WEBVTT

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Today I'm going to talk about work.

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And the question I want to ask
and answer is this:

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"Why do we work?"

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Why do we drag ourselves
out of bed every morning

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instead of living our lives

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just filled with bouncing from one
TED-like adventure to another?

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(Laughter)

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You may be asking yourselves
that very question.

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Now, I know of course,
we have to make a living,

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but nobody in this room thinks
that that's the answer to the question,

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"Why do we work?"

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For folks in this room,
the work we do is challenging,

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it's engaging, it's stimulating,
it's meaningful.

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And if we're lucky,
it might even be important.

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So, we wouldn't work
if we didn't get paid,

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but that's not why we do what we do.

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And in general,

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I think we think that material rewards
are a pretty bad reason

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for doing the work that we do.

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When we say of somebody
that he's "in it for the money,"

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we are not just being descriptive.

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(Laughter)

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Now, I think this is totally obvious,

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but the very obviousness of it
raises what is for me

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an incredibly profound question.

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Why, if this is so obvious,

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why is it that for the overwhelming
majority of people on the planet,

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the work they do
has none of the characteristics

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that get us up and out of bed
and off to the office every morning?

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How is it that we allow
the majority of people on the planet

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to do work that is monotonous,
meaningless and soul-deadening?

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Why is it that as capitalism developed,

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it created a mode of production,
of goods and services,

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in which all the nonmaterial satisfactions
that might come from work were eliminated?

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Workers who do this kind of work,

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whether they do it in factories,
in call centers,

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or in fulfillment warehouses,

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do it for pay.

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There is certainly no other earthly reason
to do what they do except for pay.

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So the question is, "Why?"

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And here's the answer:

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the answer is technology.

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Now, I know, I know --

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yeah, yeah, yeah, technology, automation
screws people, blah blah --

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that's not what I mean.

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I'm not talking about
the kind of technology

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that has enveloped our lives,
and that people come to TED to hear about.

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I'm not talking about
the technology of things,

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profound though that is.

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I'm talking about another technology.

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I'm talking about the technology of ideas.

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I call it, "idea technology" --

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how clever of me.

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(Laughter)

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In addition to creating things,
science creates ideas.

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Science creates ways of understanding.

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And in the social sciences,

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the ways of understanding that get created
are ways of understanding ourselves.

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And they have an enormous influence
on how we think, what we aspire to,

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and how we act.

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If you think your poverty
is God's will, you pray.

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If you think your poverty is the result
of your own inadequacy,

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you shrink into despair.

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And if you think your poverty is
the result of oppression and domination,

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then you rise up in revolt.

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Whether your response to poverty
is resignation or revolution,

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depends on how you understand
the sources of your poverty.

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This is the role that ideas play
in shaping us as human beings,

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and this is why idea technology may be
the most profoundly important technology

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that science gives us.

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And there's something special
about idea technology,

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that makes it different
from the technology of things.

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With things, if the technology sucks,

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it just vanishes, right?

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Bad technology disappears.

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With ideas --

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false ideas about human beings
will not go away

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if people believe that they're true.

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Because if people believe
that they're true,

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they create ways of living
and institutions

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that are consistent
with these very false ideas.

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And that's how the industrial revolution
created a factory system

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in which there was really nothing you
could possibly get out of your day's work,

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except for the pay at the end of the day.

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Because the father --
one of the fathers

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of the Industrial Revolution,
Adam Smith --

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was convinced that human beings
were by their very natures lazy,

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and wouldn't do anything
unless you made it worth their while,

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and the way you made it worth their while

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was by incentivizing,
by giving them rewards.

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That was the only reason
anyone ever did anything.

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So we created a factory system consistent
with that false view of human nature.

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But once that system
of production was in place,

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there was really no other way
for people to operate,

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except in a way that was consistent
with Adam Smith's vision.

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So the work example is merely an example

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of how false ideas
can create a circumstance

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that ends up making them true.

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It is not true

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that you "just can't get
good help anymore."

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It is true

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that you "can't get good help anymore"

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when you give people work to do
that is demeaning and soulless.

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And interestingly enough, Adam Smith --

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the same guy who gave us
this incredible invention

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of mass production, and division of labor

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-- understood this.

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He said, of people who worked
in assembly lines,

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of men who worked
in assembly lines, he says:

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"He generally becomes as stupid as it is
possible for a human being to become."

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Now, notice the word here is "become."

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"He generally becomes as stupid as it is
possible for a human being to become."

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Whether he intended it or not,
what Adam Smith was telling us there,

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is that the very shape of the institution
within which people work

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creates people who are fitted
to the demands of that institution

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and deprives people of the opportunity

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to derive the kinds of satisfactions
from their work that we take for granted.

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The thing about science --
natural science --

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is that we can spin fantastic
theories about the cosmos,

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and have complete confidence

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that the cosmos is completely
indifferent to our theories.

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It's going to work the same damn way

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no matter what theories
we have about the cosmos.

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But we do have to worry about
the theories we have of human nature,

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because human nature will be changed
by the theories we have

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that are designed to explain
and help us understand human beings.

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The distinguished anthropologist,
Clifford Geertz, said, years ago,

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that human beings
are the "unfinished animals."

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And what he meant by that
was that it is only human nature

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to have a human nature

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that is very much the product
of the society in which people live.

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That human nature,
that is to say our human nature,

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is much more created
than it is discovered.

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We design human nature

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by designing the institutions
within which people live and work.

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And so you people --

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pretty much the closest I ever get
to being with masters of the universe --

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you people should be asking
yourself a question,

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as you go back home
to run your organizations.

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Just what kind of human nature
do you want to help design?

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thanks.