<story><title>Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?</title><url>https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180338</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>highfrequency</author><text>Is there reason to think that people in the past were more selfless and less economically motivated?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d wager that throughout history, most great ideas and optimizations came from people who were either seeking profit or other kinds of status (eg recognition from peers).</text></item><item><author>moosey</author><text>Ideas are easy to find, it&amp;#x27;s just that the bounds that we have been limited to work within, both economically and societally, have become tighter and tighter.  Today, the leadership of the vast majority of private institutions have only the goal of increasing their own economic power, and similarly there is constant media production reminding people how important the almighty economy is, causing people to focus on any potential fear of economic pain.  Regret being one of the most powerful emotional responses that we have.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t have to look far in any direction for solutions that improve our education systems, our research output, and the general welfare of humanity.  Unfortunately, the forces of corruption will always be strong, and it will take a more creative and imaginative people to implement them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>paganel</author><text>&amp;gt; Is there reason to think that people in the past were more selfless and less economically motivated?&lt;p&gt;Not sure if more selfless but the common ownership of agricultural&amp;#x2F;pastoral land was a thing in the rural parts of my country (Romania) until relatively recently.&lt;p&gt;The community-owned rural pastures (called &amp;quot;islaz&amp;quot;) are the last to go right at this moment, it&amp;#x27;s like seeing the English enclosures play out with 200 years difference right in front of one&amp;#x27;s eyes (the &amp;quot;islaz&amp;quot; from my parents&amp;#x27; village has been sold out to a private entity only 4 or 5 years ago). We also used to have common ownership and common use of the agricultural land in the Middle Ages, with some remnants of that system still extant in some mountainous communities until the late 1700s - early 1800s. They were called &amp;quot;obști&amp;quot; [1]&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The obște (pl. obști) was an autonomous agricultural community of the Romanians&amp;#x2F;Vlachs during the Middle Ages. Mixing private and common ownership, the communities generally employed an open field system. The obști were usually based on one or more extended families. This system of organization was similar throughout the Vlach-inhabited areas and it generally receded as overlords assumed more power over the rural communities and as the peasants lost their freedom by becoming serfs.</text></comment>
<story><title>Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?</title><url>https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180338</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>highfrequency</author><text>Is there reason to think that people in the past were more selfless and less economically motivated?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d wager that throughout history, most great ideas and optimizations came from people who were either seeking profit or other kinds of status (eg recognition from peers).</text></item><item><author>moosey</author><text>Ideas are easy to find, it&amp;#x27;s just that the bounds that we have been limited to work within, both economically and societally, have become tighter and tighter.  Today, the leadership of the vast majority of private institutions have only the goal of increasing their own economic power, and similarly there is constant media production reminding people how important the almighty economy is, causing people to focus on any potential fear of economic pain.  Regret being one of the most powerful emotional responses that we have.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t have to look far in any direction for solutions that improve our education systems, our research output, and the general welfare of humanity.  Unfortunately, the forces of corruption will always be strong, and it will take a more creative and imaginative people to implement them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>claudiawerner</author><text>&amp;gt; Is there reason to think that people in the past were more selfless and less economically motivated?&lt;p&gt;Perhaps, but perhaps not. The point isn&amp;#x27;t about some innate feature of humans that has only increased recently, but rather that throughout history humans (and the great classes therein) have faced material (not only economic) hardships. It is material conditions which drive history.&lt;p&gt;I think there is a huge dividing line between inventing to seek profit and seeking &amp;quot;other kinds of status&amp;quot;. The only thing in common these motivations have is that they arise due to our relations with other humans. Likewise, many motivations, depending on the predominant point of view (which certainly does change with time and place) can be viewed either altruistically or selfishly. I&amp;#x27;d wager that a cynical society, or one dominated by the totalizing logic of capital (&amp;quot;accumulate!&amp;quot;) would have a tendency to see previous motivations as selfish, because it&amp;#x27;s very hard to empathize with people through history. In other words, we view things in a certain way because it is unimaginable to us to see it any other way, since we have no experience with those times and places and the motivations therein.&lt;p&gt;The ancient world is filled with proverbs and sayings and stories of heroism for some kind of greater good, certainly without looking for some kind of profit, and more often than not, without looking for some kind of recognition. As to whether these are just stories we tell or whether there is some truth to them is an important question. It&amp;#x27;s probably worth asking anthropology, or at the very least sociology. The latter has discovered huge changes in public consciousness since the industrial revolution.</text></comment>