02 февраля 2026
We’re All Being Played By Metrics
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Point systems are everywhere. Ready for movie night? Consult Rotten Tomatoes. Vetting a new pediatrician? See how many stars they have. At work, it can be even more pervasive: There’s KPIs and ROIs because success has to be measurable.   But what happens when we boil something down to one nice number? What do we lose? Philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, author of the new book The Score, joins Host Flora Lichtman to explore how metrics can be soul-crushing in work and in life, yet keeping score is freeing in the world of games.  Read an excerpt from The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game. Guest: Dr. C. Thi Nguyen is a philosophy professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He’s the author of The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.
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