Who’s holding the Scoreboard (3)? – The Mayor

From Points for Brushing Teeth to the State of Democracy

We began, as we often do, with something apparently small and slightly ridiculous.

The topic was gamification: the modern habit of turning ordinary tasks into games, points, badges, rewards, leaderboards, and little digital pats on the back. I had prepared the topic because Ismar and Ritesh sit in very different worlds. Ismar, retired in Brazil, lives with clear routines, responsibilities, and a deep scepticism toward modern inventions that pretend to improve life. Ritesh, in India, works inside the corporate world, where this kind of thing is not theoretical at all. It is already part of the landscape.

So I opened the conversation by asking Ismar what his first honest reaction was when he heard the phrase “gamification of tasks.” I wanted the unfiltered answer. Did he think it was useful, childish, ridiculous, or something invented by people with too much time?

His answer took us first into education. He said that in Brazil people often complain that school is not interesting enough for students, and that teachers are expected to make school attractive. He disagreed with that. For him, the teacher’s job is to teach, and the student’s job is to learn. End of discussion.

I pushed him a little, because that was exactly the generational edge I wanted to explore. Is school supposed to be entertaining? Is work supposed to be enjoyable? Or are some things simply duties? Ismar’s position was clear: when we try too hard to make everything attractive, we may be shifting responsibility away from the person who is supposed to do the task.

Then I moved the same idea into Ritesh’s world. I asked him whether he had seen gamification in corporate life: points, badges, productivity scores, team competitions, wellness challenges, certificates, vouchers, all the little incentives that companies use to make people feel motivated.

Ritesh had plenty of examples. In previous jobs, people were given certificates for completing tasks, titles like “rising star” or “champion of the month.” In his current environment too, there were quarterly recognitions, best-team awards, best-manager awards, and similar badges of appreciation. He also spoke about hackathons, where developers are given a block of time and the freedom to build something quickly, and suddenly they produce remarkable ideas.

What interested me was the double nature of it. On one hand, such systems make people feel seen. A certificate, a badge, or an Amazon voucher may not cost the company much, but it gives the employee a small moment of recognition. On the other hand, it can become a clever way to get people to work harder without truly rewarding them.

I put it rather bluntly to Ritesh: did he feel recognized when the company gave him a badge or voucher because he worked 150 percent while being paid 75 percent?

That was the heart of it. The badge feels good in the moment, but does it replace real value? Does it hide the fact that the company is getting more productivity at very little cost?

Ritesh acknowledged that. Recognition feels good, especially when one is not thinking too deeply. But when he looked at it more carefully, he saw the mechanism. The company creates behaviour. If one person gets rewarded, others begin to compete. The team works harder. Productivity increases. The company wins.

I then turned back to Ismar. Here was Ritesh’s corporate story: intangible rewards that cost the company almost nothing but increase productivity. Did that fit with Ismar’s philosophy? If a student must learn and a teacher must teach, then perhaps a worker must work and a company must make the worker work. Was gamification simply a modern method of doing that? Or had the world gone completely mad?

Ismar’s answer was balanced in his own way. He could see that gamification might work for some people. It might motivate them. It might produce results. But he did not agree with it. For him, it creates competition, and competition is not necessarily good for human well-being.

That phrase stayed with me: human well-being.

So I brought the discussion back to school, this time through Ritesh. I wanted to compare Ismar’s older, stricter view with Ritesh’s experience of a different educational culture. Ismar’s version was simple: go to school, learn, no discussion. But Ritesh described a more complicated reality. In India, especially with younger children, teachers often have to entertain as well as teach. They joke, sing, dance, and soften the classroom because children may otherwise not stay engaged.

I teased this out because it exposed the modern dilemma. We may not like the entertainment layer, but perhaps it has become necessary. Perhaps attention spans have changed. Perhaps institutions now have to attract people into doing what earlier generations did through duty, fear, habit, or necessity.

Then I brought the whole thing into Ismar’s private life, where I knew the idea would become absurd.

Ismar has a structured routine. He cares for his mother. He manages his own apartment and hers. He has his habits, his solitude, his practical responsibilities. So I imagined some productivity guru arriving in his life and saying, “Come on, Ismar, let’s turn your daily routine into a game.”

I made it deliberately ridiculous. Ten points for brushing his teeth. Fifteen points for brushing them for the dentist-recommended time. Points for breakfast. More points for eating below a certain number of calories. Points for fitness. Points for driving to his mother’s house and avoiding potholes. At the end of the day, he could collapse into bed and tally his score: 453 points today. Could he reach 460 tomorrow?

Ismar was not tempted.

He said it would be ridiculous. I tried to provoke him further. Surely this would help him optimize his life? Surely he could become a better version of himself? Compete with the less good version of yesterday’s Ismar? Maximize his potential?

He asked the most devastating question possible: what is the advantage of that?

I had no real answer. A fuller life, perhaps. A fantastic life. Becoming Superman. But even as I said it, the silliness was obvious.

Ismar said it would simply make him more stressed.

Then I pushed the caregiving example. What if we gave him points for preparing his mother’s medicine? Points for patience? Points for not losing his temper because his sister was not helping enough? Could such a system be motivating, or would it be insulting?

He could not see the purpose. What would he do with the points? How would he even count them? At the end of the day, what would they mean?

That question opened a deeper layer. In corporate life, points may lead to recognition, appraisal, promotion, or vouchers. But in caregiving, what is the reward? A mother is not a project. Patience is not a scoreboard. Duty is not always something that should be gamified.

Ritesh then brought in the Indian idea of karma. He explained that in his culture, caring for parents, doing one’s duty, acting rightly, may be understood as gathering good karma. Not points in a corporate sense, not anything visible or exchangeable, but a moral accumulation of sorts. One does not care for a parent because a sibling failed to do so. One does it because it is one’s responsibility.

That led Ismar to ask a surprisingly sharp question: are the Ten Commandments also a kind of gamification?

At first there was a small confusion, because he said “price” when he meant “prize.” But the idea was interesting. If one does the right thing, is there a reward? If one does the wrong thing, is there punishment? Are moral systems ancient scoreboards?

I tried to answer from my understanding. The Ten Commandments form part of the moral foundation of Christian life. Some violations bring legal punishment, such as killing. Others bring moral or social consequences, such as betrayal. But in the end, I see them less as a game and more as a guideline: stay within the rules, and perhaps you live more peacefully with yourself.

Still, the connection to karma was there. Do good, receive peace, heaven, rebirth, moral balance, or whatever one’s tradition imagines. Perhaps human beings have always needed reward and punishment structures. Modern gamification only gives them apps, dashboards, and badges.

From there, almost naturally, we moved from personal routines to society itself.

I asked whether a country could gamify citizenship. China came into the conversation: points for good behaviour, penalties for bad behaviour, privileges granted or removed. Ismar often laments the condition of Brazilian society, so I asked whether such a system might appeal to him. If good behaviour gave people more freedom, more privileges, more trust, could that help Brazil?

His answer was not simple. He pointed out that in Brazil he may not be watched twenty-four hours a day, but he also cannot safely go downtown at night. So where is there more freedom: in a society with surveillance where one can walk safely, or in a society with less surveillance where danger limits one’s life?

That was an important question.

I pushed the example further. Suppose someone drinks too much, becomes violent in public, and CCTV with facial recognition identifies the person. Points are deducted. Privileges are removed. Perhaps the person must attend an alcohol recovery programme. Would that be good?

Ismar could see the value if the behaviour harmed others. Drunk driving in Brazil is illegal, but many people still do it. They drink, they drive, and they kill people. If a stricter system prevented that, he was open to it.

Then I extended the same logic into more dangerous territory. What if the system monitored what one read, watched, said, or did not say? What if people lost points for reading the wrong book or consuming the wrong information?

There Ismar drew the line. If the system controls what he can read or watch, he is not free. He said such a condition could be almost like slavery. His principle was clear: if you harm others, society can intervene. But if you are reading, thinking, or choosing privately, that is different.

Ritesh was even more strongly against any kind of monitoring. For him, the line between encouraging good behaviour and controlling behaviour is too thin. A system created to catch drunk drivers can become a system to control political opinions. A system that rewards good books can become a system that punishes forbidden ideas.

His point was simple and powerful: why do we assume citizens may misuse freedom, but not assume that governments may misuse surveillance?

That moved us into politics, democracy, and corruption — far away from badges for brushing teeth, yet somehow connected. Because gamification always raises the same question: who sets the rules?

If the company sets the rules, workers compete. If the family sets the rules, care becomes absurd. If the state sets the rules, freedom may become conditional.

I asked Ritesh how a society like India improves itself without imposing one group’s values on everyone. India is vast, diverse, complicated, and imperfect. His answer was very much his own: change must come through education, example, discussion, and consensus. Not simply through force.

He gave examples from Indian history: the abolition of widow-burning practices, the acceptance of widow remarriage, the struggle against child marriage, and present debates around same-sex marriage. His point was not that society should never change. Quite the opposite. But change must not simply be the imposition of one viewpoint by those with power.

Then I turned to Ismar and asked who he was to decide what society should do without consensus. His answer was that he tries to be a good citizen, follows most rules, but does not trust those who rule Brazil. In his view, many are corrupt, and he sees little chance of change.

This led us into democracy. I asked Ritesh whether democracy is good for India, despite all its diversity and problems. He said yes. Some people argue that India became too democratic too quickly after independence, that perhaps stronger control at the beginning might have corrected certain social behaviours. But Ritesh disagrees. For him, democracy gave rights to people who had been treated almost like slaves. It gave voice to women, the poor, the marginalized. Without democracy, old hierarchies could return.

Then I asked Ismar whether democracy is the wrong model for Brazil. He rejected the premise that Brazil is truly democratic. Elections alone, he said, do not make a democracy. If judges cannot be removed, if corrupt people remain protected, if bad mayors survive because councillors support them, if money buys almost everyone, then what kind of democracy is that?

I reminded him that people can vote leaders out after four years. He pushed back: what kind of democracy forces people to endure a bad administrator for four years?

Ritesh then compared this with India’s own institutional problems: election commissioners, courts, alleged manipulation, fragile systems. He and Ismar, sitting in India and Brazil, seemed to recognize something in each other’s countries. At one point Ismar asked whether Brazil was a copy of India or India a copy of Brazil. It was half joke, half despair.

Near the end, I asked them both to look toward Europe, where I was sitting. Three countries, three continents: India, Brazil, and Europe. I asked whether, from their perspective, Europe had got it right — stronger institutions, less corruption, more democratic stability.

Ritesh said perhaps Europe had already passed through the cycles India and Brazil are now experiencing. Perhaps European societies corrected many things earlier. But he also made an important distinction: those struggles happened before mass surveillance technology. Today, technology allows governments to control people for far longer and far more deeply than before.

That brought us full circle.

We had started with gamification as a playful topic: points, badges, brushing teeth, corporate certificates, caregiving scorecards. We ended with surveillance, democracy, corruption, social control, and freedom.

And perhaps that is the sign of a good discussion. The small absurdity opened the door to the serious question underneath it.

Gamification sounds harmless when it means a badge for answering emails or points for drinking water. It becomes more questionable when it replaces fair pay or real recognition. It becomes absurd when applied to care, patience, love, and family duty. And it becomes dangerous when applied to citizenship, morality, reading, movement, and speech.

By the end, I was left with one thought: every game needs rules, and every scoreboard needs someone to control it.

So before we turn life into a game, we should probably ask who is holding the pen.