We Reverse-Engineered San Francisco's Imaginary 'Compassion Credits' Program and the Results Are Deeply Unsurprising

By Karen — Just Karen | Woke Watch Daily

San Francisco has not, to our knowledge, officially launched a point-based municipal compassion scoring system. We want to be very clear about that upfront — mostly because we're genuinely concerned that publishing this article might give someone at City Hall an idea.

But let's be honest with each other. The infrastructure is basically already there. The city has a Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, a Office of Racial Equity, and at last count, approximately forty-seven advisory boards whose primary function appears to be generating strongly worded PDFs. The leap from "we have opinions about your behavior" to "we have a spreadsheet about your behavior" is not a leap. It is a gentle shuffle in Birkenstocks.

So, as a public service — and because nobody asked us to — we have constructed what we're calling the San Francisco Compassion Credits Scoring Matrix™, extrapolated entirely from observable progressive policy trends, city council meeting transcripts, and the vibes we got from reading the local NextDoor forum for forty-five minutes.

You're welcome, America.

How the System Would Work (Probably)

Under our entirely fictional but spiritually accurate program, San Francisco residents would accumulate Compassion Credits (CCs) through a range of virtuous civic behaviors. Points would be awarded, deducted, and occasionally held pending review by a subcommittee.

Here's a sampling of the proposed point schedule:

• +50 CCs — Attending a city council meeting and nodding vigorously during the land acknowledgment
• +35 CCs — Correcting a stranger's pronouns on social media (bonus +10 if they thanked you)
• +25 CCs — Owning a tote bag from an independent bookstore that has since closed due to rent
• +20 CCs — Using the phrase "do the work" in casual conversation without irony
• +15 CCs — Having a sourdough starter with a name and a documented feeding schedule
• +10 CCs — Referring to your neighborhood by a name nobody else uses yet
• -40 CCs — Eating at a chain restaurant voluntarily
• -60 CCs — Owning a car that isn't electric and parking it in a bike lane
• -100 CCs — Asking why the farmers market only accepts Venmo

Accumulated credits would theoretically unlock municipal perks: priority seating at public comment periods, a special lane at the DMV, and a laminated card confirming your allyship that you could display in your Prius window.

Let's Meet the Contenders

We modeled five representative San Francisco archetypes through our scoring matrix to see who would emerge as the city's compassion elite.

The Tech Bro (Score: 140 CCs) He means well. He really does. He donated to three causes last Giving Tuesday and has a Patagonia vest for every season. But he also took a private shuttle to work for six years, once described a neighborhood displacement as "a recalibration of community density," and his sourdough starter died in 2021 because he forgot about it during a company offsite in Scottsdale. Solid score, but the Scottsdale thing is going to follow him.

The Mission District Muralist (Score: 310 CCs) Strong performer. Has strong opinions about gentrification while also accepting commissions from the condos that caused it — but this tension is considered "nuanced" and awards bonus points. Refers to brunch as "a colonial construct" at least twice a month. Tote bag game: immaculate. Loses 20 points for once using the word "vibrant" unironically in a grant application.

The Outer Sunset Dad Who Just Wants to Grill (Score: -85 CCs) He is trying. He really is. But he drove to Costco last Saturday, bought a 36-pack of paper plates, and when his neighbor asked why he wasn't composting, he said "I just don't have the bandwidth right now." The bandwidth comment alone is a 30-point deduction. His children are in a Waldorf school, which recovers some ground, but he referred to it as "the weird school" at Thanksgiving and that got back to the committee.

The Castro Activist (Score: 480 CCs) Near-perfect specimen. Has attended more city council meetings than most council members. Maintains a spreadsheet of local businesses' DEI statements. Once organized a boycott of a coffee shop over a font choice on their chalkboard menu (the font was deemed "aggressively rustic" and therefore exclusionary). Deducted 15 points for briefly enjoying a Netflix show before it was cancelled for problematic content, but regained them by posting a thoughtful thread about his own complicity.

The Retired Yoga Instructor (Score: 1,240 CCs — UNTOUCHABLE) Her name is Diane. She has been in the Mission since before you knew what the Mission was. Her sourdough starter is named Gerald and has its own Instagram account with 4,200 followers. She has corrected strangers' grammar on social media, yes, but also their privilege, their tone, and on one memorable occasion, their energy. She attends every city council meeting. She speaks at every city council meeting. She once made a planning commissioner cry by reading aloud from his own environmental impact statement. She composts everything, including, some neighbors suspect, her feelings. She owns seventeen tote bags. She knows where they all came from. She will tell you.

Diane cannot be touched. Diane is the program.

What This Tells Us About, Well, Everything

Here's the thing about virtue-scoring systems — fictional or otherwise: they don't actually measure compassion. They measure performance. They reward the people who have the most time, the most confidence, and the most comfortable proximity to the right social circles to perform goodness loudly and often.

The Outer Sunset Dad with the Costco plates probably volunteers at his kids' school every Friday. The Tech Bro might be quietly funding a food bank. Nobody's giving them points for that because it doesn't happen in public, at a microphone, with a tote bag visible.

But Diane? Diane has systems.

And in San Francisco — real or satirized — systems beat sincerity every single time.

Woke Watch Daily is keeping score so you don't have to. Gerald the sourdough starter could not be reached for comment but his Instagram bio says he's "fermenting the revolution, one loaf at a time." We believe him.