Who Is Holding the Scoreboard? (1) – Ismar
The Strange Game of Being Good
When The Mayor asked me what I thought about “gamification of tasks,” I had to stop a little. Not because the word is difficult, but because the idea itself is strange to me.
I suppose gamification means trying to make something hard become less hard, or maybe more attractive. Maybe a boring activity becomes like a game. Maybe a person receives points, badges, certificates, something like this. I understand the idea in theory. But my first reaction was: I don’t know if this is possible for almost everything. And more than that, I don’t know if it is good.
Here in Brazil I hear this often about school. People say school is not interesting for students, and then it becomes the teacher’s responsibility to make school attractive. I disagree with that. In my opinion, students have an obligation to study. The teacher has an obligation to teach. The student has an obligation to learn. It is not necessary that everything becomes entertainment.
Maybe this sounds old. Maybe it is old. But I think when we make everything into a game, sometimes we are changing the responsibility from one place to another. The student does not want to learn, so the teacher must become funny. The worker does not want to work, so the company must invent awards. The citizen does not want to behave well, so the government must create punishments, cameras, points, controls.
I listened to Ritesh speak about the corporate world. He explained that in companies people receive certificates, badges, recognition, maybe Amazon coupons. He said there are awards like rising star, champion of the month, best team, best manager. I could understand the mechanism. A person receives recognition, then another person wants recognition also. Then they compete. Then the company has more productivity.
It probably works. I don’t deny that. But I don’t agree with it.
For me it creates a competitive environment, and I think for human well-being this is not good. People are not machines. They are not horses in a race. Maybe one person wins a badge, but what happens to the others? Do they feel inspired, or do they feel smaller? Ritesh said something important: some people, when they see the same person winning every month, they stop trying. They do only the minimum. This is very realistic.
The Mayor tried to bring this idea into my daily life. I think he was playing with me a little, and I understood. He imagined my routine becoming a game. Ten points for brushing my teeth. More points if I brush for five minutes. Points for breakfast, calories, fitness, driving to my mother’s apartment, avoiding potholes, preparing medicines, being patient.
For me, no. It would be ridiculous.
The Mayor said maybe I could compete with a less good version of myself. Maybe I could become better every day. Maybe I could maximize my potential. I asked: what is the advantage of that?
I already do what I have to do. I take care of my mother. I manage my apartment and hers. I drive through the city. I do my tasks. I don’t need to count points to know if I did them. If I add points to everything, I will not have a fuller life. I will have more stress.
Maybe some people enjoy this. Maybe some people need this. I am not saying nobody should use it. But for me, to wake up and think, “Yesterday I made 453 points, today I must make 460,” this is not life. This is accounting.
The Mayor asked about caregiving. Ten points for preparing medicine, twenty points for patience, fifty points for not losing my temper because my sister does not help enough. I could not see the reason. What would I do with the points? At the end of the day, what is the conclusion? I am a better son because I collected more points?
No. I do these things because they must be done. My mother needs care. This is not a competition. My sister is not my opponent, because she almost does not participate. There is no team, no leaderboard, no prize. Unless there is money involved, maybe some people become motivated. Or maybe a place in heaven. I said that almost joking, but maybe not completely.
Then Ritesh brought something from India, the idea of karma. He said that if someone cares for parents, if someone does the right thing, maybe they are collecting good karma. Not points like a company gives, not coupons, not certificates, but something invisible. Maybe it returns later in life, or in another life, or simply in the way the world balances itself.
This made me think about the Ten Commandments. I asked whether they could also be a kind of gamification. Maybe if you do wrong, there is punishment. If you do right, there is a prize. I mispronounced “prize” and said “price,” and for a moment there was confusion. But the question remained interesting to me.
Maybe many moral systems are a kind of old gamification. Not with badges, not with apps, not with corporate language, but with heaven, hell, karma, peace of mind, guilt, punishment, reward. Maybe human beings always needed some structure to behave well.
Then the conversation became more serious, as often happens with us. We started with brushing teeth and ended with Brazil, China, democracy, surveillance, corruption, and freedom. Maybe this is normal. If you talk honestly about small things, eventually you arrive at the big things.
The Mayor asked if a system like China’s citizen points could help Brazil. This is not simple for me. In Brazil, many people drink and drive. There are laws. There are fines. The fines are high. But many people do not care. They drink, they drive, and they kill people on the road.
So if someone is drunk, dangerous, violent in public, and a camera can identify this person and punish him, maybe I think this is acceptable. Because if you do something that affects another person in a bad way, you do not have the right.
But then The Mayor pushed the idea further. What if the system monitors what I read, what I watch, what I say? Then I am not free. If someone eliminates what I can choose to read or watch, I would be in a worse condition than enslaved people some centuries ago. Maybe almost the same.
This is the line for me. If you harm others, society must respond. But if you read a book, if you think, if you watch something, if you have your private ideas, this is different. I can read anything I want today, and I am not a gangster. I am not a terrorist.
Ritesh was more firmly against monitoring than I was. He said the line between encouraging good behaviour and controlling behaviour is very thin. He is right. Who controls the system? Who watches the watchers? In Brazil, I do not trust the people who rule my country. Many are corrupt. If corrupt people create a point system, what will they do with it? Probably not justice.
The same problem exists in democracy. The Mayor asked me if Brazil is a democracy. I said I would not say that. Democracy in Brazil is fake. The Mayor reminded me that we have elections. I even participated once, and I received 55 votes. It is true. But elections alone do not mean democracy.
If people collect signatures to impeach a judge and nothing happens, if people protest against a bad mayor and nothing happens, if city councillors protect the mayor, if money buys almost everyone, what kind of democracy is this? Must we wait four years with a bad administrator? Is this democracy? I don’t know.
Ritesh said India faces similar problems. Election commissioners, courts, political influence, fraud, fragile institutions. At one point I asked if Brazil is a copy of India or India is a copy of Brazil. Maybe there is no answer. Maybe we are twins in some unfortunate way.
And then Europe appeared in the conversation, through The Mayor. Stronger institutions, less corruption, more stable systems. Have they got it right? I am not sure. Maybe they passed through some cycles earlier, as Ritesh said. Maybe they corrected things before the age of mass surveillance. This is important. Technology now can hold people under control for longer.
I began the conversation thinking gamification was foolish, especially for school and ordinary life. I ended thinking it is not only foolish. It can also be dangerous.
There is a harmless stupidity in giving points for brushing your teeth. There is a corporate manipulation in giving badges instead of real reward. There is a moral question in giving prizes for being good. And there is a political danger when society becomes a scoreboard controlled by people who are not honest.
Maybe for some activities, maybe for some people, gamification can help. I cannot deny this. But for me, life already has enough obligations. I do not need a game to know what I must do.
I prefer to do the task, finish it, and not count anything.
Maybe this is old-fashioned. Maybe it is only my way. But I suppose my life is already serious enough without turning it into a competition with myself.
