Andreas Broeckmann on Fri, 8 Apr 2022 09:40:12 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> Proposition on Peak Data


Am 08.04.22 um 08:38 schrieb Geert Lovink:

One day, soon, people will wake up in disbelief, realizing that data is dead. The point is not to overcome the dark side of data, regulate IT giants and establish ‘responsible’ governance but to lay networked data amassing aside. Once system maintenance subsides, data gathering regimes fall in disrepair. Relational databases may still exist but one day they will simply stop bothering us. Fuelled by organized unbelief the invasive, sneaky, manipulative side of the measure mania fades away. Rarely anyone will remember the data religion.


Geert's conclusion reminds me of two other encouraging visions of ultimately failing data-collection:


Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski: a.k.a. (2001)

http://josephinestarrs.com/lx/?page_id=17


... and the short fable "On Exactitude in Science" (1946) by Jorge Luis Borges:

... In that empire, the art of Cartography reached such perfection that the map of a single province occupied the whole of a city, and the map of th empire took up an entire province. With time, those exaggerated maps no longer satisfied, and the Colleges of Cartographers came up with a map of the empire that had the size of the empire itself, and coincided with it point by point. Less addicted to the study of Cartography, succeeding generations understood that this extended map was useless, and without compassion, they abandoned it to the inclemencies of the sun and of the winters. In the deserts of the west, there remain tattered fragments of the map, inhabited by animals and beggars; in the whole country there are no other relics of the geographical disciplines. Suárez Miranda: Viajes de varones prudentes, libro cuarto, cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658.
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