Maslov's Hierarchy, the Motivation Continuum, and avoiding Mad-Max outcomes

[icehorse]

The odds are, we're headed for a world-wide collapse of society, and a Mad-Max style post-apocalypse, ugh.

Below is one possible way to avert disaster. Still a long shot to be sure...

Key terms:

Maslov's Hierachy, easily google-able. But the idea is that people need food and warmth and shelter and physical security before any higher goals can be achieved. Seems like common sense to me.

The Motivation Continuum (MC), probably less well known. The idea is usually depicted as a series of discrete approaches to motivating people. On the left side we have crude, non-self-sustaining forms of motivation like threat, coercion, and carrot-and-stick. Moving to the right we get healthier, more self-sustaining forms of motivation, the best being "intrinsic" motivation. Things we do because they bring us inner joy and happiness. This is where things like empathy, and the execution of personal skills, and being in the flow state live.

So to simplify we have MC-left and MC-right.

Historically and up to our present economic systems, leaders and rulers and tyrants have relied almost entirely on MC-left strategies. (I'm not saying they were / are aware of the MC, just that they stumble into using MC-left, it's the most obvious, crude way to go about running the show.)

As an important example, almost all modern economic thinking has as one of it's most essential foundations, the idea that individuals are greedy and self-serving, i.e., primarily MC-left motivated. This axiom is baked in to all modern economic systems. Among other things, it leads us to the myth that the only kind of healthy economy is one that grows endlessly. Sigh.

The Proposal:

(I know, I know, it's a long shot): Educate people about MC-left and MC-right, and start reworking all those aspects of society that depend on MC-left tactics and strategies, and constrain ourselves to implementing only MC-right compatible strategies.

How hard could it be?

 

[F1fan]

The odds are, we're headed for a world-wide collapse of society, and a Mad-Max style post-apocalypse, ugh.

Below is one possible way to avert disaster. Still a long shot to be sure...

Key terms:

Maslov's Hierachy, easily google-able. But the idea is that people need food and warmth and shelter and physical security before any higher goals can be achieved. Seems like common sense to me.

The higher the level the more primal the behavior. Stability is the best way to assure ongoing stability.

The Motivation Continuum (MC), probably less well known. The idea is usually depicted as a series of discrete approaches to motivating people. On the left side we have crude, non-self-sustaining forms of motivation like threat, coercion, and carrot-and-stick.

Give us some real examples.

Moving to the right we get healthier, more self-sustaining forms of motivation, the best being "intrinsic" motivation.

Give us some real examples.

Historically and up to our present economic systems, leaders and rulers and tyrants have relied almost entirely on MC-left strategies. (I'm not saying they were / are aware of the MC, just that they stumble into using MC-left, it's the most obvious, crude way to go about running the show.)

Brazil and poland have recently voted out conservative leadership Netanyahu has been on the bubble a long time and now faces certain removal after the current conflict is resolved. Trump never won a majority of votes, but was fired in 2020 due to his far right policies and ineptitude. So it seems that the right is not favored by more and more citizens.

As an important example, almost all modern economic thinking has as one of it's most essential foundations, the idea that individuals are greedy and self-serving, i.e., primarily MC-left motivated. This axiom is baked in to all modern economic systems. Among other things, it leads us to the myth that the only kind of healthy economy is one that grows endlessly. Sigh.

Give us some examples. Don't ignore how the republicans in the USA cut social programs and cut taxes that help the wealthy (greedy).

The Proposal:

(I know, I know, it's a long shot): Educate people about MC-left and MC-right, and start reworking all those aspects of society that depend on MC-left tactics and strategies, and constrain ourselves to implementing only MC-right compatible strategies.

How hard could it be?

Getting facts right is a start.

 

[icehorse]

The higher the level the more primal the behavior.

I don't think that's how Maslov's Hierarchy is typically depicted?

Brazil and poland have recently voted out conservative leadership Netanyahu has been on the bubble a long time and now faces certain removal after the current conflict is resolved. Trump never won a majority of votes, but was fired in 2020 due to his far right policies and ineptitude. So it seems that the right is not favored by more and more citizens.

When I talk about MC-left and MC-right I am NOT referring to politics. Here's a depiction of the MC continuum:

 

[icehorse]

Give us some real examples.

MC-left: "clean your room or you can't go outside and play" - the carrot-stick approach to motivating behavior.

MC-right: "Mom, I really, really want to go play baseball because I LOVE playing baseball" - intrinsically motivated behavior.

And BTW, I notice that you went directly to being snarky without even understanding the OP - sigh.

Again, with jazz hands: MC-left and MC-right have NOTHING TO DO WITH right-wing / left wing politics.

 

[Heyo]

The odds are, we're headed for a world-wide collapse of society, and a Mad-Max style post-apocalypse, ugh.

Below is one possible way to avert disaster. Still a long shot to be sure...

Key terms:

Maslov's Hierachy, easily google-able. But the idea is that people need food and warmth and shelter and physical security before any higher goals can be achieved. Seems like common sense to me.

The Motivation Continuum (MC), probably less well known. The idea is usually depicted as a series of discrete approaches to motivating people. On the left side we have crude, non-self-sustaining forms of motivation like threat, coercion, and carrot-and-stick. Moving to the right we get healthier, more self-sustaining forms of motivation, the best being "intrinsic" motivation. Things we do because they bring us inner joy and happiness. This is where things like empathy, and the execution of personal skills, and being in the flow state live.

So to simplify we have MC-left and MC-right.

Historically and up to our present economic systems, leaders and rulers and tyrants have relied almost entirely on MC-left strategies. (I'm not saying they were / are aware of the MC, just that they stumble into using MC-left, it's the most obvious, crude way to go about running the show.)

As an important example, almost all modern economic thinking has as one of it's most essential foundations, the idea that individuals are greedy and self-serving, i.e., primarily MC-left motivated. This axiom is baked in to all modern economic systems. Among other things, it leads us to the myth that the only kind of healthy economy is one that grows endlessly. Sigh.

The Proposal:

(I know, I know, it's a long shot): Educate people about MC-left and MC-right, and start reworking all those aspects of society that depend on MC-left tactics and strategies, and constrain ourselves to implementing only MC-right compatible strategies.

How hard could it be?

I like to throw in a few other key terms: automatisation, UBI, post-scarcity society.
UBI could serve all the needs of the first level and some of the second level of Maslov's pyramid.
Automatisation could pay for it and ultimately lead to a post-scarcity civilisation.
The most MC-left strategies would become obsolete and ultimately people would only have to listen to their intrinsic motivation.

 

[icehorse]

I like to throw in a few other key terms: automatisation, UBI, post-scarcity society.
UBI could serve all the needs of the first level and some of the second level of Maslov's pyramid.
Automatisation could pay for it and ultimately lead to a post-scarcity civilisation.
The most MC-left strategies would become obsolete and ultimately people would only have to listen to their intrinsic motivation.

Could you take a few sentences to summarize / define automatisation and post-scarcity society? (I'm mostly on board with some flavor of UBI )

 

[F1fan]

MC-left: "clean your room or you can't go outside and play" - the carrot-stick approach to motivating behavior.

MC-right: "Mom, I really, really want to go play baseball because I LOVE playing baseball" - intrinsically motivated behavior.

The chart helps explain the references.

And BTW, I notice that you went directly to being snarky without even understanding the OP - sigh.

Again, with jazz hands: MC-left and MC-right have NOTHING TO DO WITH right-wing / left wing politics.

Fair enough. I hit and run posts while working. My bad.

 

[Alien826]

MC-left: "clean your room or you can't go outside and play" - the carrot-stick approach to motivating behavior.

MC-right: "Mom, I really, really want to go play baseball because I LOVE playing baseball" - intrinsically motivated behavior.

Interesting that the second example doesn't get the room cleaned.

I find it difficult to see how a fully self motivated society could work. First it would rely on there being people that just don't exist. Second, even a high level of morality would need some direction. Someone has to decide that cleaning the room is more important that playing baseball, or that it isn't, or that everyone should just decide for themselves. An example I use is driving on one side of the road. It doesn't matter which side it is, but it it's critically important that people all drive on one side. Someone has to decide which side (it can just be flipping a coin), promulgate the decision and then enforce it.

Maybe I need to look at the intermediate stages though. Can you recommend a more detailed description of MC?

 

[icehorse]

Interesting that the second example doesn't get the room cleaned.

Maybe I need to look at the intermediate stages though

Nice! So the 2nd "best" form of motivation is via self-identification. So if the baseball kid comes to believe that "good baseball players have clean rooms", then his motivation to clean his room will be very high.

Can you recommend a more detailed description of MC?

The MC is usually seen as a part of self-determination theory SDT. This isn't a bad start, but googling self determination theory will get you a lot of good hits:

Theory

selfdeterminationtheory.org

I find it difficult to see how a fully self motivated society could work. First it would rely on there being people that just don't exist. Second, even a high level of morality would need some direction. Someone has to decide that cleaning the room is more important that playing baseball, or that it isn't, or that everyone should just decide for themselves. An example I use is driving on one side of the road. It doesn't matter which side it is, but it it's critically important that people all drive on one side. Someone has to decide which side (it can just be flipping a coin), promulgate the decision and then enforce it.

Agreed - 100% is probably not possible, but if we're currently at 20%, shifting to 80% would be huge.

I think the driving example is probably "amotivational" (on the chart), in other words it's not a thing that really needs much motivation since the cost of following the rules is so low. Lots of things in life probably fall into the amotivational category.

 

[Heyo]

Could you take a few sentences to summarize / define automatisation and post-scarcity society? (I'm mostly on board with some flavor of UBI )

Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.[1][2]

Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services.[3] Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society.[4][5][6][7]

Post-scarcity - Wikipedia
Sometimes it's called "Star Trek economy" because in the Star Trek universe where replicators exist, nobody has to work for their basic needs, everything is done out of intrinsic motivation and money has become obsolete.
A post-scarcity economy allows a post-scarcity society but it doesn't demand it. In fact, we could have a post-scarcity society now if we so decided.

Automatisation (a.k.a. automation) is every process that replaces human work with automated (robot, AI) work. Automatisation leads to a post-scarcity economy. In a post-scarcity society, automatisation would be an intrinsic goal as it frees humans more and more from the need to work. In a capitalist economy automation leads to unemployment, increased wealth gap and ultimately civil unrest.

 

[vulcanlogician]

The need for safety (#2 in the hierarchy) would SERIOUSLY inhibit the pursuit of the higher needs in a Mad Max-type society. That's the chokepoint, imo.

 

[osgart]

MC left improves survival motives and abilities. If you remove that kind of motivation then perhaps we run the risk of losing survival instincts, and be more out of touch with the natural world.

MC right makes life worth living, when we have freedom to do what we love doing. Achieving the transcendent level might give us, the human race, a bigger picture mentality, and promote long term solutions.

Too much left, and you have what we have right now in society. Perhaps a balance can be struck where neither side is dominant but only applied as necessary. Too much MC left and many people will break down or not be able to cope.

Too much right and we will lose skills and abilities because people might become sedentary.

I could be wrong but wisdom in applying all these motivations is necessary.

 

[osgart]

Also, no one has to be an unkind tyrant when employing MC left. Just disciplined and strong willed.

 

[Brickjectivity]

The Proposal:

(I know, I know, it's a long shot): Educate people about MC-left and MC-right, and start reworking all those aspects of society that depend on MC-left tactics and strategies, and constrain ourselves to implementing only MC-right compatible strategies.

How hard could it be?

I don't think it will work. Our life spans are too short for it to become accepted during a single lifetime. In addition: people vary, so some will not be happy at all with a different way of doing things. You can say that MC-right is superior, but that doesn't mean everyone desires it. Also its possible that humanity cannot live without strife.

Have you heard of the mouse utopia experiment? Researchers gave mice unlimited food and safety. The mice created factions, and eventually stopped mating. Taken out of the danger and stress that the world provided they failed.

Perhaps a mad-max world would be necessary in order for humans to survive and to have a horror story from the past to run away from. How horrible is the world you and I live in, today? Its not too bad for us. We wouldn't look back at our lives with horror. No, we look at anything before 14th century as very difficult and see our own lives as very fortunate relatively. Its not a good springboard to vault us into your plan. We don't have a strong reason to switch over to it.

 

[Augustus]

Maslov's Hierachy, easily google-able. But the idea is that people need food and warmth and shelter and physical security before any higher goals can be achieved. Seems like common sense to me.

Maslow's ideas are seen as a bit dated now. It's not that the needs are wrong, but that the hierarchy is a bit reductive.

People's motivations are more complex, and higher level needs may, at times, triumph over lower level needs.

In a general sense, failure to fulfil lower level need may impact on the potential to achieve higher level level needs, but, as we see today in Gaza, some people will choose esteem and self-actualisation over safety.

Historically and up to our present economic systems, leaders and rulers and tyrants have relied almost entirely on MC-left strategies. (I'm not saying they were / are aware of the MC, just that they stumble into using MC-left, it's the most obvious, crude way to go about running the show.)

As an important example, almost all modern economic thinking has as one of it's most essential foundations, the idea that individuals are greedy and self-serving, i.e., primarily MC-left motivated. This axiom is baked in to all modern economic systems. Among other things, it leads us to the myth that the only kind of healthy economy is one that grows endlessly. Sigh.

And societies that aim to break the mould often broke themselves.

The Proposal:

(I know, I know, it's a long shot): Educate people about MC-left and MC-right, and start reworking all those aspects of society that depend on MC-left tactics and strategies, and constrain ourselves to implementing only MC-right compatible strategies.

This is where I think many people get it exactly backwards, those that see the approach to solving the big problems of the day lying in increasing globalisation and large scale international governance.

Relatively homogenised, smaller scale societies with the string sense of identity necessary to create the social trust required to support such governance based on pro-social behaviour.

Scale ruins everything as it increases diversity and complexity exponentially, reduces social trust and leads to increased importance of abstract categories of identity over membership of a tangible community. This makes many things win-lose with no potential for win-win (see US politics).

You can create a small scale commune with shared ownership that works well, but every person you add to it increases the chance of systemic failure, and at a certain level guarantees it sooner or later.

 

[Viker]

and a Mad-Max style post-apocalypse

This? This is a negative thing? I've waited my whole life for it. Can't wait.

 

[Estro Felino]

The problem is that people are obsessed with quantity and not with quality of life.
So it's an overpopulated world...because people are obsessed with the most basic and primitive needs (including sex and procreation) and not with the spiritual needs.
Why do people make children?
It's understandable that the millionaires make children, but what about ordinary people?

It's a society that is obsessed with imitating others. Clones and copycats. The neighbor has children, so should I.

 

[Estro Felino]

The public (the State) and the private (the financial élites) have opposite needs.

The capitalists want eternal growth, because more consumers means more profits.
The State wants fewer people because it is supposed to solve the problems of everyone.
So the State detests eternal growth.


And the unbridled Capitalists focus on the lowest part of the Maslov's pyramid, because profit maximization satisfies the lowest instinct ever: greed.
They will never be satiated. Only death satiates their greed.

Whereas the State focuses on people's self-realization, psychological needs: it educates them, it helps them understand who they are.

 

[Heyo]

This is where I think many people get it exactly backwards, those that see the approach to solving the big problems of the day lying in increasing globalisation and large scale international governance.

Relatively homogenised, smaller scale societies with the string sense of identity necessary to create the social trust required to support such governance based on pro-social behaviour.

Scale ruins everything as it increases diversity and complexity exponentially, reduces social trust and leads to increased importance of abstract categories of identity over membership of a tangible community. This makes many things win-lose with no potential for win-win (see US politics).

You can create a small scale commune with shared ownership that works well, but every person you add to it increases the chance of systemic failure, and at a certain level guarantees it sooner or later.

Small communities have their charm but it is also where tribalism and xenophobia is bred. And, in absence of a higher authority, small communities tend to solve conflicts with violence.
What we need is a federalism of multiple levels with strictly defined powers and duties where only those powers are delegated to higher levels which are necessarily better wielded by a higher authority. Namely military power.

 

[osgart]

The public (the State) and the private (the financial élites) have opposite needs.

The capitalists want eternal growth, because more consumers means more profits.
The State wants fewer people because it is supposed to solve the problems of everyone.
So the State detests eternal growth.


And the unbridled Capitalists focus on the lowest part of the Maslov's pyramid, because profit maximization satisfies the lowest instinct ever: greed.
They will never be satiated. Only death satiates their greed.

Whereas the State focuses on people's self-realization, psychological needs: it educates them, it helps them understand who they are.

What happens when capitalism and the state are bed mates?

I'd love it if an uncorruptible State existed for the needs of all citizens.

Love it or hate it, the state is a necessary thing, because on Earth people have needs, and differences, and it is more practical to help people than exploit them. So it's worth fighting for, because it is a place of equity, and common interest for all if not a puppet of greed and oppressive powers.

Love it or hate it capitalism produces survival efficiency and aptitude. Capitalism focuses on supply, and demand with no concern for anything else. Without fair rules of control, and limitations it's a destructive pig. Harnessed right it produces a quality of life unmatched by any other system. Harnessed wrong and it becomes wasteful, and oppressive.

Tribal mentalities will ensure our destruction such as in the middle east.

Humans need higher ideals of cooperation, progress, benevolence, and a spirituality that encompasses all people equitably and charitably. Human nature also needs to stare danger, and destruction in the face sometimes to take proper actions and get wise enough to handle things correctly.

That's why I like the full spectrum of motivations MC left to right. Because real danger, coercion, carrot and stick is unavoidably a part of surviving. While without love and inner joy from compassion and reasonable empathy humanity would succumb to hate, violence and destruction.

There's another way of looking at MC left and right though. The far left is ultimately bad because of undeserved, unwarranted threats, coercion, and corrupt carrots. The right is ideal happiness and joy from reasonable love, and empathy.