Read my earlier entry about the fallacy of self-improvement through polls and rewards.

Now can you think of other systems that base themselves on fuzzy numbers?

• The American educational system.
  
• Wall Street Stock Exchange
  
• Television Ratings
  
• Internet advertising audits
  
• American political system
  
• RIAA and MPAA's numbers reports on the impact of Internet piracy
  
• ?

Heisenberg was right about measurement being unhelpful for predictability. Yet all systems I know use some form of it to justify their existences. It's called Accountability (usually to an outside party, but in the example company, it's a twisted form of it -- I guess it is the Human Resource department's way of justifying its OWN existence).

It's this damn self-interest problem -- no matter what form of self-aware Being you are, you can't help but have a vested interest in trying to inflate any measurement that is the basis of your survival. Self-preservation (Survival) trumps Playing by the rules (Ethics). So does that mean one can rig a system where it is one's self-interest to not lie? Sure, we have Laws (which are just rules) that punish entities for not playing by the Rules, but when the Rules are bought by the larger players, it's doubtful the game is Fair (or at least is less Absurd). Scapegoating is often used to appease observers of the game, to make them think "something is being done, even if it's not helpful." Sleight of hand. Martha Stewart is the latest example -- her wrongdoing pales in comparison to all the other crooks in Wall Street (with close ties to the government). Yet she's an easy target. I think Saddam Hussein/Iraq were easy targets to settle the question of "How will we react to 9/11 given that we can't find the actual perpetrators?"

Fortunately, Wars are not measurable like Ratings... it is not a Sport where you can say "we have more points than you did."