The trailhead: smudging the binary
Humanity rocks, but we're also in an informational pickle.
The current ground
For a very few people (and anyone with pockets deep enough to pay for a sliver), the information world is great, never better, wishes falling into a 'granted' state at an incredible pace. Data brokers have changed how business markets. Their information is secure, and they can look at a rich and expanding sea of others' personal and behavioral data. To them, this is glorious. They can see things coming. They can manipulate the information stream of people to herd them in preferable directions. This is business perfection. The information dichotomy is heady in it's intrinsic power.
This is like insider information on the stock market, but for the whole consumer market. Instead of just making a few key trades for their own portfolio, they can seed information to other investors to also benefit – for a price, before funds are ever extracted from the market. These are the people in on the manipulation; remember, Martha Stewart went to prison because she was shared key data and used it, not because she built the data.
But it goes further: data brokers are manipulating beyond those in their immediate circle. They aren't just opportunistically waiting for a known future state to finally tip into place; they are building the future. They are seeding false trails to targeted income sources they want to make certain decisions. Some will be "stupid" investors, who will also pay upfront, not knowing they've been lumped into income sources. Some will be resource holders (ahem, consumers) that they want to reallocate resources by broker/broker-client design. It's all intended to coalesce into an incredibly impressive haul when the market tips as forecasted.
The data brokers (aka consumer data aggregators), behavioral data analytics, and marketing are working together, hard, to build the whole process. They are not just being an opportunistic inside trader. They are deciding how they want something to shift; plumbing the data for useful leverage points; designing the information environment and arguments; making their official bets (investing); setting marketing in motion; and then watching the dominos tip/cascade (see The Great Hack for one story that has it all). They are the ultimate self-fulfilling prophets, opportunistically trading on dominos they set up.
It's all legal. The closest thing the world has for regulations with teeth is the GDPR, and that gives people in the US zero protection. It's focused on data privacy because that's the data being gathered, optimized, leveraged for gains/loss manipulation, used, and sold.
You're already in it; we all are to some degree
This data is all about you. It's been gathered by tracking, your social media presence, by fun little behavior tests, by intake forms – and in the US, no one ever has to delete it. If you are using fintech, especially the free fintech that has bubbled up in the past few years, there's a good chance the fine print mentioned marketing data. Anything using data for third party marketing is likely being sold to data brokers, so even the purchases you do offline, and your income sources, are being tracked. It's quickly including traffic cameras (Flock), ICE apps, Meta glasses, and more as AI surveillance extends under the guise of immigration controls
I think this is bullshit, and needs to change. But there's still more to it.
It has labeled and categorized everyone. Those labels and categories are focused on how they see you, and according to how they want to use you. To them, you are data, not a person. They are only seeing us as data, with data shifted by applying the right mix of information inclusion/exclusion/lying (manipulation) cascading to money, political power, and resource control. The data is a tool. You are a low-level tool, being used to gather more impressive tools, to be able to control more lower-level tools.
All the human things that give life meaning are either leverage points or dismissed. That family member you love: leverage to make you panic and make mistakes. That despair when you don't have money to pay for shelter and food: meaningless, you're a financial husk bled dry of all use. When you're angry that politics dismisses your concerns: meaningless, don't worry your pretty little head. When you feel lost when you see no way around an environment that has become holistically owned by not-you: meaningless, you don't even register any more, except maybe as trash that needs a final solution.
If a system defines us, it defines us:
- in light of the system;
- as built by specific people;
- with specific intentions;
- that by nature;
- of the massiveness of reality and;
- the finite minds involved;
- has to be a fraction of reality.
In the system designed by data brokers, people are so dehumanized that nothing matters but the data, the biases of those who built it, and the will of those who look upon it. Their intent is solipsistic. If you don't fit the system, they will choose the label that they think is close enough, and which is useful to them.
The power of definition
Data brokers have consolidated the power to define you. They are designing a system that only they control. That system is built to describe who you can be to them. It either doesn't track or ignores the most human, quirky parts of you. It sets you in amber so they can come back in 2, 5, 20 years and use that characteristic they thought useful. It and the people who use the system do not give a shit about any pain that might result, just that the system remains useful to them and those they deem worthy of access.
And the thing is, this is what our databases have done to date. Even the personal data we all fill out ad nauseam are predicated on labels and categories others have built into the system at hand. We can't not be defined by our gender, location, ethnicity, current job, etc. – and that's just the obvious stuckness.
The data is describing you, about you; but you can't have an opinion, you can't easily use it yourself, and it's being sold to anyone who has enough money.
That system needs us to fit in a way that works for the system. People get put in amber. Society gets put in amber. Even if magic occurs and the system is designed with altruism, eventually we'll grow out of it. It's just a matter of time.
And all that opinionated data is building, layer by layer. Each source, each database, adds to the lenses and ersatz confirmation that the patterns are good as-is. All that data builds into our human society – the biggest system we've created to date.
When society is human-first, the implicit mistakes of labels and categories can be seen through and shifted. You can build community, have your pods of friends and family. Life in society (like getting a bank loan for a home, or your next job) can be harder, but you're still in it with others you trust.
When a society is data-first, the labels and categories sway the whole. What doesn't fit, isn't counted, can't find broad orientation, can't be found and navigated to. If the system designers decide they want to actively purge characteristics, the data can be tracked and counted with the intent of finding, navigating, and removing. The binary imposition on multitudinous possibility reduces perception. Your community becomes harder to find, and you can feel like you're in it alone.
This is the deep mess. This is the core of the trailhead. It's time to smudge the binary, to edge data closer to reality. By injecting new patterns built to be nimble, we can start shifting the world the data is building. People will be able to self define.
When people can self-define, humanity can evolve. When humanity can evolve, new large-writ patterns can emerge. When humanity can evolve and emerge, we survive deeper into an unknowable future.
