James Harbaugh

“Importantly, intrinsic motivation seems the more potent kind, because, you could argue, the rewards come from within our own brains.42 The contradiction produced here is that sometimes if you coerce people into doing something via rewards like financial incentives, they feel less like it’s their decision to do it, so their motivation becomes contingent on said rewards. Basically, once the reward is received/removed, the associated motivation fades away. This doesn’t seem to happen if it stems from an internal, personal source, if it’s our own decision to do it. One study focused on children who were given art supplies to play with.”
― Dean Burnett, Happy Brain: Where Happiness Comes From, and Why

“This synergistic character of nonlinear systems is precisely what makes them so difficult to analyze. They can’t be taken apart. The whole system has to be examined all at once, as a coherent entity. As we’ve seen earlier, this necessity for global thinking is the greatest challenge in understanding how large systems of oscillators can spontaneously synchronize themselves. More generally, all problems about self-organization are fundamentally nonlinear. So the study of sync has always been entwined with the study of nonlinearity.”
― Steven H. Strogatz, Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life

“three pillars of self-determination—autonomy, competence, and community”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“Universal empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience, he can assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of Britain.”
― Thomas Paine, The Crisis