Dataism, New Religion in Town

In his brilliant book, Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari talks about the new religion in town, Dataism. What follows may seem tongue in cheek, but it also reflects present day reality and may well be where we are headed.

What are life forms, including us humans?
“The life sciences have come to see organisms as biochemical algorithms.”
Dataism is just Algorithm 2.0, says Harari:
“(Dataism) expects electronic algorithms to eventually decipher and outperform biochemical algorithms.”

Like all religions, Dataism can “explain” all of human history in a nutshell by giving parallels with its core concepts data and data processing:
1)      More processors -> More population
2)     More variety of processors ->Rise of specialized occupations
3)     More connections between processors -> Writing, money, trade
4)     More freedom to move along existing connections ->Transportation systems, Internet.

So if Dataism is a religion, what are its commandments?
1)      “A Dataist ought to maximize data flow by connecting to more and more media, and producing and consuming more and more information.”
2)     “Connect everything to the system, including heretics who don’t want to be connected…. ‘Everything’ means more than just humans. It means every thing.”. Does the Internet of All Things sound like Hinduism?!
“Hindus believe that humans can and should merge into the universal soul of the cosmos – the atman.”
3)     “The greatest sin is to block data flow.”
4)     “Freedom of information” is the ultimate value! Think open source, Wikipedia.

If all that sounds far-fetched, it probably just means you are old!
“Maybe you don’t need convincing, especially if you are under twenty. People just want to be part of the data flow.”
Think of how much data people willingly share to/via Facebook, Google and WhatsApp and their likes… Isn’t today’s mantra:
“If you experience something – record it. If you record something – upload it. If you upload something – share it.”
Isn’t the first step of recording every experience what datafication is all about? Given the stuff that’s been datafied in recent times:
“Is there something in the universe that cannot be reduced to data?”

And remember, even if it is wrong, Dataism may still take over the world:
“Many previous religions gained enormous popularity and power despite their factual mistakes. If Christianity and communism could do it, why not Dataism?”
Why not indeed.

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