Value System
What's worth measuring — and what breaks when you try?
Value lives in three layers — the base is quantifiable, the middle is inferrable, and the top resists measurement entirely.
The Hierarchy
| Layer | What It Contains | Measurable? | Breaks When... |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utility | Energy, security, shelter, food | Yes — calories, kilowatts, square metres | Optimized without the layers above |
| Desire | Belonging, gratitude, status, connection | Partly — proxies exist but strip context | Proxies become targets (Goodhart's Law) |
| Belief | Spirit, soul, purpose, meaning | No — attempts to quantify destroy the thing | Reduced to utility metrics (GDP, followers) |
Needs met create the foundation for desires to emerge. Desires met create the foundation for meaning to emerge. Skip a layer and the structure collapses.
| Skip | Result |
|---|---|
| Belief without utility | Spiritual but starving — no platform to act from |
| Utility without desire | Secure but hollow — the golden cage |
| Desire without belief | Belonging without direction — the tribe drifts |
The Capture Trap
Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen identifies the pattern: institutions create metrics, metrics become targets, targets replace the original values.
| Original Value | Metric Proxy | What Gets Lost |
|---|---|---|
| Learning | GPA | Curiosity, depth, creativity |
| Health | BMI, steps | Vitality, energy, longevity |
| Connection | Followers, likes | Presence, reciprocity, trust |
| Success | Net worth | Purpose, meaning, relationships |
| Impact | Views, impressions | Genuine influence, lasting change |
The mechanism: metrics need to be portable (easy to transmit, compare, aggregate). Portability requires stripping context. Context is where meaning lives.
A grade travels easily between institutions. What you actually learned doesn't.
Resonance
When two feedback loops couple without destructive interference — your output enhances their loop, theirs enhances yours — that's resonance. The signature: the interaction generates energy rather than draining it.
| What Aligns | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Mental models | Not constantly translating |
| Predictions | Anticipate each other accurately |
| Value hierarchies | Care about similar things in similar proportions |
| Nervous systems | Breathing, heart rate, micro-expressions synchronize |
| Energy flow | Leave with more energy than you came with |
Resonance lives in the desire layer — belonging, gratitude, connection. You can't quantify it directly. But you can track its inputs (did you show up, did you follow through) and infer its presence from effects (do people come back, does energy increase).
The Scoreboard
What society currently measures vs what compounds:
| Domain | What's Measured | What's Missed |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | GDP, employment, inflation | Meaning, purpose, wellbeing |
| Social | Followers, engagement, reach | Depth, reciprocity, trust |
| Education | Grades, credentials, rankings | Capability, agency, wisdom |
| Health | Cost, procedures, outcomes | Vitality, prevention, quality of life |
| Business | Revenue, growth, market cap | Culture, sustainability, stakeholder value |
These metrics aren't useless. They're portable. They scale. They enable coordination across large institutions. But they systematically miss what can't be easily counted.
The Diagnostic
| Dimension | What It Tracks | Layer |
|---|---|---|
| Commitments kept | Promises fulfilled vs broken | Utility — verifiable |
| Time invested | Attention given to others | Utility — measurable |
| Reciprocity | Net giving vs taking over time | Desire — inferrable |
| Return rate | Do people come back? | Desire — revealed preference |
| Energy delta | More or less energy after interaction? | Desire — felt |
| Co-creation | What emerged that neither could make alone? | Belief — the compound effect |
The difference between a value ledger and a social credit score: opt-in vs mandatory, private vs public, reflection vs comparison, multi-dimensional vs one-dimensional. The ledger should make reflection easier, not comparison easier.
Links
- C. Thi Nguyen: Games as Agency — The value capture critique
- Robert Waldinger: What Makes a Good Life — 75-year Harvard study on human flourishing
Context
- Belief System — Where values become direction
- Control System — The levers that navigate toward values
- Performance — The scoreboard that reflects outcomes
- Goodwill — Capital as tokenized trust
- Financialization — What happens when the score replaces the game