The United States government tracks the likelihood of nuclear war on a 1-5 scale called “DEFCON” (DEFCON 1 means Armageddon is imminent). Did you know that somewhat more parochially, the British government tracks social class on the “National Statistics Socio-economic Classification”, or NS-SEC?
This eight-point scale, first deployed in the 2021 UK census, is used to assign every individual in Britain a numerical value defining their social class: 1 means “higher managerial and professional occupations” — the bottom end of the scale, 8, means “never worked or long-term unemployed”. Naturally, only the British government could develop such an elaborate system for the measurement of class. While other societies are preoccupied with workaday issues like the imminence of the end of the world, the British are obsessed with whether one’s neighbours are a 4 or a 3.
