http://web.mit.edu/nse/index.html does have a link ‘Visit NSE’s blog: mitnse.com’ on their page now though, giving this some credibility

On a lot of different fronts, I think you’re actually totally correct. Over time, we need to start defining very clear legal boundaries about what kinds of data are and aren’t consider in the public domain.

On your last point, though, I don’t agree at all, for a few different reasons. There’s a real problem in framing the discussion in terms of objective “facts” that are or aren’t true, because that’s just not the case.

(a) Start with the simplest example…what if you’re visiting an e-commerce site, get up and walk away, and I sit down and start browsing around, and then go to another site as “you”? Is it still a “fact” that you visited those sites? Is it still OK for that to influence your online experience three months from now?

(b) Hypothetical scenarios aside, we’re talking about data points that are captured through what’s already an _enormously_ complicated and inconsistent set of mechanisms. In a lot of ways, this goes back to my first post about the mistake of thinking about a website as a “thing”…it’s easy to think of a “visit” to a website like it’s the same thing as a “visit” to a store, but it’s _not_. The definition of something that seems as simple and straightforward as a “visit” is actually a total mess, where three different reporting tools for the exact same site can report _completely_ different numbers. That’s based on the rules for counting something as a visit (how long do I have to be inactive before it’s a new “visit”?) to the technology that’s used to track a visit (cookies, session variables, etc.) and just the politics of the company behind the site. To start. (And then what about the fact that portions of the page you’re looking at might actually be coming in from other sources, like a news content provider — do they get to count that as a “visit”, too?)
And that’s just a basic “visit”. When you start looking at the information and decisions that’s being traded about you in the background, like your potential worth, or your likelihood to buy a product (which is already happening), it’s pretty clear that we’re not talking black-or-white “facts”. These are calculated estimates that are being made about you, and that are having more and more of an effect on your life, but they’re not “facts”.

(c) Anyway, my basic point is just that _however_ that information is being calculated, you should (ideally) know that it’s happening, have clarity into what’s actually being tracked and even the right to be able to say “I don’t want that tracked about me”, or “I want that expunged from my record”. Amazon, for example, does a good job of letting you edit the list of items they think you’ve bought, so that you can review exactly what data they’re using for the recommendations they show you. (For example, you can strike out purchases that you really made on someone else’s behalf, so you don’t keep getting Justin Bieber recommendations because of your niece’s birthday present.)
Again, there’s going to be some information that falls into a more “public” record, where we won’t completely have the final say over it. Some of the data is going to judged as legitimate business property of the company that owns the site. I’m just saying (like many other people) that we also need to be an explicit agent in that mix.

2) I agree that the authority / credibility of the recommendation — when there _is_ an explicit recommendation — makes a huge difference. There’s an important, deeper aspect of all this, though, that I don’t think is coming through clearly enough, yet. Basically, these processes are moving _outside_ the realm of our conscious thought, so our “opinion” of the source is increasingly moot. If
(a) your experience of the world — the information you’re exposed to, and even the things you do — is filtered and influenced by these tools without _any_ conscious engagement from you, and
(b) the governing logic of that influence isn’t defined in terms of “ideas” and “opinions”, but through emergent statistical relationships
then we’re talking about a _completely_ different set of forces that are starting to play a role in our culture.

It’s not just that our “traditional” ways of consciously talking to each other and making decisions are getting turbocharged by digital technologies, like you’re talking about. They are. There are also these new, subterranean forces developing, and while I don’t want to get all wild-eyed and alarmist about them, I think they’re really important to recognize and understand.

Thanks for this feedback. It’s really, really helpful to try and figure out how to explain what I’m thinking through this kind of back-and-forth. Really appreciate it.

2. The public (he says derisively) will be more open to recommendations if the trend continues to have celebrity voices do the recommending. I mean, who could ignore C-3PO’s advice, especially when he tells you that it’s what your mom would have done? Jesus, what if the Recommendor has Mom’s voice?!

3. I don’t see how you can equate data about Fred with Fred’s data. If I happen to notice that Fred behaves in a certain way while out in public (for the sake of argument, please ignore the ambiguity of the term), how does Fred own those corresponding facts? In journalism class, I learned that one is forced to relinquish one’s status as a private citizen upon becoming part of a “newsworthy” event, e.g. the paper is allowed to slap a photo on the front page of Fred standing on the ledge of a burning building. Seems to me that the internet works the same way: I don’t own the fact that I shop for certain stuff on certain sites. Facts are facts.

On a kinda-related note, if you’ve never read “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud, then I’m better than you.

As far as thinking in words, or emotions — the basic point is that no matter what kind of mental representation we use to think about the world (whether it’s in words, or pictures, or whatever) the only way for us to think is through those representations. Whether you think about a boat (for example) by thinking the word “boat”, or by imagining the image of a boat, or by recalling the feeling of being on a boat — none of those things are the same as actually being _on_ the boat again. You’re not on the boat, and those are all just different ways of mentally _thinking_ of the boat, without actually being on it.

So, as far as the post-modernists are concerned, it’s all the same. For them, terms like “language” or “text” are very, very broad. Even though I kind of implied that in the post, they really wouldn’t see language as something limited to words that can be spelled in an alphabet. It’s basically the human condition…we don’t really think about the _things_ in the world. Instead, what we really process in our minds are just words or pictures or ideas, that _stand for_ those things.

In the end, though, those representations are the best we’ve got — and if we’re careful with them, they do a very good job of mimicking the real world closely enough that we can make believe they’re “real”.

Going back to my core point, post-modernists would just see thinking in images or emotions as different flavors of the same basic issue. That internal story we’re telling ourselves — in words, or images, or feelings or what ever else — _is_ who we are. There’s no deeper self who’s observing and judging those images of words
at arm’s length, and we’re all equally susceptible to the influences of the larger social conversation.

(And when you’ve got a little more time, definitely check out the newer set of ideas I’m working out collaborative filters — like I said, your earlier comment was definitely food for thought.)