If society had a scorecard, what would be on it?

Imagine you had to evaluate societies like systems.

What metrics would you include in a scorecard? (limit yourself to 3–5)

And which ones matter most?

acheong08 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

1. The standard of living for the bottom 5% of society in terms of basic needs (food, water, shelter, and health) 2. Equality. The distance between the bottom and top in terms of economic and political power. Not just votes, but absolute power including if lobbying is allowed. 3. Hours of work per capita required to maintain current standard of living

▲

Rury 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tough to limit to just 5, but I would consider something like the following:

1) Some measure of wealth (beyond GDP)

2) An equality quotient (considering both wealth and power)

3) Hours of work per capita

4) Reported happiness

5) Healthspan / Lifespan / Crime / Safety rates

▲

haebom 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Watch “Nosedive,” the first episode of Season 3 of Netflix's Black Mirror.

	▲	baptou12 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		so social rating as a key signal ?

▲

keernan 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The extent to which the society is focused upon assuring every member of society has an equal say in how society functions.

	▲	baptou12 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Good invariant !

▲

anovikov 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

1. Democracy. Measured as "Odds for winning candidate/party 6 months before voting date, averaged over last 4 electoral cycles", higher the better. Democracy = elections with unpredictable results. This metric creates some questionable cases (Iraq will be a democracy and Japan won't), but it's still good enough.

2. Per capita GDP growth rate, averaged over ~10 year economic cycle.

3. Per capita GDP itself. Log scale.

4. Protection of private property rights. Measured as ratio of private net worth to GDP (if rights are not protected, businesses aren't worth much even if they make a lot of money because people know they can be taken away and that's priced in).

▲

baptou12 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Interesting, but this feels very economic.

It seems possible to optimize for these metrics and still end up with a society where I wouldn’t want to live if I were randomly placed in it (high stress, low trust, poor quality of life).

Would you add anything to capture that?

	▲	anovikov 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Low trust is not a problem anymore. High trust societies these days are just a lot lot more vulnerable. High trust was a fluke brought about by close knit, protestant, racially and ethnically homogenous societies. Now everything is open to the world 99% of which have never been that way. Trust someone and you are a victim. Stress level is something innate to a person. If they have anxiety problems, they will find what to stress over, no matter what. Even in absolute crime ridden hellholes in Latin America, most people have calm, stress-free lives, and in many Western societies people are literally dying of stress over things they largely imagine ("climate apocalypse", microplastics, etc). Quality of life depends on someone's personal choices apart from the things i have already covered... One thing to add is perhaps, climate metrics. Such as variations of temperature and precipitation over year etc. Because there are excellent places where climate just sucks and it kills all the fun (like UK). There are certainly things that matter a lot, but idk how to measure them in a way that sounds trustworthy and quantitative enough. Like corruption. Say Serbia vs Belarus: countries are largely same thing except for that metric, and Serbia looks like an absolute piece of shit comparatively, and that's the only difference - but idk how to quantify. Well, there's also race. Politically incorrect but everyone no matter the race will agree it's important [shows the Family Guy meme].