Week 8: My Letter to Coupland

 Dear Mr. Coupland,

               

        I admire your innovation (WONKR) and your creativity with respect to "Freedom Points" is refreshing. Although you attempted to have a somewhat balanced view of big data analysis and its implications, I could not help but be left with the impression that a too distopic a view of the future was cast upon your readers. Perhaps this is the true nature of the reality that is inevitable, however improbable or impossible.   As I continued to read your article on "We Are Data", you talked of "convincing" being an ultimate dooming consequence that awaits us as we travel on this irreversible data path. I however, need further elaboration. Why is convincing worth considering? The power of suggestion has been the nature of human-society-technology interaction, to varying degrees and intensities. To me, this is nothing new, and I am curious to know why we should pay attention at best, and be alarmed or disturbed at worst. If it is an issue of control, don't we have ultimate control to decide whether we will succumb to convincing? 

Best,
Ishanie

P.S. With respect to "the GULP", and society being engulfed in the "data search inequity" and our limiting freedoms, isn't it time we accept the inevitable and or what is? Perhaps instead of "fighting the system", maybe we can figure out a a more feasible, attainable and creative solution?