Open Thread: March 2010

AdeleneDawner

We've had these for a year, I'm sure we all know what to do by now.

This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.

We've had these for a year, I'm sure we all know what to do by now.

This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.

To the contrary. If you pay volunteers, they stop enjoying their work. Other similar studies have been done that show that paying people who already enjoy something will sometimes make them stop the activity altogether, or to at least stop doing it without an external incentive.

Edit: AdeleneDawner and thomblake agree with the parent. This may be a counterargument, or just an answer to my earlier question, namely "Are LessWrongers better able to control this irrational impulse?"

So can a person ever love their day job? It seems that moneymaking/entrepreneurship should be the only reflectively stable passion.

0AdeleneDawner16y

On reflection, it seems to me to be the latter - my cognitive model of money is unusual in general, but this particular reaction seems to be a result of an intentional tweak that I made to reduce my chance of being bribe-able. (Not that I've had a problem with being bribed, but that broad kind of situation registers as 'having my values co-opted', which I'm not at all willing to take risks with.)

1Alicorn16y

I didn't download the .pdf, but it looks like this was probably conducted by paying volunteers for all of their volunteer work. If someone got paid for half of their hours volunteering, or had two positions doing very similar work and then one of them started paying, I'd expect this effect to diminish.

9

Open Thread: March 2010

9

9

9

Open Thread: March 2010

9

9