Jamais Cascio does his usually great job of mentally exploring the future contradicting the notion that “data is the new oil”, precisely because data is massively increasing in quantity and especially in the face of corporate interests singularly focused on collecting as much personally identifying information as possible. Instead he projects that the ability to obscure inspection of oneself, a.k.a. opacity, is rapidly becoming scarce. Opacity is even more analogous to oil in that it can be hazardous, a pollutant, and difficult to extract.
Cascio proposes three potential opacity regimes emerging in concert and conflict:
- Top down regulation: slow moving and hard to get right
- Bottom up protections: individually powerful but clearly against the interest of large powerful concerns: corporations and governments
- Emergent disruption through pollution: hard to stop, hard to reverse, and chock full of unintended consequences
An interesting thought experiment.