05-20-2021, 10:13 AM
(05-19-2021, 08:51 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Thanks to computing being imposed into many areas of life lately (even pre-COVID), this has a side-effect of the numbers running the show. Metrics in many categories that people use to measure how good or bad life is. COVID-19 may be accelerating what was already going on in the personal fitness device arena for a decade. People would wear these devices that capture more and more information with each new release then extrapolate to scores that people assume determine how healthy they are. Similar thing playing out with climate change: we need to stay below +2.0 ºC relative to pre-industrial times & how we get there is by consuming X units less energy per year by year Y. Later down the line (Awakening?), we all realise while we look good on paper, we really haven't got anywhere. Also: material needs easily met during the High but no sense of higher purpose in life, with this changing in the Awakening. How have Highs usually played out in prior saecula? Were there any in the past that didn't follow a war?
My background in engineering should make me a prime advocate for metrics, but I'm not a fan. That's not to say that measuring and keeping track to things is bad. It's not. What's bad is the unchallenged assumption that the numbers are truth, and should drive decision making. As the old adage about business goes: some things should be on top and others merely on tap. Metrics are noisy data aggregated to make them easier to digest. Data are inputs, not outputs, and we should always remember that. Analysis and judgement of what they mean is subjective, and are best handled that way.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.