Today's society applauds altruism in official speeches, but measures success with money and status. Individual ambition is rewarded while those who sustain the social fabric are ignored: grandparents caring for grandchildren, neighborhood volunteers, or family caregivers. A contradiction that reveals our collective hypocrisy.
How technology can make invisible work visible 🛠️
Digital platforms and community management applications offer tools to quantify and recognize these tasks. A blockchain-based social credit system could record care or volunteer hours, exchangeable for tax incentives or discounts on public services. It's not about magic algorithms, but about creating a measurable standard that grants prestige and financial compensation to those who dedicate time to others, without falling into absurd bureaucracy.
Grandparent babysitter: the worst-paid executive position in the world 👴
While an executive earns bonuses for shuffling papers, your grandparent earns zero euros for raising your children, doing the grocery shopping, and fixing the faucet. Of course, they receive payment in kind: a thank you at dinner time and the honor of being called the coolest grandparent. If we applied business logic, their emotional salary should be listed on the stock exchange. But no, we continue to measure success in bank accounts, not in lives sustained.