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How Metrics Make Us Miserable
Season 5 · Episode 11

How Metrics Make Us Miserable

Plain English with Derek Thompson

February 27, 20261h 3m

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Show Notes

The modern world swims in numbers: work metrics, fitness metrics, health metrics, social media metrics. Sometimes the quantification of life can make things better. But very often, I think they force us to play the games we can measure rather than the games we value. The quantified life has become a modern religion: a system of values that takes us over and keeps us from living the life we want.

Today’s guest is the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen. He is the author of the book The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game. We talk about metrics, the games of life, and how to listen to the parts of ourselves that cannot be reduced to numbers.

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If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: C. Thi Nguyen

Producer: Devon Baroldi

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