Themes
Fiction Lab / Theme
Metrics and incentives
How measurement systems shape behaviour, allocation and legitimacy.
Why it matters
A metric becomes governance when it determines resources, status or participation rights.
Recurring mechanisms
1
Proxy optimisation displaces the outcome
2
Score controls allocation and authority
3
Participants adapt faster than the metric
Five system dimensions
authority
Metric designers hold constitutional power
information
Unmeasured outcomes become invisible
resources
Budgets and access follow the score
incentives
Gaming is rational under the allocation rule
adaptation
Behaviour changes after every metric revision
Discussion prompt
What happens when measurement begins to change the behaviour it was designed to observe?