Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the Wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the Knowledge we have lost in information?
This brief poem from a man who died years before the internet was even a twinkle in DARPA’s eye has surprising relevance to today and the way we treat data. How so? Let’s get into it.
It’s a sad fact that something gets lost in pretty much every transition, whether it be as individuals or as a society. No matter what, a little bit of the baby always seems to get thrown out with the bathwater. Once more experiences were open to more people, a certain appreciation for the simple day-to-day tasks that make life possible got lost. There is natural wisdom in the life of the villager who works from sun up to sun down every day to provide for his family. As we had more knowledge at our disposal it became all too easy to confuse that with wisdom, with learning how to apply that knowledge in a beneficial way. Now, in the present day, we also have a tendency to mistake having a ton of information available with having actual knowledge. We confuse our ability to Google a fact with actually knowing a fact. Well, the fact is, these aren’t the same thing.
That loss and confusion has perhaps never been more prevalent than in the present day in which we are awash in data. Everything is recorded and stored somewhere, from our favorite movie to our last vacation to anything we’ve ever written down. Even our thoughts in a way are being recorded. Because what is data but an expression of our thoughts? Every action we take that is recorded is the result of a thought we had. If our smart refrigerator records that we opened it at two in the morning it is recording our thought that we were hungry. When Amazon records a purchase of Plato’s Republic it shows that someone is thinking about Ancient Greece on some level. If Kay Jeweler’s records a purchase of a gold ring, it’s a record that someone is getting married. All of that data is getting recorded and stored and in some way it reflects our innermost selves. Yet, how do we use all this information? Do we use it to better understand each other and the world we live in? Do we use it to increase our knowledge so we can use it along with our experience to grow in wisdom? Not usually. For the most part, we use it in a far more crass and cynical way. We use it to make a buck.
Now, as we’ve said, there is nothing wrong with making a buck, the problem comes when everything is directed towards that goal, when everything becomes about making more and more money. Even the money made becomes primarily useful in using it to make more money. That’s a little insane if you ask us.
TARTLE believes that people have a greater responsibility with their data than that. We should be using all of this data to grow as people, to be able to help each other, to build a world we can all live in and with. Used in the right way, all of the data we are generating can greatly contribute to some pretty lofty goals. That takes getting back in touch with the people behind the data, remembering that data is not a mere tool to make money but an expression of people’s own selves. That should be treated with respect and used in a way that reflects that. Then maybe we can climb that chain and regain some of the life we’ve lost in living.
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