In part one we learned about data and how it can be used to find knowledge or meaning. Part two explained the term Big Data and showed how it became an industry mainly in response to economic forces. This is part three, where it all has to fit together and make sense — rueful, sometimes ironic, and occasionally frightening sense. You see our technological, business, and even social futures are being redefined right now by Big Data in ways we are only now coming to understand and may no longer be able to control.
Whether the analysis is done by a supercomputer or using a hand-written table compiled in 1665 from the Bills of Mortality, some aspects of Big Data have been with us far longer than we realize.
The dark side of Big Data. Historically the role of Big Data hasn’t always been so squeaky clean. The idea of crunching numbers to come up with a quantitative rationalization for something we wanted to do anyway has been with us almost as long as we’ve had money to lose.
Read more at I, Cringely
