C Thi Nguyen on Games, Metrics, and Value Capture

One of my favorite podcasts ever is a 2022 conversation between @add_hawk and @ezraklein. I'm thrilled to continue the conversation in the interviewer seat today. @DialecticPod Ep. 36: C Thi. Nguyen - Measurement, Meaning, and Play C. Thi Nguyen (@add_hawk) is a professor of philosophy focused on games, values, data, and metrics. I visited him to discuss his new book, The Score: How to Stop Playing Someone Else's Game. Thi is focused on a dilemma with scoring systems: 1) in games, they're are great: they allow game designers to sculpt the player's agency. By shaping goals, abilities, and obstacles, action becomes easy, even harmonious. The player can try on different roles, explore different values, and move "lightly between worlds" 2) in the real world, they flatten us: We've quantified our lives, and easily countable metrics produce what Thi calls "value capture." By obsessively measuring what matters, we only value what we can easily measure. We went deep on the personal and societal implications of this: - What are different types of agency? What is the shape of good values? What is the difference between recognition and perception? - How can we be more playful, in and out of games? How can we find more beauty in process, not outcomes? - How can we trust each other, scale progress, keep bad actors in check--all while not extracting nuance out of complex fields by relying too much on legible data? - Are objectivity and truth the same thing? Is technology really value-neutral? Available on all platforms below and here on X. Timestamps: 0:00 - Opening Highlights 1:39 - Introduction to C. Thi Nguyen 5:13 - Thanks to Notion 6:31 - Start: What Does it Mean to Be Playful? 13:41 - Starting Local: Agency, Scoring Systems, and Games 23:36 - Value Capture: Incentives, Values, and the Collapse of Meaning 36:28 - What is the Shape of Good Values? 49:45 - Attention, Recognition vs. Perception, and Aesthetic Openness 58:46 - Process vs. Outcome, Striving Play vs. Achievement Play, Recipe vs. Dish 1:10:00 - Aesthetic Value & Autotelic Pursuits in Life 1:16:59 - Metrics, "Measure What Matters," and What We Miss 1:24:16 - Quantitative vs. Qualitative Ways of Knowing and Different Conceptions of Rules 1:38:01 - Scaling Trust, Data, Experts, and Legibility 1:54:37 - Objectivity & Truth, Value-Laden Technology & Decisions, and "Objectivity Laundering" 2:07:57 - Advice for Technologists: Ethics, Maps, Value-Neutrality, and Playfulness 2:18:52 - Closing Thanks to Notion