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Big data: Difference between revisions
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The obsession with [[big data]] has a few implications: | The obsession with [[big data]] has a few implications: | ||
===It is [[premium mediocre]]=== | |||
Firstly it expresses a preference for the ''aggregate'' over the specific, and the ''average'' over the outlier, the individual, the unique or extraordinary. It is to prefer the mediocre, for its weight of numbers, over the isolated vision of a genius and the depravity of the ugliest man. | Firstly it expresses a preference for the ''aggregate'' over the specific, and the ''average'' over the outlier, the individual, the unique or extraordinary. It is to prefer the mediocre, for its weight of numbers, over the isolated vision of a genius and the depravity of the ugliest man. | ||
As surely as [[ugliest man|the ugliest man]] killed God, so did data kill the [[superman]]. The ''will to power'' is defeated by the million-strong dull blades of the ''will to entropy''. It is the ''will to [[premium mediocre]]''. | As surely as [[ugliest man|the ugliest man]] killed God, so did data kill the [[superman]]. The ''will to power'' is defeated by the million-strong dull blades of the ''will to entropy''. It is the ''will to [[premium mediocre]]''. | ||
===It is illiberal=== | |||
Second, in its [[reductionism]], in its funnelling of a dispersed population into an essential homogeneity, it speaks to the underlying belief in a grand unifying theory of everything: a transcendent ''truth''. This, in the [[JC]]’s view, is a profoundly illiberal idea: to be unable to accommodate pluralism is to ''deny'' of pluralism. | Second, in its [[reductionism]], in its funnelling of a dispersed population into an essential homogeneity, it speaks to the underlying belief in a grand unifying theory of everything: a transcendent ''truth''. This, in the [[JC]]’s view, is a profoundly illiberal idea: to be unable to accommodate pluralism is to ''deny'' of pluralism. | ||
===It is noisy=== | |||
Thirdly, to embrace all the data you can find is to degrade the [[signal-to-noise ratio]]. Even if you buy into the incoherent [[reductionist]] idea that the “signal” is some kind of transcendent truth, by | Thirdly, to embrace all the data you can find is to degrade the [[signal-to-noise ratio]]. Even if you buy into the incoherent [[reductionist]] idea that the “signal” is some kind of transcendent truth, by industrialising your data, you risk burying it and if you don’t — if like we pluralists you see ''any'' signal as not just a suitable narrative for your present purposes, the more data you gather, the more possible narratives — conflicting narratives; [[incommensurable]] narratives — you will have. Now this is, for a pluralist, is a good thing: every narrative is a tool in your workshop, the more you have the better you are equipped to deal with the [[unknown unknown]]s our [[complex]] world will surely throw at us — but that tends ''not'' to be what big data disciples are after. | ||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||
*[[Signal-to-noise ratio]] | *[[Signal-to-noise ratio]] | ||
*[[In God we trust, all others must bring data]] | *[[In God we trust, all others must bring data]] | ||