I interpret karma as 'moral habit' and less broadly, in a (vaguely) Buddhist sense, as 'the moral habit of de/attachment'. Why 'moral'? Because karma, I think, concerns how one lives daily, moment to moment, and treats – relates to – other living creatures. I suppose my interpretive bias is both aretaic and pragmaticist contra the ancient dharmic, or supernaturalist, connotations (e.g. "wheel of rebirth", etc).

The aspect of cause and effect says to me that there is not a sentient being tallying up a person's score but rather there is a structure that is changed immediately by the 'good' or 'bad' act but the different effects play out in different ways over time. A sort of action at distance that seems accidental but is not.

I think of it like the Picture of Dorian Gray, where the canvas is constantly being updated but cannot always be viewed. The idea that one is reborn under that condition is a tragic one. The song Born under a Bad Sign comes to mind.

It’s like God, where people claim to know God but if you ask them about it they’ll eventually say that God is incomprehensible.

Karma is a judger of good versus bad behavior or thought? Is karma a sentient being that decides what our conduct was and what is prescribed? Or is karma not conscious? — TiredThinker

In Hinduism and Buddhism it is the effects of a person's actions that determine their fate in this life and the next incarnation. Nothing alive, thinking nor judging about it, just plain cause and effect.

Where is good versus bad determined without a conscious being to decide?

Karma is a judger of good versus bad behavior or thought? Is karma a sentient being that decides what our conduct was and what is prescribed? Or is karma not conscious? — TiredThinker

Do you like magical thinking? Since karma is just a concept. Hard to parse your head around isn't it? Maybe our ancestors wanted to say something about the consequences of our own actions. And maybe all that other magical thinking is bullshit (btw, bullshit is a philosophical term. Thank you Harry Frankfurt, for letting me say what I want. Philosophically.).

No.

It seems to me to obfuscate a trivial point, people and life in general will tend to treat you better if you treat them/it well.

But we see thousands of examples to the contrary. And we may be deluding ourselves that we are doing good, when we are not.

Where is good versus bad determined without a conscious being to decide? — TiredThinker

Nothing is decided, you just get back what you gave.

And what decides the value of what we give? Many do things that to many might seem bad and get back what many consider good. If you ask Conan the Barbarian how to behave he would say to be bold and war like because his god favors that behavior even though it doesn't benefit many.

And what decides the value of what we give? — TiredThinker

Mother Luck or Mother Nature if you prefer.

Karma is a judger of good versus bad behavior or thought? Is karma a sentient being that decides what our conduct was and what is prescribed? Or is karma not conscious? — TiredThinker

Karma is a process that corrects imbalances. Karmic injustice being the imbalance of "natural justice" (justice according to mother nature, or "equilibrium").

Not "human injustice" - which may or may not reflect natural injustice to any nth degree, depending on the individual asked.

Thus karma, works in favour of those who already pursue, follow, are guided by, or are already contentedly abiding by nature's design/rule/laws.

Karma does not work in favour of those that ignore, resent it, try to overpower the natural laws of nature in favour of self.

Karma operates on ecosystems, checks and balances. Watch any David Attenborough or national geographic documentary and you will see Karma's set up in action.

Artificial constructs, as it stands, are in part natural and already abiding by natural law, and are in part, selectively deaf, cherry picking and falsely constructed against what nature outlines.

Case in point: when we favour human values like luxury, possession, unchecked consumption and dominance in favour of what nature demonstrates - balance, ecosystem, give and take, subservience to the greater good (that which also benefits other living things), then we are in collective karmic imbalance.

Climate change, is such retribution for that ignorance.
And the irony is we can self correct in plenty/due time and all will be fine, or we can opt to continue to ignore mother nature until her scorn (corrective karma) reaches such fever pitch (heat) as to actively prevent us from ignoring her further, to a point of life or death. This is logical no?

Karma is newton's third law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Ie everything enjoys stability at equilibrium. When forced out of equilibrium, all we can expect is instability and chaos as the system naturally tries to re-correct, and more importantly, certainly will, as the system is much larger and more powerful than us.

Bhikku Bodhi gives a good explanation in this paper:

https://www.tbsousa.org/v11_10/docs/Questions%20on%20Kamma.pdf

Excerpt from Bhikku Bodhi's paper:

The Buddha says:
"Monks it is volition that I call kamma. For having willed, one then acts by body, speech or mind". What really lies behind all action, the essence of all action, is volition, the power of the will. It is this volition expressing itself as action of body, speech and mind that the Buddha calls kamma.
This means that unintentional action is not kamma. If we accidently step on some ants while walking down the street, that is not the kamma of taking life, for there was no intention to kill. If we speak some statement believing it to be true and it turns out to be false, this is not the kamma of lying, for there is no intention of deceiving.