There’s an acronym in computer science called GIGO, it stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out. It means that if your process uses a flawed input, the output will also be flawed.
There are three things that people tend to confuse. Those are, data, information and knowledge.
It’s important that everyone understand the difference. You can’t have information without data, and you can’t have knowledge without information. First you get some data, then you analyze the data to get some information and you use the information to gain knowledge.
So, Step One is to get some good data. This can be really hard to do. A piece of data is the result of something being measured. That’s it. Something happens, it is measured and recorded. There should be no bias. But sometimes the measurement can’t be trusted. Perhaps the measurement was performed incorrectly or maybe someone manipulated the results. Unless you personally collected the data, you can’t be certain that it is accurate. And even then, you could have made a mistake.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Assuming the data is good, you can use that data to create information. Most people never see the raw data. Most people don’t have the interest, inclination or technical expertise to analyze data even if they had access to it. So, they trust someone else to make it into information for them. But, unless you can absolutely trust the source for your information, and their reasons for producing it, you can’t absolutely believe what they tell you.
That trusted source used to be the media. We could trust them to verify the data, analyze the data and find the truth. But, the media has become untrustworthy and is no longer interested in the truth. The media has become so biased that it can no longer be considered a viable source for information.
And not all information is based on data. You know those one-chart memes that people like to forward without regard to whether they’re based on sound data? That’s a type of information. Yup. That’s right. Some people just make shit up and pass it off as information. And lots of other people believe it. Then, they eagerly pass along that made-up “statistic” to others who pass it along to still others. It’s quite likely that your “friends” on Facebook and the people you follow on Twitter are your single largest source of misinformation.
Garbage in, garbage out.
We live in a world today where beliefs are confused with knowledge. People who believe strongly about something also believe they are knowledgeable. But just being certain something is accurate doesn’t make it a fact. You can be certain that something you believe is the truth, and it can still be wrong.
So now you’ve got some information which may or may not be true, which was based on data which may or may not be accurate, or, not based on any data at all. How do you take turn that into knowledge?
In a free society, you’d share that information with others and consider its merit. Theories would be vetted, arguments would be debated, and a common understanding or consensus would emerge. It’s the free exchange of ideas that helps ensure the garbage information doesn’t become garbage knowledge.
In a society that is truly free, data becomes information, information becomes knowledge and knowledge becomes power.
Our ability to disagree is the only defense we have against garbage data and garbage information. And our only way to ensure that our knowledge becomes, and remains, our power.
This week, Big Tech has started purging anyone they don’t agree with. And that’s a dangerous thing. Instead of cheering when social media mutes people you don’t agree with, you should be outraged. Because Big Tech already controls the data and they already control the information you’re allowed to see. By eliminating the free exchange of ideas, they now control the knowledge you believe you have.
And, whoever controls the data, the information, and the knowledge, also controls the power.
