You're not arguing against the point you think you are. You're talking about the setting of micro-incentives to meet a goal by someone interested in a domain. I

You're not arguing against the point you think you are. You're talking about the setting of micro-incentives to meet a goal by someone interested in a domain. I'm talking about generalized goal-setting by bureaucrats. I'm talking about why the bureaucracy isn't necessary and why we need that individual touch to decide what our goals are or if any are needed. I even admitted that certain subdomains are conducive to goal-setting. I generally include these in 'non-formal' goals because you don't take them from the Central Bureaucracy, you make them up as you go. For instance, say you proposed creating music according to micro-goals. Say we live in the late 1800s. You look at the classical music and you come up with goals regarding tempo, intonation, meter, and some higher goals regarding fit and feel of the music. Then your Central Bureaucracy says, ok, this is the goal for creating music. Congratulations, you just killed jazz, and rock and roll to follow. All musical producers will have their acceptance criteria for recording a track, but it will be different from producer to producer, from musical style to musical style, more formal or less formal, and in general musical innovation comes from moving the goalposts or tearing them down. And yet these are the "creative professionals" you talk about.