Darwinian Unnatural Selection? Measurables…
8 min reading . Summary: We measure. Knowingly-unknowingly. We trade measurements. This helps. But this could have unintended consequences. How is it connected to Keynes 1930 prediction? And Google Ngram of Meditation & Spirituality
When you read the following write up, you could measure somethings….for example number of words, number of times the word “i” has been used, active vs passive speech, number of facts vs alt-facts, etc. However, you would not do all of it. Maybe when an errrror pops up, you shall notice it and maybe just move on. However, different persons would measure different things depending on their roles and motivations.
In general in society, there are measurables and there are non-measurables. Those that are measurables, they are measured by different people depending on the hierarchy of roles-their measurements and rewards. For example: A customer facing representative may be measuring even the micro-expressions of the customer and making a dynamic adjustment in her say/do. However the board member of the organization may only look at the trend/statistics of the buying pattern. So in this sense, different persons may be recording-processing-reporting different measurables.
And we could say that there are network of measurables. These could be common to different social organization units. Family is a unit, neighborhood is a unit, interest group is a unit, business organization is a unit, political state is a unit and so on. Some measurables could be important within a unit. Some could be common amongst different kinds of units. Some measurables could be raw data for the other unit. Some measurables could be complementary to other unit. Some measurables could be optimized for one unit but in conflict with measurables or objectives of another unit.
And then there are uncommon measurables in each unit. For example, a family might have a norm of measuring when does one go to bed. Or does one use digital devices over dinner. So on
Can we measure everything?
Does everyone measure the same thing?
How do we exchange that which is measured?
Our lives have a feedback loop with #PoliticalEconomicSocialSelf spectrum. And they have #RulesNormsIncentives. For example GDP of an economy is a more salient than GNP (Gross National Happiness or Gross National Wellbeing). Or Valuation of a company is more salient than values the company live by? Or Success factors of individual more salient with power-wealth-status? Of course these are applied to varying degree in different culture or community. Also different individuals respond differently to these.
Do we make some measurables more salient or necessary or precious than the others? Does this make other measurables or non-measurables unimportant? Does the unimportance constrain the allocation of resources and opportunities for their pursuits? Do these constrained resource-opportunity compel us to oversubscribe more to the narrow socially important or salient measurables? The important measurables or non-measurables could have intended and unintended consequences? And so could the unimportant measurables too.
One of the Intended consequences could be that we indeed lack individual capacity and time-space-matter constraints, hence cutting down to a few measurables, ensures choices and actions. Such choices and actions or inter-choices and interactions ensures co-ordination in the society. Else huge amount of other measurables (acquiring them and processing them for our choices and actions) and non-measurables could render us towards inaction and paralysis? While this intended consequence sounds good, it has its own set of unintended consequence.
What could we be heading for? Could it be the case that technology (array of IOT, AI, AR, VR, etc) will become skillful at driving us further down the road of these narrow socially important or salient measurables? In what ways these could be adaptive or would they further jeopardize the unimportant measurables and nonmeasurables? We shall explore some of these key questions in the next few months through our #SearchDialogueAction.
#Dejavu : Back in 1930, Keynes predicted that the working week would be drastically cut, to perhaps 15 hours a week, with people choosing to have far more leisure as their material needs were satisfied. Now, it could be the case that whatever Keynes was measuring, that got achieved but there were other factors that were overriding too. Some tech-titans are calling the coming age of abundance and leisurely pursuits because technology would, under our command (ahmmm!!! their command perhaps) allow us more liberty, opportunity and income. “Lets be keen to see what happens” or may i say “Lets be Keynes to see what happens”.
Google Ngram Result of the words Meditation and Spirituality
#GlobalTrend: Self-Help book sales going through roof. Mindfulness, contemplative, meditative practice subscription going through roof. Repurposing of art for self-discovery and business brainstorming going through roof. These and many more could be indicative that many fellow humans are wanting to go beyond the current measurable paradigm.
#DailyTinyAct: One could simply bring to awareness through journaling (writing down) or labeling (mentally speaking out the word) what is weighing heavily on mind last few minutes or hour. And in that which was weighing heavily, what was being measured/looked at and what was underlooked or overlooked. Just performing and noting this on some piece of paper could help bring to awareness the foreground and background of our processing. Over time, it builds the muscle of easy shifting between foreground and background. And helps build more holisticc picture and enable compassion and creativity.
#Confession: I was measuring for the length of this article constantly as i was typing. What i was not measuring for is my hunched posture. As the article grew, so did my hunch. Well! literally and metaphorically. Have a human day.
…to be continued
