Thread by @balajis

For the last twenty years, we've gradually been transitioning from the morning newspaper to the daily dashboard.

You wake up & check the metrics. How many unread messages? Is the site still up? And what about revenue?

Now that's finally being applied to countries. Huge shift.

As individuals and employees, we monitor real-time, quantitative performance measures of ourselves and our companies. How many Fitbit steps? What's our growth rate?

Now as citizens we're doing that for countries. What's the real-time impact of policy on health? And on wealth?

Much of the world's intelligentsia is now devoted to developing granular, quantitative, real-time measures of national performance. How well are states doing for their people in terms of health and wealth?

Citizens holding states accountable to numbers. This is a durable shift.

A new development: because the stakes are so high, citizens no longer take what is reported at face value.

"Cuba has great healthcare" = "virus is contained"

Instead, they're punching through. Doing independent diligence, getting shadow stats, talking to folks on the ground.

From Quantified Self to Quantified State!

https://twitter.com/ikonoklast/status/1256417315081670656

One implication is that it's much harder for countries to hide. Either they deliver objective results as quantified by third parties or not.

It's not a new concept. Some have cared about standard-of-living forever. But it's newly mainstream. Drives individual decision making.