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Comment by xradionut | Hacker News Reader

Bullshit.

"Big Data" and "Data Scientist" are the latest buzzwords like Web 2.0 and Java were during their ORA hype-r eras.

There is a lot more data. There are a lot more tools and technology to deal with data. There is a need for high quality people that understand how to handle data. But there are no rockstars, there are people that have passion and spent years learning and teaching their craft. But they aren't rock stars. The best may get paid as much as a very well off doctor or business owner, but they aren't going to fill stadiums around the world, sell millions of t-shirts or be targets of media gossip columns.

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My main objection to it is that this rebranding of statistics (and machine learning I suppose) obscures the deep political connection statistics has[1] and in so doing obscures the fact it's going to have major political ramifications across this century. Happy clappy summer of code donations from Google to EFF or the Sunlight Foundation are entirely not proportional to the extremely high level of abuse that could potentially stem from these technologies (see the use of IBM sorting machines in the Holocaust).

Technology at a basic level amplifies agency, certain techniques and their resultant technologies have benefited individuals and citizens more than State agencies and with others it's been the inverse. I think we are moving into an stage where there is potential for massive recentralisation of control in various domains.

But this is HN, not a political discussion forum, most of the 'frighteningly ambitious ideas' to grace these pages are to do with pushing out more ads or other such pablum. PG isn't a philanthropist and YC isn't a charitable foundation; HN is naturally aligned with those objectives.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_statistics#Etymolog...

Thanks for this. It's a humbling comment that puts reality into perspective: there are several ethical and moral challenges we coders are gonna be put through in this century, far, far removed from the Silicon Valley bubble and it's love of ads. And it's this love of ads (read, millions and billions of dollars) at the expense of enriching corporations and tearing down privacy that worries me a lot about our future, if it's going to depend on programmers' current moral standards--though really, it's all human nature, it's not like we're a different breed. But we definitely are more informed than the average citizen, and more of us should take responsibility for increasing freedom and basic human conditions, as opposed to selling social local deals.

As long as we're throwing buzzwords around, why not [self post plug alert!] switch over to Analytics Syndication Services? I've envisioned it as a paradigm shift to align your core competencies. http://tech.theswamp.in/post/2013/04/01/analytics-syndicatio...

And there's a free course online from Sam Houston Institute of Technology!

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