The Tyranny of Numbers: Why Counting Can’t Make Us Happy

Never before have we attempted to measure as much as we do today. Why are we so obsessed with numbers? What can they really tell us?Too often we try to quantify what can’t actually be measured. We count people, but not individuals. We count exam results rather than intelligence, benefit claimants instead of poverty. The government has set itself 10,000 new targets. Politicians pack their speeches with skewed statistics: crime rates are either rising or falling depending on who is doing the counting.We are in a world in which everything designed only to be measured. If it can’t be measured it can be ignored.But the big problem is what numbers don’t tell you. They won’t int…