Inchoate text: please do not fork
If I say I trust you to do the right thing (whatever that means) when the time comes (whenever that might be), I'm setting you up to fail and I'm setting myself up for disappointment. If you say you trust me to do the right thing (whatever that means) when the time comes (whenever that might be), you're setting me up to fail and you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Whenever we do something for another - the right thing in the moment, responding to a genuine need - that is worth recording and acknowledging. It is something both parties have reason to record.
Only we, privately, can each know what "the right thing" is - and we can only know that in the context of the moment. Value is subjective and contextual, not something that can be stored and fixed.
When I do something for another, that is equally something worth recording. The help we each give and receive, and the resources we each give and receive, are worth recording so we can settle our obligations - however we perceive those personally - to our own satisfaction personal and subjective.
On the other hand, when we do something for another in the expectation of being able to demand something in return at some unspecified future point, we're not responding to a need but creating an artificial situation open to abuse.
**Cumulative measures, counts and valuations**
When one person does something beneficial for another, that is something worth recording. It may seem small and insignificant at the time, but small acts accumulate over time in a way that is both enormous in impact and easily forgotten. None of us could possibly keep measure of the good we each do for others, and few of us would feel comfortable doing so even if knew how. When we do something in the here and now simply because we see that it needs to be done, we do not do so with expectation of reward and we do not place a measure upon the action. We may not even have the means to understand how much that action means to the one receiving its benefit - but the recipient does.
**Subjective measurements**
The act was not performed with an expectation of reward, and it may have cost the giver little in time or other resources, but the beneficiary may place a far greater measure on its value, in a way he or she has neither the ability or the willingness to explain. Our needs (whatever they might be in a particular time and place) may appear obvious for all to see - but what we see is only ever a small part of what there is. Our needs might just as easily be very very private and complicated, not something we choose to share, but that does not make them any less real. Only we know anything approaching the full nature of our own needs at any time, and only we can categorize and measure them - even if imprecisely.
One reason - perhaps the most important - is that we each then have a more tangible picture of our own place in the dynamics - the flows of "value", whatever we perceive those to be in context - that sustain the communities in which we thrive.
Another reason (probably far less important) is that we each then have a personal record with which to satisfy anyone who might question our value (whatever they or we might perceive that to mean) to the community we share.
**Objective measurements**
What we each choose to record is also subjective and contextual.
A scarce resource needed to satisfy obligations beyond the scope of my community, the amount of legal tender I have avoided having to spend is something worth recording. In this case the adjustment in me records it is "metrically equivalent". If the party accepts a
**Compound measurements**
The reputation of any individual is far more important than any such record in a mutually supportive and well connected community. A poor reputation spreads and sticks, so no-one wants one - especially if that makes others reluctant or resentful of providing what the individual needs. It's better by far to assume the best of people and to allow them plenty of time settle their obligations - privately and to their own satisfaction - before casting doubt upon their willingness to give at least as much as they receive.
An individual further removed from another, especially
Unlikely as it is that anyone would have any reason to want to see such a record
Eudemony arises in the here and now, not in deferred expectation.
**Precise measurements**
**Imprecise measurements**
**Wildly subjective estimates**
TEST???
There are numerous people whom I trust - but I do not tell them that. I do not pressure them with expectation. However, these same people have shown over and over again that they support others with no expectation of reward.
They deserve acknowledgement. They deserve measurement and accounting of their contributions.
Most importantly, they deserve support (whatever that means) of commensurate value (whatever that means) to that which they have contributed to their communities.