No contest

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Not really. Alfie Kohn does have a book called No Contest, where he mentions in passing how competition is used to control people. But it's not really more than a couple pages out of the whole book. And there is another book called Measurement in Psychology that talks about how what most people think of measurements aren't; but that's not really about social control either. The topic really deserves its own book, but none exists as far as I know.

…ssword is rewarded: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/404957/Picture%2039.png Highly recommend further reading: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071351450/ Alfie Kohn's "No Contest" is also a great read in the same vein: http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp...

…ed a justification for oppressing the masses. When you embrace Darwin, you're not embracing science, you're embracing fascism. Some quotes on this from Alfie Kohn's book No Contest: Pter Kropotkin: "Competition [...] is limited among animals to exception periods. [...] Better conditions are created by the elimination of competition by means of mutual aid and mutual support. [...] "Don't Compete" -- competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it!" That is the tendency of nature, not always realized in full, but always present. That is the watchword which comes to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean. "Therefore combine -- practice mutual aid!" That is what nature teaches us." -- Mutual Aid, 1902 Marvin Bates: "This competition, this 'struggle,' is a superficial thing, superimposed…

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…at's counterintuitive. I figure, hey, I'm pretty smart, so if it's intuitive then I can probably figure it out on my own. A list of stuff I cite most often: No Contest & Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton PG's essays & ITConversations interviews The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto The Singularity is Near by Kurzweil This graph: http://alexkrupp.com/picture_library/plot.jpg Dee Hock's essay on leadership A handful of blog posts by Mark Cuban All Marketers are Liars & Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin. All of the books that Seth recommends are also worth reading. Bruce Schneier's interview on ITConversations Magic Ink, an essay by Bret Victor War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges The Cluetrain Manifesto (the book) I'm sure there's a lot more, but that's what comes …

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No Contest / Punished by Rewards (Alfie Kohn) The Underground History of American Education (John Taylor Gatto)

If you're into educational theory, you might like Alfie Kohn's book No Contest: The Case Against Competition. It's a really good look at the systemic effects of competition. It touches on cheating among other things. It's funny, these days I find myself mostly reading counter-intuitive stuff. I figure if it's intuitive, I'm probably smart enough to have figured it out already. This book (and his other book, Punished by Rewards) is a really good example of something that just diffs with your current knowledge.