Panetometric comments - Quantities in pain and suffering can be measured in function of external stimuli or events, and of internal modulations. Some such factors are mentioned. Pain can often be measured against a direct external referent, but suffering is too primarily a product of the central nervous system to permit such a direct correspondence. Besides, an observer is influenced by empathy or non-empathy when he or she measures a suffering.

Panetometric comments - In this example of panetometric analysis by Davis, dukkhas (on the basis of intensity level 3, during 15 seconds, for each person exposed to one hi-noise aircraft takeoff) are used to quantify suffering within the framework of a policy-making issue.

Panetometric comments - Galtung asserts that five constitutive principles can be found in the concept of the dukkha unit.
1- Humanism or personalism (Man, or sentience, is the measure of all things).
2- Subjectivism (I am the only judge of what is my situation with respect to suffering).
3- Egalitarism (all dukkhas are equal, there is no worthy or unworthy sufferer despite widespread tendencies to affirm the contrary).
4- Impossibility for dukkhas to be averaged with a supposedly positive counterpart like the measure of pleasure or happiness (people who have reasons for suffering do not suffer less because they may have reasons for being happy).
5- Independence from theories or ideologies (ideas about causes, kinds, or roles of suffering are not taken into consideration).
First applications of the dukkha could lack accuracy, but the measure would still be of immense value because of these principles. For a critique of Galtung's views, see Striner's Quantification and Values : Error or Confusion?

Panetometric comments - Limits of tolerance to suffering differ widely between individuals or cultures, but the "subjective discrepancies in direct and trans-personal appraisals of suffering lie well within quite technically manageable proportions". Social indicators that are already in used could be integrated with newly devised quantitative measurements of suffering to allow for a more comprehensive, thorough-going approach.

Panetometric comments - First, let us recapitulate Striner's position. Egalitarism is one of the constitutive principle of the dukkha unit, according to Galtung, but egalitarism cannot be accepted without restrictions under all conditions : equity, justice, or ethics often call for differentiation between less or more worthy sufferers. Errors in quantification may be allowed, because scientific progress is made through them, but confusion in values may not : since we measure suffering for lessening it, we should take into account not only intensity, duration, and the number of persons involved, but also values. But value-weights cannot be attributed in an objective, credible, impartial manner. Even with regards to value-free quantification, there can be no purely egalitarian measure of suffering : two measurements cannot be compared because there are differences between people, or between external events, or within the same person at different times. Moreover, in so far as suffering is a private emotional experience, the dukkha is perhaps as meaningless, as useless, and as misleading as would be a quantitative unit called the "christo" for measuring a Christian's level of faith! For all these reasons, the best that panetics can do is to develop, on one track, a credible (probably limited) source of quantitative data, capable of satisfying some aspects of a quantitative model, while on another track, since quantification is not the only way to develop a science, panetics should develop a methodology anchored in the use of a values-based model.

For the latter model, Striner suggests to resort to his decisioning analysis, a method that deals with the relationship between values, assumptions and policies in the decision-making process. We can make a connection, I believe, between Striner's decisioning and Boulding's cost-benefit analysis : Striner speaks of what is right for someone and of personal values systems, while Boulding speaks of one's best interest and of identifying what persons are considered when costs and benefits are calculated… Both authors suggest ways to assess suffering as a factor in a decision-making process. Could we make use of a Boulding-Striner analysis in panetics?

Striner's critique of the egalitarist dukkha seems beside the point as far as quantification is concerned : we have to know how much a person suffers, no matter how much worthy or unworthy he or she may be, and problems of individual or circumstantial differences can probably be attenuated by developing more finely tuned measurements or averagings… However, as far as values are concerned, suffering should be "weighed", but then it must be noted that a weighed dukkha constitutes a different unit than the Siu's dukkha, and it should have another name (the WDK?). A suffering is perhaps always more or less inherently negative, but it may be seen as more or less instrumentally positive or negative. The instrumental value of a suffering should be expressed by a weighed dukkha, the weight-value being dependent on the appraiser's preference. About qualitative, subjective, or private aspects of suffering, let us recall, as we do in comments about Whittemore's article, that the role of quantification is not at all to capture the "unsliceable wholeness of feeling and true knowledge" by a means similar to the "christo" unit. Panetometry is only a part of an integrated, evolving study which is dedicated to approach the subject of suffering in all its ramification. In any event, we should handle a gross national dukkha with as much discernment as a gross national product!

In relation with Striner's critique, I see some other problems related to the definition of the intensity component of the dukkha. On this matter, please refer to comments on ISP's document The Dukkha.

Measurement and estimation should not be mixed up.

Aspects to consider in relation with duration : continuity, intermittence, recurrence, rate of change, total duration, mean duration, period of occurrence, episode, persistence, resilience, intractability, unresolvability…

To obtain a quantity of suffering, duration and intensity are needed. Bed charts in some hospitals now give readings of pain intensities : data are taken from patients who are asked at intervals to say how much they are suffering on a scale of 10. In principle, dukkhas can be calculated from such charts. As a rule, the more frequent are intensity reports, the more accurate should be the number of dukkhas, because the duration at each intensity is extrapolated from the reports… The same method could be used to calculate dukkhas in a population by periodical survey polls.

Cf. the Richter scale as a model that can be instructive in dukkhology.

Suffering is a pervasive phenomenon. There is an almost steady flow of micro sufferings in each of us. Low and Medium level sufferings are quite frequent also. Usually, people and organizations who work against "suffering" are only concerned in fact with "high level sufferings". Be it only for practical or feasibility reasons, I believe that there should be two different kinds of measurement : of suffering in general, and of high level sufferings in particular.

The dukkha is based on duration and intensity. These can vary easily and are therefore difficult to measure with accuracy. A more convenient, simple and accurate unit could perhaps be used. On a macro scale, for practical purposes, it is often sufficient to count cases without bothering about their exact durations or intensities. Often,.rather than "wild guessing" to assess a number of dukkhas, it would be more useful.to count the cases of suffering.

Here is proposed a definition for the "panetic unit" : one "panetic extradukkha" (PXDK?) is one case of dysfunctional highly aversive suffering caused by one or more individuals acting through an organization.

Noxious inputs and suffering : cf. panetic modulus. In many cases, we do not have data on felt suffering but on inflicted noxious inputs, and we are tempted to infer the suffering from the noxious input. Such a conversion may be allowed, but many precautions should be taken.

Panetometric comments - Social indicators that are already in used could be integrated with newly devised quantitative measurements of suffering to allow for a more comprehensive, thorough-going approach.

Panetometric comments - Poverty can cause suffering, wealth can alleviate it : is it possible to work out a dukkha-to-dollar scale that would express this axiom quantitatively? Langmuir tries and fails, but he admits that his starting assumptions are questionable. I think that one data he should have taken into account is the psychological surveys which show that as far as subjective well-being is concerned, money makes a difference only below one level of revenue : the one at which you have enough to live. Above that level, more or less money does not by itself make you more happy or unhappy. Seeking a conversion formula between dollars and dukkhas is natural, because we see that suffering and money are linked in many ways… However, I think that a dukkha-to-dollar scale would have to be worked out for every different problematique in which money and suffering are involved… A universal dukkha-dollar correlation is probably nonexistent.

Other objects to measure : causes of suffering, remedies, damages or noxious inputs or threats, social or economical or other kinds of impacts caused by infliction…

Panetic efficiency (Siu 1998 p. 276) : cf. econopanetic efficiency (Geelhoed and Siu "Humanly cost-effective options…) and panetic modulus (Siu1998 p. 278).

Panetometric comments - Boulding proposes an analytic quantitative tool for decision-making that would include non monetary valuation elements, such as suffering, power, security, welfare… I propose to call it the "Boulding's cost-benefit analysis". The tool would work only if no value is considered to be "absolute", and if we formally address the question of "whose" costs and "whose" benefits are to be included in the calculations.

Panetometric comments - It is suggested that decision makers should have panetic estimates of alternative courses of action, i.e. "balance sheets" showing the relationship of financial costs to human suffering (cf. Boulding's cost-benefit analysis). At the time of the siege against the Davidians near Waco, an estimation of dukkhas and financial costs made by Davis showed prophetically, according to the editor's later addition to the Davis' article, that the decision to end the siege should have been taken as soon as negotiations were at a standstill, in order to minimize both cost and suffering.

Panetometric comments - In this example of panetometric analysis by Davis, the concurrent consideration of costs in dollars and in dukkhas brings us very close to a Boulding's analysis. The basis for the dukkhas calculation is intensity level 2, 16 hours per day, for each smoker. The rationale for this intensity and this duration is not clearly stated : we are left to think that level 2 multiplied by a daily duration of 16 hours constitutes a representative "average" of the suffering endured by smokers. I wonder if this kind of averaging should be generally adopted in order to bypass the impossible task of assessing all the variations of intensity and of duration in a given problematique. There would be at least one proviso : the assumptions and operations leading to the average should be clearly presented.

Panetometric comments - In the light of Widner's suggestions about methodology (4 conditions and 4 challenges), and with some references to Saunders' suggestions about connecting people to remote causes of their suffering, Fisher examines the relevance of "decisional panetometry" to the issue of food and drug safety. A good starting point would be to work out panetic tables that describe the complexities and trade-offs of this issue.

Panetometric comments - Bentham mentions seven circumstances that affect the value of a (actual or potential) pleasure or pain : 1- its intensity; 2- its duration; 3- its certainty or uncertainty (how sure are we of its existence?) ; 4- its propinquity (proximity) or remoteness (is it present or more or less future?); 5- its fecundity (how much sensations of the same kind does it necessarily brings about?); 6- its purity (how much sensations of the opposite kind does it necessarily brings about?); 7- its extent (how many people are affected by it?). Bentham's opinion is that quality of life can be expressed as a ratio of people's pleasures divided by their pains. I believe that panetics does not have to share this utilitarianism, because values cannot be reduced entirely to affectivity. Moreover, I think that pleasure and pain are two separate, independent phenomena that should not be considered as two opposites, except in a narrow "qualitative" sense. It is granted, however, that pleasure may be a value which has to be included, along with suffering and other affective or non affective values, in processes of panetic decision-making.

Panetometric comments - First, let us recapitulate Striner's position. Egalitarism is one of the constitutive principle of the dukkha unit, according to Galtung, but egalitarism cannot be accepted without restrictions under all conditions : equity, justice, or ethics often call for differentiation between less or more worthy sufferers. Errors in quantification may be allowed, because scientific progress is made through them, but confusion in values may not : since we measure suffering for lessening it, we should take into account not only intensity, duration, and the number of persons involved, but also values. But value-weights cannot be attributed in an objective, credible, impartial manner. Even with regards to value-free quantification, there can be no purely egalitarian measure of suffering : two measurements cannot be compared because there are differences between people, or between external events, or within the same person at different times. Moreover, in so far as suffering is a private emotional experience, the dukkha is perhaps as meaningless, as useless, and as misleading as would be a quantitative unit called the "christo" for measuring a Christian's level of faith! For all these reasons, the best that panetics can do is to develop, on one track, a credible (probably limited) source of quantitative data, capable of satisfying some aspects of a quantitative model, while on another track, since quantification is not the only way to develop a science, panetics should develop a methodology anchored in the use of a values-based model.

For the latter model, Striner suggests to resort to his decisioning analysis, a method that deals with the relationship between values, assumptions and policies in the decision-making process. We can make a connection, I believe, between Striner's decisioning and Boulding's cost-benefit analysis : Striner speaks of what is right for someone and of personal values systems, while Boulding speaks of one's best interest and of identifying what persons are considered when costs and benefits are calculated… Both authors suggest ways to assess suffering as a factor in a decision-making process. Could we make use of a Boulding-Striner analysis in panetics?

Striner's critique of the egalitarist dukkha seems beside the point as far as quantification is concerned : we have to know how much a person suffers, no matter how much worthy or unworthy he or she may be, and problems of individual or circumstantial differences can probably be attenuated by developing more finely tuned measurements or averagings… However, as far as values are concerned, suffering should be "weighed", but then it must be noted that a weighed dukkha constitutes a different unit than the Siu's dukkha, and it should have another name (the WDK?). About qualitative, subjective, or private aspects of suffering, let us recall, as we do in comments about Whittemore's article, that the role of quantification is not at all to capture the "unsliceable wholeness of feeling and true knowledge" by a means similar to the "christo" unit, and that panetometry is only a part of an integrated, evolving study which is dedicated to approach the subject of suffering in all its ramification. In any event, we should handle a gross national dukkha with as much discernment as a gross national product!

In relation with Striner's critique, I see some other problems related to the definition of the intensity component of the dukkha (cf. comments on ISP's document The Dukkha). Pain researchers distinguish between intensity and aversion (unpleasantness) : a pain sensation may be very intense but moderately aversive! A performer, a mountain climber or a businessman for instance, may sharply suffer but remain in a state of elation, while a depressed person's suffering will be dull but quite aversive. A suffering may be seen as more or less inherently negative, and as more or less instrumentally positive or negative. I believe that the degree of intensity in a dukkha should be formally defined as the subjectively stated degree of intensity of the aversion felt during a suffering phenomenon. The instrumental value of a suffering, even of an "extra-aversive" suffering, should be expressed by a weighed dukkha, the weight-value being dependent on the appraiser's preference.

Panetometric comments - The principal objective of Panetics is to develop and see applied quantitative measures of human suffering that help guide decision-making toward alleviation of that suffering, says Widner. Most conditions (opinion trends, familiarity with social indicators, institutional capacity and purpose) are in place for the use of applied panetics in collective governance. What is still lacking is a method for values-based decision making. This has been evoked in my comments on Boulding's and Striner's articles : weighed dukkhas are needed to decide about trade-offs between suffering and other values, and the chosen weight-values cannot be universal, they depend on different appraisers' preferences. Each context may require its own set of weight-values, not only for suffering but also for other interests involved. In that respect, Warfield's process and systems for taking into account diverse values and expectations can probably be usefully (a Boulding-Striner-Warfield analysis?). What is also lacking for the implementation of applied panetics is an extended set of panetometric tables, like the medical tables presented in Geelhoed and Siu's article. Such quantitative data lists should be developed for spheres other than the medical sphere, like justice, security, foreign policy, education, social services… In addition, regularly-employed social or economic indicators should be integrated into the panetometric toolbox, and this is what we are beginning to do in our forthcoming Handbook on Suffering. Eventually, development of applied panetometry will have to be carried on by universities and governments.

Panetometric comments - Decisional (or normative) panetometry : this is how I suggest to call the study of panetic decision making when quantification is involved. I suppose that in order to develop decisional panetometry we could resort to plenty of works dealing with the use of mathematics in decisions, especially in ethical decisions. A bibliographical research would be helpful. I have a feeling that the field of calculation with qualitative values is still deficient, but that panetics may pretend to an original contribution in the qualitative as well as quantitative mathematical handling of suffering. Though It is clear that decisions will remain made by human beings who cannot be reformed by any means in our possession now, bringing better quantitative and qualitative data on suffering would represent a concrete progress which can lead to at least some ideological changes.

The present Widner's article is akin to Widner's Application of Panetics to Government Decision Making, but it adds new details that are relevant to decisional panetometry. To address the challenge of complexity and trade-offs, it proposes to develop graphical and analytical conventions in the line of those offered by Siu (flow of dukkhas and antidukkhas between entities) and by Langmuir (system of dukkhas aggregation, and curve of concern). For the challenge of foreseeability, it proposes to develop procedures for anticipating and monitoring panetic consequences, and for adjusting decisions. For the challenge of time limits, it proposes to prepare in advance "panetic contingency tables" in much the way military, foreign policy, or natural disaster contingency plans are prepared by policy-planners. For the challenge of conflicting perceptions and values, it proposes to adapt John Warfield's procedures for facilitated "Interactive Management", so as to help individuals of very divergent views to come together, agree on a definition of the problem, evaluate intensities of suffering, rank consequences of inflictions or alleviations, establish a sufficient level of trust to reach consensus on what strategies are likely to ameliorate the problem, decide on trade-offs, settle on a decision, and agree on who has responsibility for implementation.

Panetometric comments - Panetometry introduces a new paradigm in science, with widespread consequences in medicine, government, business, social sciences, jurisprudence (for ex., increased uniformity and "fairness" in the award of damages for suffering in legal suits), insurance (for ex., higher predictability and confidence in the setting of related premiums), etc. I think that philosophy of panetometry would learn much, for the development of the discipline, from what Thomas S. Kuhn and other such thinkers have written on paradigmatic shifts.

Panetometric comments - Bentham's opinion is that quality of life can be expressed as a ratio of people's pleasures divided by their pains. I believe that panetics does not have to share this utilitarianism, because values cannot be reduced entirely to affectivity. Moreover, I think that pleasure and pain are two separate, independent phenomena that should not be considered as two opposites, except in a narrow "qualitative" sense. It is granted, however, that pleasure may be a value which has to be included, along with suffering and other affective or non affective values, in processes of panetic decision-making.

Panetometric comments - In a lecture that is in part relevant to philosophy of panetometry, Saunders argues that, as far as policy-making is concerned, the challenge is not to quantify suffering but to give a new meaning to the concept of suffering in people's conceptual frameworks or mindsets. He suggests valuable ways to do that, but none seems really new or sufficient. Perhaps he has overlooked one thing : could quantification of suffering provide the needed new conceptual meaning? Introducing a measuring "lens" for suffering would surely "makes a big difference how issues are named and framed for deliberation". It could modify views not only in technical or objective dimensions of decision-making, but in deliberative or subjective dimensions as well. As for Saunders' question on what the connection is between citizens and distant suffering, I think it all depends on allegiances (or on what Bentham calls sympathetic bias) : from the self to the cosmos, and between the most far-off past or future, there are various groups or individuals for whom our compassion may be more or less excited, depending on how much our loyalty or devotion to them is a part of our mindset. Perhaps the "egalitarism" of the dukkha, or the "universalism" of quantitative numbers, would have a broadening effect on the citizens' conceptual frameworks! Another, more panetometric answer to Saunders' question could be that the more we let happen avoidable suffering in humans or animals, the more probable it is that we ourselves come to suffer monstrously! In any cases, when it is possible, we should take care to point to the connection between people and the remote causes of their suffering.

Panetometric comments - Bentham's utilitarianism is a relativism because it opposes pain and pleasure, while Siu's negative utilitarianism (least suffering for the least number of people) would be an absolutism, as is the ideology of human rights in the opinion of Hannah Arendt for example, because it favors only one paramount value. I don't think that panetics has to be utilitarian. Values cannot be totally reduced to affectivity like Bentham does, and they do not even have to be arranged in a hierarchy of superiority-inferiority : they can be envisioned as forming an ecological web in which each has its own interdependent function. Moreover, if any (anti)suffering is an absolute value, no "Boulding's cost-benefit analysis" is possible.

Panetometric comments - Philosophy (or epistemology or critical study) of panetometry should take note of the view that "objective quantification for the purpose of control" may be a source of problems rather than of solutions.

Panetometric comments - Panetometry introduces a new paradigm in science, with widespread consequences in medicine, government, business, social sciences, jurisprudence (for ex., increased uniformity and "fairness" in the award of damages for suffering in legal suits), insurance (for ex., higher predictability and confidence in the setting of related premiums), etc.

Panetometric comments - Ten years after Ralph Siu asked the question : "Can we formulate a semi-quantitative unit of suffering for evaluative purposes?", Langmuir expresses doubts and asks : "What would panetics be without the dukkha?". One answer can be found in Striner's Toward a Values Based Methodology for Panetics. Another answer would be to furnish objective, repeatable evidence that the basic concept of the dukkha is valid and useful.

Panetometric comments - A quantitative measure of suffering could have many uses for humanitarian organizations, national governments, international agencies, the international community as a whole, and all those who have to deal with problems related to refugees and displaced persons.

Panetometric comments - Michael worries about accuracy of dukkha measurement : well, a science become more valuable by becoming more accurate, and this comes with time and practice… Let us be optimistic for widespread acceptance of new measurements concerning suffering : in social sciences, it often happens that approximate judgmental indicators (e.g. the Consumer Price index, the poverty threshold) assume over the years the status of objective indicators.

Panetometric comments - First, let us recapitulate Striner's position. Egalitarism is one of the constitutive principle of the dukkha unit, according to Galtung, but egalitarism cannot be accepted without restrictions under all conditions : equity, justice, or ethics often call for differentiation between less or more worthy sufferers. Errors in quantification may be allowed, because scientific progress is made through them, but confusion in values may not : since we measure suffering for lessening it, we should take into account not only intensity, duration, and the number of persons involved, but also values. But value-weights cannot be attributed in an objective, credible, impartial manner. Even with regards to value-free quantification, there can be no purely egalitarian measure of suffering : two measurements cannot be compared because there are differences between people, or between external events, or within the same person at different times. Moreover, in so far as suffering is a private emotional experience, the dukkha is perhaps as meaningless, as useless, and as misleading as would be a quantitative unit called the "christo" for measuring a Christian's level of faith! For all these reasons, the best that panetics can do is to develop, on one track, a credible (probably limited) source of quantitative data, capable of satisfying some aspects of a quantitative model, while on another track, since quantification is not the only way to develop a science, panetics should develop a methodology anchored in the use of a values-based model.

For the latter model, Striner suggests to resort to his decisioning analysis, a method that deals with the relationship between values, assumptions and policies in the decision-making process. We can make a connection, I believe, between Striner's decisioning and Boulding's cost-benefit analysis : Striner speaks of what is right for someone and of personal values systems, while Boulding speaks of one's best interest and of identifying what persons are considered when costs and benefits are calculated… Both authors suggest ways to assess suffering as a factor in a decision-making process. Could we make use of a Boulding-Striner analysis in panetics?

Striner's critique of the egalitarist dukkha seems beside the point as far as quantification is concerned : we have to know how much a person suffers, no matter how much worthy or unworthy he or she may be, and problems of individual or circumstantial differences can probably be attenuated by developing more finely tuned measurements or averagings… However, as far as values are concerned, suffering should be "weighed", but then it must be noted that a weighed dukkha constitutes a different unit than the Siu's dukkha, and it should have another name (the WDK?). About qualitative, subjective, or private aspects of suffering, let us recall, as we do in comments about Whittemore's article, that the role of quantification is not at all to capture the "unsliceable wholeness of feeling and true knowledge" by a means similar to the "christo" unit, and that panetometry is only a part of an integrated, evolving study which is dedicated to approach the subject of suffering in all its ramification. In any event, we should handle a gross national dukkha with as much discernment as a gross national product!

In relation with Striner's critique, I see some other problems related to the definition of the intensity component of the dukkha (cf. comments on ISP's document The Dukkha). Pain researchers distinguish between intensity and aversion (unpleasantness) : a pain sensation may be very intense but moderately aversive! A performer, a mountain climber or a businessman for instance, may sharply suffer but remain in a state of elation, while a depressed person's suffering will be dull but quite aversive. A suffering may be seen as more or less inherently negative, and as more or less instrumentally positive or negative. I believe that the degree of intensity in a dukkha should be formally defined as the subjectively stated degree of intensity of the aversion felt during a suffering phenomenon. The instrumental value of a suffering, even of an "extra-aversive" suffering, should be expressed by a weighed dukkha, the weight-value being dependent on the appraiser's preference.

Panetometric comments - Whittemore seems anxious about quantifiers' mischiefs. We can agree with him that we are in many ways victims of greedy, power-hungry, quantitatively oriented perception manipulators. But as scientists, we must share our belief that quantification is indispensable for modernity and progress. Panetics is precisely a quest against the wrongdoers, including ourselves... Whittemore also questions the validity of quantification for suffering, saying that it cannot capture the "unsliceable wholeness of feeling and true knowledge". Let us recall that quantification is only a part of an integrated, evolving study that is dedicated to approach in all its ramification the subject of suffering.

Panetometry, like mathematics, is concerned with quantities but also with certain qualities (e.g. order in a series, forms of figures, logic…).

Panetometric comments - Panetometry introduces a new paradigm in science, with widespread consequences in medicine, government, business, social sciences, jurisprudence (for ex., increased uniformity and "fairness" in the award of damages for suffering in legal suits), insurance (for ex., higher predictability and confidence in the setting of related premiums), etc. I think that philosophy of panetometry would learn much, for the development of the discipline, from what Thomas S. Kuhn and other such thinkers have written on paradigmatic shifts.

Panetometric comments - The principal objective of Panetics is to develop and see applied quantitative measures of human suffering that help guide decision-making toward alleviation of that suffering, says Widner. Most conditions (opinion trends, familiarity with social indicators, institutional capacity and purpose) are in place for the use of applied panetics in collective governance. What is still lacking is a method for values-based decision making. This has been evoked in my comments on Boulding's and Striner's articles : weighed dukkhas are needed to decide about trade-offs between suffering and other values, and the chosen weight-values cannot be universal, they depend on different appraisers' preferences. Each context may require its own set of weight-values, not only for suffering but also for other interests involved. In that respect, Warfield's process and systems for taking into account diverse values and expectations can probably be usefully (a Boulding-Striner-Warfield analysis?). What is also lacking for the implementation of applied panetics is an extended set of panetometric tables, like the medical tables presented in Geelhoed and Siu's article. Such quantitative data lists should be developed for spheres other than the medical sphere, like justice, security, foreign policy, education, social services… In addition, regularly-employed social or economic indicators should be integrated into the panetometric toolbox, and this is what we are beginning to do in our forthcoming Handbook on Suffering. Eventually, development of applied panetometry will have to be carried on by universities and governments.

Panetometric comments - An extensive literature can be found on the subject of pain or suffering measurement. It is panetometrists' responsibility to establish comprehensive bibliographies, and to review periodically what is published in the field.

Panetometric comments - Social indicators, such as the ones presented by the Miringoffs in their book The Social Health of the Nation, are definitely an important tool for the measurement of suffering and for "decisional" panetometry. The use of indicators in the forthcoming ISP's handbook on suffering will be a first step toward developing a collaboration between us and people interested in social indicators.