Re: <nettime> Proposition on Peak Data

[carlo von lynX <lynX@time.to.get.psyced.org>]

On Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 08:38:03AM +0200, Geert Lovink wrote:
> Peak data is related to the distinct concept of data depletion when the moral cost of ‘surveillance capitalism’ outweighs the economic benefit for the few and society as a whole starts to decline because of an excess of social disparity. Once the peak is reached, the presumption that the better the information, the better the decision-making process can no longer be maintained.

I believe intimate personal data is NOT providing societal use.
It's not like there is a day or an amount at some point when
it stops making sense. It never started making sense. From the
very start it only created disparity which harms societal
integrity. It harms intimacy and privacy of individuals, affects
social structures and ultimately democracy as a whole - if an
unchosen few is armed with the power to predict and manipulate,
be it commercially or politically.

> Dataism itself is a paradigm and the end of its authority is near.

That statement I would hope to turn true, albeit in a different
way than intended by the author (Geert?) - not because there is
so much data in the wrong hands that everything is lost anyway,
but rather because regulators understand the threat of monetising
intimate data and replace legislations that allow for that to
happen on the basis of uninformed de-facto obligatory consent by
legislations that really inhibit any collection of such data in
the first place, by anybody on the planet.

There should still be value in non-human non-private big data
which should be safe to make available to everyone in an open
data fashion, but as long as elections are being won with the
power over individual psychological and political data, open
data is hardly a topic to worry about.

> As a result of the current platform stagnation, indifference, cynicism, denial, boredom and disbelief are on the rise.

I think such sentiments are on the rise because the unchosen
few is manipulating and radicalising a growing piece of human
society who by psychological deficiency prefer to trust such
unchosen few over the structures human society took centuries
to develop (science and independent free press for example).

> If the paradigm still holds that data is the new oil, the next obvious question should be: when do we arrive at peak data?

That "paradigm" isn't true, it's just a capitalist excuse
to collect human data for as long as it is legal to do.
Oil isn't ethically unproblematic either, but at least it has
served to fuel *everybody's* cars and produce *everybody's*
plastic items, and its deficits are threatening human society
from outside (environment), not inside (inequality, oligarchy).
So oil and data are very very different. What they have in
common is that the "peak" moment has turned out not to be
the problem - the catastrophe happens much earlier than that.

> Instead of aiming for ‘data protection’ the solution should be allocated at the source: do not collect data in the first place, dismantle the collection devices, delete the software and uninstall the databases. Then reclaim the royal time/space need to make proper decisions. We have the right to refrain and do not need to be told to forget. Don’t be impressed with the legal Gutmenschen that claim to protect privacy. Leave the data for what they are: symbolic waste. Stop data production from happening in the first place.

Irrespective of the thinking that led us here, it's pleasant
to read that the conclusions are the same. Let me just add
that it almost never works to say "we" shouldn't do something.
It almost always only starts working when the legislator says
nobody can legally do that, and there is way to enforce it.

> Big data critique had its moment.

What does that mean? Just because people had been criticising
the data economy approach for decades already, in fact it had
been illegal in Germany since 1987 and only managed to strive
because that ancient law didn't predict the Internet. Big data
critique has never stopped being absolutely appropriate and
correct. In a world of technological incompetence and radical
neoliberal ideology it just never achieved the position of
moral dominance to manifest itself in legislation as it should.

> It is claimed that data have taken over the predictive ability,
> theory, essays and poetry once possessed.

Interesting observation. Since data is the pure truth about
human society, its availability is inevitably of totalitarian
nature. As totalitarianism isn't something we want to embrace,
the elimination of such data not only reinvigorates democracy,
it also brings essays, poetry, art, media and press back into
their respective roles as gauges of the condition of human
society without becoming any unchosen few's lever to wealth
and dominance.

> In line with Vincent van Gogh’s “Real painters do not paint things as they are…They paint them as they themselves feel them to be,” we need impressionist data approaches.

Another interesting perspective. I would like to think of
aggregation and anonimisation of data in such a way that it
is no longer individual somehow smothers the stain of data
and gives it the impressionist touch.

> INC does not believe in ‘data science’ and explicitly aims to undermine its core belief system: the data religion itself.

That will find criticism when looking at public data like
openstreetmap. Applying data science to the sort of data
that doesn't hurt anyone and invade anyone's intimacy
is probably be quite fruitful for human society. It is
important to always point out the distinction - some data
is fine to process and gather intelligence from, but only
some. Whereas the rest is worse than religion, it is a
dedication to totalitarian practices.

> We unapologetically believe in the subversive power of theory, philosophy, literature and the arts and the ultimate victory of poetry over bean-counting.

Talk to the legislators to make this victory happen.
As long as the belief human society can "opt in" to
bean-counting prevales, social network effects will
force it to opt in, consent and allow the unchosen
few to count beans and rule the world that way.
So, for now, bean-counting is what it takes to bring
despots into power in countries that had been democratic.

> The thesis here is that there is no ‘big data for good’. There is no positive telos. There is no progressive ranking and rating. 

Exactly - when looking at data about individuals.

> As we do not hear anything regarding the disastrous takeover of dataism, we recently started to argue for a defunding of all data sciences and AI research (including its ethics washing operations), calling for an immediate redistribution of research funds.

Happens automatically as soon as the collection of
intimate data is illegal. What remains are only data
sciences and AI applied to data that doesn't harm
anyone, which will probably yield some useful results.

> Data have not been able to debunk antivaxers and no longer legitimize lockdown regimes.

Er.. wait.. data and the ability to control chatrooms
have *created* the antivaxxers movements of today.
Questioning vaccines had always been a fringe paranoia
back in the age of science and reason, aka before big
data and the power grab by the unchosen lords of tech.
Now the inability to interpret and embrace science is
creating significant percentages of human society that
are refusing rationality and prefer exercising free
thinking on the basis of manipulated knowledge. They
may even perceive themselves as free thinkers, but by
the old computer science principle "garbage in,
garbage out", the results of such thinking can only
be humbug - even if their personal thinking is sound.

> There is an urgent need to unmask the ‘neutrality’ of the libertarian male-geek computer science system, and take a stand: dismantle Facebook and Google now, ban Booking, Uber and Airbnb, build firm peer-to-peer (payment) systems and create one, two, many local non-profit cooperatives that focus on distribution as alternatives to, for instance, Amazon.

The vision of secushare.. sigh!

> Let’s design different protocols that end up in the collection of fewer data. Destroy data at the source, and no longer capture, let alone preserve them. This is the real ‘de-automation’ design challenge Rushkoff’s Team Human is facing, in line with Katherine Behar’s ‘deceleration’.

Luckily some people started thinking in that
direction around 2001 when the twin towers came
to the ground. So such protocols do exist. I am
thinking of gnunet but there are many more. Maybe
you didn't mean protocols in a network communication
sense, but the effect is exactly what you mean.

> There must be an exit strategy developed, otherwise there is little else to do than resting on imperial ruins while still locked inside geo-political confinements.

Exit strategy: Simply make such data collection illegal
or even technically impossible, and the new solutions to
implement all the apps people expect will arise quickly.

> One day, soon, people will wake up in disbelief, realizing that data is dead.

You wish. If there is no regulatory intervention, then
one day people will wake up in a dystopia of simulated
democracy and factual data-driven oligarchic totalita-
rianism. The news here is that a single human despot is
no longer necessary to run fascist structures - an
architecture of structures dominated by the knowledge
and manipulatory power of data oligarchs is enough.

> Rarely anyone will remember the data religion.

Or it may be understood as the modern equivalent of
concentration camps and never be forgotten.

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