I think there are two fantasies that people have when they approach metrics.

One fantasy is that the metric captures everything that's important, and we just need to optimize for it.

And the other fantasy is a fantasy that I had lived in in the past, which is these things are just wholly terrible.

They're evil. They miss everything that's important. We should just get rid of them and enter some kind of non-metricized utopia.

And what I've come to think is not only do metrics have a very powerful function and a very powerful cost, but those are inextricably connected.

And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.

Thank you. And now the Good Fight with Yasha Monk. One of the questions that I keep returning to is how we should think about the role of metrics

in modern life. On the one hand, we need metrics. We need metrics in order to know when we're

making progress and when we're not in order to measure whether institutions are actually living up to their goals.

They are an important motivation and accountability mechanism. On the other hand, metrics tend to flatten the genuine goals that we want to pursue into those artificial metrics.

Metrics for universities, for example, have led to really adverse

incentives in which universities spent enormously on the latest gym, but much less so on creating

a meaningful pedagogical experience from the students actually learn. Another question that seems

somewhat separate, but turns out to be quite related. But I've

been asking myself is about how to make sure that we have a right kind of relationship to the

activities we pursue. When you start lifting weights at the gym, having goals can really help you

make progress and motivate you. But when you seize enjoying the activity

as such and only become obsessed with chasing those numbers, you might actually stop enjoying

the activity altogether. Well, my guest today is one of the most interesting philosophers

who are at work today.

His previous book, which won the 2021 Book Prize of the Martin Philosophical Association,

is called Games, Agency as Art, and his new book is called The Score.

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