nice article

[kandrathe]

What about the ability of people to think about their future and take decisions based on that?

All well and good, and I fully support free will (and freedoms frankly). However, there are two constraints that I see consistently imposed on human behavior, one by society and the other by self. So, one is when you want to do something but society tells you that you cannot (lack of freedom -- and yes, we need some rules), and the other is when you want to do something but you tell yourself that you cannot (the lack of imagination or faith in yourself). We are all prisoners of our human genome and subject to the limitations of our biology (physical and mental), and that includes the creativity of thought. We'd like to believe in the uniqueness of our selves, but actually if you step away and look objectively at humanity you would see a very predictable creature. In this way, Maslow and other behaviorists can generalize on theories of human behavior and motivation.

Satisfying your needs according to this pyramid works fine but what happens then?

Be careful to recognize two important aspects here; 1) broken humans won't follow the normal pattern, and 2) "need" is different than "want".

One very hot topic nowadays is obesity...people in the west eat so much that it is not healthy anymore. They satisfy one of the basic needs (food) in a completely over the top way. You will be also aware that obesity and diabetes (which goes hand in hand with obesity) becomes a national problem in many western countries.

And, so this is brokenness, right? The individual that cannot be sated would be considered to be broken, or addicted. I'm not sure why our society has produced so many people that fall into this trap. It might have to do with boredom, and an easy life. Whereas 150 years ago, there were far fewer of the labor saving devices we have today. I mean compare shopping in the typical American mall versus most anywhere in an antique city! Even our groceries are bagged and loaded into the car for us. Too much access to cheap food, and not enough need for output in labor and exercise.

The pyramid of Maslow doesn't seem to take biology into consideration.

I'm not sure what you mean. This psychology is about the study of observed behavior.

You are also aware that this final stage (the creativity) is something which is not reachable for most people. We can see it in most western countries (a layer of poor people) and when you look at Asia and Africa, we see much more people who are struggling with stage one of the pyramid.

Yes. Although it is a way of looking at social engineering, and creating a desired state for your population. It is also a way of looking at life pragmatically. Maslow's hierarchy does not necessarily require you to be wealthy, only content within certain parameters. We might theorize about a Masai tribe that has an adequate amount of land and cattle. Even though dirt poor by our measure, they might be extremely happy and wealthy according to their own measure. And, yes, there are places in this world where the people do not have enough. So, yes, we can wring our hands a bit in concern, however sometimes the best thing we westerners could do would be to stay the heck out of their business. Help them to be self sufficient and help them create structures to stabilize their own local economies, and provide local sources of the necessary amenities of life, such as food, housing materials and medical care. I see many of the problems of this world are man made, and subject to broken politics rather than the inability of people to provide for themselves. For example, you have problems like Mugabe, and enablers like Mbeki who have the power to pressure Zimbabwe to be more responsible. Zimbabwe under Mugabe is a lesson in how to ruin a functioning nation.

The pyramid seems a very nice way to describe the actions and reactions of an individual but fail when looking at society.

I'm pretty sure that is not true. There would most likely be a statistically predictable outcome to most human behavior, and hence why advertising is so darn effective. Again, there would be outlayers when the human's psyche is broken or perhaps with some other extremes of highs and lows.

A normal well thinking person should not find this a challenge, there are enough problems around that need to be solved. If you are bored you can do some nice work on nuclear fusion.<_<

No time for fusion tonight... But if you ever doubt the overt value of humanity consider "this". If ever aliens land and want us to justify our existence we merely need to show them beauty like that.