warm data
All information is grounds for knowledge, whether empirical or aphoristic, no matter its truth-value. We should embrace the scientific-poetic synthesis and informed naivety of a magical realism. Error breeds sense.
Luke Turner • Metamodernist // Manifesto
“When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while the immeasurable, the qualitative, and the things we don’t think to measure drain away. Bedazzled by quantitative abundance, we might not be able to see what is lost, but we can definitely feel its absence.”
Sari Azout • The End of Productivity
A founding motivation for the pair was a belief that the discussion of climate change needed to be participatory, not a one-way lecture. "One of the things that frustrated me so much while working for major environmental groups is this concept that there are anointed people who 'know' and there are people who are 'not knowing'," says Quante. "But
... See moreRichard Fisher • Why We Need New Words for Life in the Anthropocene
Can even the most unfathomable statistic feel real if it's not accompanied by a singular human's story? We need both stories and stats. The hyper-personal and the sense of scale.
Ann Friedman • The Stats vs. The Story
The data collected would enable the organizers to plot “weather-maps of public feeling.” As a matter of principle, Mass-Observers did not distinguish themselves from the people they studied. They intended merely to expose facts “in simple terms to all observers, so that their environment may be understood, and thus constantly transformed.”
Pocket Observatory • Mass Observation
The deep knowledge about a place is most likely held by farmers and engaged locals. But it is not likely to be in a form demanded by policymakers to substantiate calls for spending. It’s not just about quantifying, it’s about qualitative data of the kind that amounts to a form of collective intelligence.”
Creative Destruction • Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #84
“Data only tells you what was.
It doesn’t account for what could be.”
"Palestinians are often pinioned between two opposing but equally harmful tendencies: to turn them into abstractions on a political stage, or to turn away from them because what they’re enduring is too horrendous to truly grapple with
Ann Friedman • The Stats vs. The Story
We are, each and every one of us, a collection of our lived experiences. Our lived experiences shape us, how we interact with the world, and how we live in the world. And our experiences are valid.