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[Zanzetkuken The Great]

...would human society grow more motivated now that there is a common, concrete way to view progress?  What other side effects would show up?

Let's assume the interface contains a menu listing seven statistics with progress bars (Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, Wisdom, Speed), one listing skills, divided into subcategories with new skills filling out when someone discovers them, and one that gives a basic summary of the stats and highest five skills of an individual you are looking at, though it wouldn't apply for photographs/film/television/etc.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm pretty sure we'd skinner box ourselves into insanity.

[smjjames]

You're basically asking, 'what if the world was like DnD with the stats and everything?'

Or possibly pretty much every MMO and tabletop game that uses such stats in existence. And some single player games even.

I'm pretty sure we'd skinner box ourselves into insanity.

What's a 'skinner box'? Edit: oh, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

[Tawa]

Humanity would need to collectively put down the shrooms

Universities and similar institutions would probably change test score requirements for entry into a flat INT or WIS barrier instead.

Dating websites would probably offer different categories to look for people in based on CHA scores. People with high CHA, if outnumbered by low-CHA people enough, would likely become hated outcasts.

Most competitions would quickly become meaningless as a result of being able to compare stats and skills to determine who would win anyway.

Governments would fight over people with maxed-out INT/WIS. The optimal career path quickly becomes pumping all your level-up points into INT, maybe a little WIS or CHA, but this creates a vacuum of strong and dextrous people, making that the optimal career of the next generation. This flip-flops repeatedly over the course of the rest of human history.

Genocides would likely become focused on purging people with low starting stat pools, rather than different appearance.

Depending on how high Wis and Int scores rise due to it being the optimal career path, it is possible that certain ideologies would fall into disuse and be abandoned.

Oh, and forging "character sheets" could become a thing, based on whether or not it's possible.

[Frumple]

Think it'd depend on how stat progression worked, as well as how explicit the stats were about what they did and how to improve them. Like, if everything else remained the same and the numbers were fairly opaque, I'm not sure too terribly much would change, other than the obvious stuff re:stratification and exploitation (muggers probably get a lot more comfortable if they know they have a few times your physical stats and you have no self defense skill visible, ferex, or scholarships being given out based on stats/skills and their rate of improvement.).

Motivation would be really inconsistent, though. Sometimes knowing you're improving and how much helps keep you interested... other times the exact opposite. Generally some kind of uncertainty on that front is ideal; knowing you're improving, but not necessarily how much or how fast, particularly relative to others. It would also likely screw some folks over hard unless the skills were very discrete -- like, just an "art" skill would likely shaft people that are abnormally good at a specific sort, but bollocks at everything else.

Neurology and theology/metaphysics would see an absolute explosion in funding and study, though, just to figure out what the hell just happened to everyone's brainmeats.

[Flying Dice]

Being able to view others' top skills would be top fuckin' kek though.

Would make it a lot easier to make things meritocratic, which would be nice.

Also there's the consideration of whether this supposition would include "uncapping" peak human ability, otherwise you'd end up with a lot of people hovering at fairly low levels of most everything.

[nenjin]

Isn't the theory in practice already a thing with Fitbits? The attempt to gamify health still misses one crucial point: increasing stats in video games is trivial and relaxing. Increasing your stats in real life is laborious and exhausting.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Most likely the explanation side would become flooded by Kurzwelians asserting that this is the result of an ascendant FAI's plan for humanity.

[misko27]

Neurology and theology/metaphysics would see an absolute explosion in funding and study, though, just to figure out what the hell just happened to everyone's brainmeats.

"God was talking to the makers of DnD in Heaven and He was really impressed with their ideas, but annoyed that some of His children denied their brilliance in His name. So He decided to kill two devils with one stone. Now we roll the D20 in His name. Amen."

[Flying Dice]

tfw you know god hates us because he runs the universe in a d20 system :V

[Frumple]

It could be worse. It could have numbers in the hundreds and d3 the only die available.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, the true die of malice is not the geometrically problematic d3, but the very real avatar of pain d4.

[Tawa]

Could've been FATAL. Or deadEarth.

[Flying Dice]

There's another reason to hate d4, too: literally worse than Legos. Satan's dust.

[IronyOwl]

I don't think a ton would change, unless the data was all really, really useful in really, really objective ways. In personal capacities, it'd just mimic and add to unconscious/initial biases based on appearance. In official capacities, it'd just mimic current credentials and metrics.

Remember, one of the major problems with measuring people isn't just that it's hard, it's that people are lazy and the results are wonky. If people really cared about their Str score, they could figure out various metrics for that. If people really cared about their employees' intelligence, they could do likewise. In each case, they don't really care enough to try.

I don't doubt it'd shift things somewhat, but I feel like all the terminology and concepts would be really, really familiar.