The Score

What Hacker News says

1. jimnielsOct 2026
   I read C. Thi Nguyen’s book “The Score” a few months ago and it’s phenomenal. Incredibly applicable to our modern age of metrics and measurements and organizations at scale.

   (And great quote, thanks for sharing!)

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2. downutSep 2026
   The concepts TT describes are very patiently and pleasantly explained in the recent book "The Score", by C. Thi Nguyen.
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3. kinjba11Jun 2026
   This reminds me of the concept I learned of recently: that metrics and simplified quantitative information has been digesting the world for a long time. Simplified metrics like 'pounds of strawberries sold' take over our value systems instead of more squishy values like 'humans enjoying varied and great tasting strawberries'.

   The drive for 'number goes up' eliminates nuance and we lose something real but poorly quantified and thus not valued. And this dopamine fracking has been happening for a while, is the latest version of that. Whatever gets eyeballs and we can measure getting eyeballs, wins, despite the dystopian consequences.

   The book 'The Score' by C Thi Nguyen goes into this, has given me a new way to see if something I value is actually just a metric I learned and unconsciously am following. He outlines 'four horsemen of bureaucracy' that have replaced more nuanced values: the need to scale (losing nuance and geographical variability), make something mechanical and repeatable (lose nuance and adaptability), replaceable parts (losing nuance, make everything fungible, humans as replaceable), and centralized control (lose individualized voices). These were great in the first wave as they've increased our standard of living and made e.g. mass production of medicine and such possible, but now as more ways are found to extract attention these forces are eating away at our lives

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4. mikpankoFeb 2026
   For those interested in going deeper on this topic, I recommend C. Thi Nguyen’s excellent book “The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game”.
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5. euthymiclabsSep 2026
   The Score, by C. Thi Nguyen.

   It explores why we love metrics in games, but hate them at work.

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