Started work on “wiser metrics”: an effort to tracks (more of) what matters in this moment of metacrisis and second renaissance - and to provoke dialogue about the whole value vs what you can measure question
At present, it is a basic dashboard (just 2 metrics with more to follow soon):
Welcome suggestions for metrics to include (and pointers to similar existing efforts). Would like the positive stuff (if we feel it exists) as well as the clear polycrisis/metacrisis pointers
This is another of those projects that we’ve thought about for a long time eg a decade plus ago started collecting datasets with others at datahub.io project and we even wrote an (unsuccessful) pitch to One Project 4y ago (need to dig that out).
WhatsApp thread
NB: originally posted on the whatsapp on 22 Feb 2025
BTW another idea we had was using the political manifesto project https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu/ and doing textual analysis to track changes in values at that level — this has got a whole lot easier with recent AI / machine learning stuff).
In general, collecting datasets on values and their evolution over time would be pretty interesting, especially if you could get fine-grained data and identify innovative “pockets” …
Before delving into metrics, I’d like to explore some sort of a framework of the phenomena of interest, as briefly mentioned in Whatsapp. I guess there has been discussion on wisdom before elsewhere in the forum, but some ideas that come to my mind:
altruism / care / compassion (at its roots, love?)
preservation of life
ability for entertaining multiple perspectives simultaenously / creating a shared understanding of things
consideration of second-and-nth order effects
I guess some metrics for these could be the already mentioned values data; number of initiatives that stem from commons-related projects/unsolicited altruism; metrics related to the depth of polarization in different forums where people interact… and so on.
I recognize some resistance toward inclusion of common sustainability metrics (such as Planetary boundaries framework), perhaps stemming from a belief that they haven’t led to effective change in the past. However, they surely are valid given the initial elements of a framework sketched above. And of course, one option could be plotting the “unwise” effects of “intelligent activities” - e.g., Jevon’s paradox (energy efficiency ↔ total amount of consumption).
Welcome suggestions for metrics to include (and pointers to similar existing efforts). Would like the positive stuff (if we feel it exists) as well as the clear polycrisis/metacrisis pointers
love help from others - writing, coding design etc all helpful. Source repo here GitHub - life-itself/wiser-metrics: Because we are what we measure.
— tracking values change in a systematic change would be great. Could you post this in the forum thread too
