We introduced optimisation in the previous post as a system that seeks to improve performance according to measurable indicators. Yet the most revealing question is not what is measured, but what the measurement does to meaning.
Metrics are designed to guide action, to indicate whether a system is fulfilling its purpose. But in practice, measurable proxies often begin to dominate the very purpose they were intended to represent.
The map can quietly replace the territory.
When Measurement Replaces Meaning
Consider a few familiar examples:
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Education: Schools may assess student learning through standardized tests. Initially, these tests measure knowledge acquisition. Over time, curriculum, teaching strategies, and even classroom culture may shift primarily to improve scores rather than foster understanding.
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Healthcare: Hospitals track patient throughput, recovery rates, or infection statistics. These metrics are vital for monitoring performance. But prioritizing the metric can subtly reorient the institution: speed may be valued over personalised care, efficiency over holistic well-being.
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Technology: Online platforms optimise for engagement metrics: clicks, views, time-on-page. The original purpose — connecting people, sharing information, or providing service — becomes instrumental to the metric.
In each case, the metric was meant to serve the purpose. Eventually, it can start to define the purpose.
Why This Happens
Three dynamics make this shift almost inevitable:
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Focus on what is measurable: Systems must be manageable. What can be quantified becomes more salient than what cannot.
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Feedback reinforcement: Performance on metrics informs decisions, rewards, and resource allocation. Success breeds further focus on the metric itself.
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Entrenchment of internal incentives: Individuals within the system benefit from optimising the metric — promotions, funding, status — regardless of the original purpose.
Over time, the system may continue to “perform well” according to its indicators, even if it has moved away from what it was originally intended to do.
The Quiet Displacement
This is the subtle power of optimisation: the beneficiary can recede without being expelled. Participation may continue. Processes remain formally aligned with the declared purpose. Yet the system increasingly orients toward the metric itself.
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In schools, students remain central in rhetoric; teaching may even be effective; yet the system primarily optimises scores.
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In hospitals, patients remain visible and cared for; yet the organisational energy gravitates toward throughput and targets.
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On platforms, users continue to share, read, and engage; yet attention is captured primarily to sustain engagement metrics.
The purpose survives rhetorically. Its structural primacy diminishes.
The System That Forgets Its Beneficiary, Again
When a metric replaces meaning:
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The metric becomes the object of optimisation.
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The original beneficiary remains, but structurally optional.
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The system continues to function, sometimes with remarkable efficiency.
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Participation remains visible.
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Yet genuine influence over outcomes diminishes.
This is a quiet, almost invisible displacement. There is no catastrophe. No dramatic collapse. There is only a shift in the structural centre of gravity.
What This Reveals
Metrics are tools. They allow complex systems to coordinate, measure progress, and improve performance. But they are also powerful agents of structural change.
Wherever metrics dominate, the question of who is being served — or whether the system still serves its declared beneficiary — becomes urgent.
The logic of optimisation is subtle. Its consequences are often experienced as inertia, routine, or minor frustration, rather than as conscious design. Yet the effects are cumulative and structural.
Forward Look
In the next post, we will examine how capital and financial systems accelerate the optimisation process. We will see how the imperative to maximise measurable outcomes — whether shareholder return, ratings, or engagement — amplifies the structural displacement of beneficiaries.
The quiet unsettling is already visible. Systems can continue to function while their centre of gravity shifts. Participation persists. Meaning subtly migrates toward the measurable rather than the meaningful.
We are beginning to see a pattern. And patterns, once discerned, are difficult to unsee.
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