When I was getting ready to graduate from high school, I started applying for scholarships from different organizations and to universities. A large fraction of the applications had a section like “Write an essay on why you want to exercise leadership.”
At the time I concluded that “leadership” was a new buzzword that everyone had to make some reference to in order to qualify for anything. I dutifully wrote some meaningless essays about leadership. Then when I went to school and heard more and more about leadership,the more I thought my buzzword analysis was correct.
Then I got into the corporate world. Oh my goodness. Now I understand what all the fuss was about. By default no one does work unless someone explicitly tells them to.
I can’t say much about the monkey tribe example that Eliezer quoted—for example I don’t know if it is true or if it implies anything about human evolution—but I have found that people are remarkably adaptable with cultural conditioning.
I would also like to point out that there is a difference between people doing what you tell them and people only working if you explicitly tell them to; it is possible for people to be receptive to commands and yet be self directed. My current work environment is full of examples.
When I was getting ready to graduate from high school, I started applying for scholarships from different organizations and to universities. A large fraction of the applications had a section like “Write an essay on why you want to exercise leadership.”
At the time I concluded that “leadership” was a new buzzword that everyone had to make some reference to in order to qualify for anything. I dutifully wrote some meaningless essays about leadership. Then when I went to school and heard more and more about leadership,the more I thought my buzzword analysis was correct.
Then I got into the corporate world. Oh my goodness. Now I understand what all the fuss was about. By default no one does work unless someone explicitly tells them to.
I suspect that this is largely cultural; a response based on expectations, examples and training.
I think Eliezer’s point is that it could be evolutionary and not cultural.
The interesting thing is that you can become a leader by just telling people to do stuff, and then they comply.
I can’t say much about the monkey tribe example that Eliezer quoted—for example I don’t know if it is true or if it implies anything about human evolution—but I have found that people are remarkably adaptable with cultural conditioning.
I would also like to point out that there is a difference between people doing what you tell them and people only working if you explicitly tell them to; it is possible for people to be receptive to commands and yet be self directed. My current work environment is full of examples.
If true, that still tells us very little about whether the evolutionary approach could be overridden by a cultural one.