be undone by us.

coddle-hark 6y ago

> It would be near impossible for a true lack of intrinsic motivation to have made it through evolutionary selection. Be careful making assumptions like that. Suicidal tendencies made it through evolutionary selection, after all.

acituan 6y ago
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. between parents and offspring) too. True lack of motivation both consumes resources and doesn’t contribute to back to the individual or group survival. It is a mode of being that approximates non-living with extra costs. And to be clear I am not talking about a temporary state like depression, or a disease state like chronic depression. I just can’t imagine a permanently stagnant reservoir of genes really passing on without any form of intrinsic motivation. Even at the lowest end of mammalian bioeconomics like sloths, there is motivation, if is just fulfilled it with a different strategy.
- andrepd 6y ago
  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 terms of meaningful evolution through natural selection, and the world has drastically changed in the last 400, or 150, or even 70!
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    Have you seen “natural” watermelons?
  - acituan 6y ago
    > 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.