You raise a good point about the multiple factors that go into motivation and why it’s important to address as many of them as possible.
I’m having trouble interpreting your second paragraph, though. Do you mean that humanity has a coordination problem because there is a great deal of useful work that people are not incentivized to do? Or are you using “coordination problem” in another sense?
I’m skeptical of the idea that a solution is unlikely just because people haven’t found it yet. There are thousands of problems that were only solved in the past few decades when the necessary tools were developed. Even now, most of humanity doesn’t have an understanding of whatever psychological or sociological knowledge may help with implementing a solution to this type of problem. Those who might have such an understanding aren’t yet in a position to implement it. It may just be that no one has succeeded in Doing the Impossible yet.
However, communities and community projects of varying types exist, and some have done so for millennia. That seems to me to serve as proof of concept on a smaller scale. Therefore, for some definitions of “coordinating mankind” I suspect the problem isn’t quite as insurmountable as it may look at first. It seems worth some quality time to me.
You raise a good point about the multiple factors that go into motivation and why it’s important to address as many of them as possible.
I’m having trouble interpreting your second paragraph, though. Do you mean that humanity has a coordination problem because there is a great deal of useful work that people are not incentivized to do? Or are you using “coordination problem” in another sense?
I’m skeptical of the idea that a solution is unlikely just because people haven’t found it yet. There are thousands of problems that were only solved in the past few decades when the necessary tools were developed. Even now, most of humanity doesn’t have an understanding of whatever psychological or sociological knowledge may help with implementing a solution to this type of problem. Those who might have such an understanding aren’t yet in a position to implement it. It may just be that no one has succeeded in Doing the Impossible yet.
However, communities and community projects of varying types exist, and some have done so for millennia. That seems to me to serve as proof of concept on a smaller scale. Therefore, for some definitions of “coordinating mankind” I suspect the problem isn’t quite as insurmountable as it may look at first. It seems worth some quality time to me.