You’ve probably heard the expression “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This is especially true for our societies and economies. Profit and GDP have been our primary metrics for far too long, with disastrous results.
We need to consider alternative methods of measuring our societies and then use that data to craft policies that will help us achieve our objectives. This societal dashboard would include metrics such as median income, life expectancy, literacy rates, environmental impact, and so on. It would provide a much more comprehensive picture of how well we’re doing as a society and assist us in making better decisions about how to improve it.
It would be a dashboard that provides an ongoing snapshot of society as a whole while also allowing you to delve deeper into the metrics it displays. It would also include data from a variety of countries, which people could compare and contrast.
This is especially useful for non-profit workers because it allows them to see which countries are doing the most to address global poverty, climate change, and so on, and which aren’t. Making this information transparent and easily accessible to everyone would help citizens hold their governments accountable and push those that are falling behind to take action.
It would also be a good starting point for entrepreneurs looking for ways to make an impact through their businesses. This ongoing snapshot of society as a whole would assist them in determining which areas are most in need of their assistance and providing ideas for how they can assist.
Various Metrics
What if we began to measure things differently? What if we created dashboards and DAOs for every topic, rather than just GDP? What if, for example, we created a dashboard focused on life extension? We could look for ways to optimize human societies based on this concept. (See VitaDAO)
If the world is optimized around health and life expectancy, people will be happier and healthier. We’d have more time for other things. Perhaps the goal of life should be to maximize happiness while also living longer. It appears that if we had more researchers working on this issue, it might be possible.
The world, however, is currently optimized around GDP. GDP growth is beneficial to markets and society, but it does not maximize human happiness or extend human life. Perhaps we should create a DAO to address these issues, as well as many others that are more important than GDP. For example, we could establish a DAO to fund medical research and cancer treatment.
There is currently no agreed-upon metric for measuring human happiness or success in life. GDP is a popular metric for measuring economic success, but it does not account for how long people live or their quality of life. If we could change the way metrics are used around the world, society would have a better chance of resolving certain issues. For example, if GDP growth slows and life extension becomes the government’s top priority, we could try to solve life extension problems. People would eventually be able to live longer and happier lives as a result of this.
One of the main issues is that it is difficult for researchers all over the world to obtain funding to study these topics (life extension, health, etc). People who conduct this type of research require funding in order to make progress. We would have a better chance of finding solutions if we established a DAO to help raise funds for people who work in these fields. People may be unwilling to donate because the problem appears to be too large or impossible to solve. Small incremental steps, on the other hand, can gradually move us forward in this topic.
COVID-19 Pandemic Dashboard
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on how we worked and lived for months. Many people would have been unaware of daily global cases of any disease prior to the pandemic. We’ve been looking at a dashboard for months because of the pandemic. This demonstrates that a large number of people are interested in dashboards and may want to use them for information. This trend may also be useful in optimizing other areas.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on society, and we can use what we learned to improve our future forecasting. Dashboards may be able to help us better understand future outbreaks and plan for them than better than we did for this one. People should use this trend as motivation to try to solve other important and unsolved problems in the world.