Story I

"The Game"

In the small town of Harmony, everyone knew everyone. The town had recently implemented a social rating system, a seemingly perfect solution to encourage good behavior. Each resident had a score, visible on a digital badge they wore. The higher the score, the more privileges one had.

Our protagonist, Martha, was a middle-aged woman with a knack for baking the best apple pies. She was well-liked, her score consistently high. But Martha was not just a baker; she was a keen observer, noticing the subtle changes in her neighbors as the rating system took hold.

One day, Martha noticed her friend, George, a usually gruff but kind-hearted mechanic, acting unusually pleasant. He was going out of his way to help others, his score skyrocketing. Martha found it odd but dismissed it as George trying to improve his score.

However, as weeks passed, Martha noticed more anomalies. People were changing, their behaviors becoming unnatural, all in pursuit of a higher score. The rating system, initially introduced to promote good behavior, was now driving people to act out of character.

Martha, being a fan of detective novels, decided to investigate. She started with George. She found that George was not genuinely interested in helping others but was doing so to increase his score. He confessed that he felt pressured to maintain a high score, fearing the loss of social privileges.

Martha realized that the rating system was not trustworthy. It was not a true reflection of a person's character but a measure of how well they could play the game. This was a real-life manifestation of Goodhart's Law, a concept she had read about. The law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Martha decided to expose the flaws of the system. She started acting out of character, doing good deeds solely to increase her score. Her score soared, and she became the highest-rated person in Harmony. But then, she revealed her true intentions at a town meeting, explaining how she had manipulated the system.

She explained Goodhart's Law to the townsfolk, showing them that the rating system was not a reliable measure of a person's character. The town was in shock. They had been so focused on the scores that they had lost sight of what truly mattered - genuine kindness and community spirit.

In the end, the town decided to abandon the rating system. They realized that while it was introduced with good intentions, it was not useful in practice. It had turned them into score-chasing individuals, losing their authenticity in the process.

Martha, the humble baker, had managed to bring her town back from the brink of social disintegration. But in a twist of irony, she was now the most disliked person in town for exposing their folly. The story ends with Martha, sitting in her bakery, reflecting on the strange turn of events, her score badge discarded in the trash.