Humans like to make their scores go up, even unimportant scores. To encourage better behavior, society should very carefully create a number of scores that a person can track that positively impact society.
The numbers should only be for positive things.
There should be several independent scores.
Currently, individuals keep score based on net worth, number of cars/houses/lovers, etc.
This is NOT the same as the “social credit score”. There can be no punishment for doing poorly.
Some options to contribute to the brainstorming.
For people:
- Number of people positively impacted.
- Number of cats pet.
- Number of dogs complimented.
- Amount of trash picked up from the streets/parks/beaches/public places.
- Hungry people fed.
For businesses:
- Number of employees succeeding at life (I do not have a tight definition.)
- $ contributed to local public schools.
- Paid volunteer hours of employees to the community.
It already exists, in places. You’ve probably written a review for private businesses, but how many commendations have you submitted to your transit worker, city service worker or politician?
You can file compliments in the same place you file complaints, via phone, paper form, web form, e-mail or snail-mail. I’m sure these people would be pleasantly surprised to receive your positive feedback.
Commendations are brought to supervisors, and sometimes they even make the agency’s public newsletter. They cost nothing but a bit of time and thoughtfulness to give, so I’d say give it a try.