Re: <nettime> Proposition on Peak Data

[Andreas Broeckmann <ab@mikro.in-berlin.de>]

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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