Time to Turn
Dear Readers,
This will be a little note, about a big shift in the life of this book I’ve written (and which you’ve said you’d like to hear more about. If that is no longer true, you can unsubscribe here.)
I want to welcome my new readers—there’s a big group of you, thanks (I am pretty sure) to Robin Sloan, who mentioned this newsletter in his own recent newsletter and captured what gets me most excited about DEMOCRACY’S DATA:
“At the book’s core is a question that couldn’t be more relevant to the 21st century, not just in terms of democracy, but also the internet and its vast, watchful platforms: What the hell does it even mean for a person — a real, whole, complex, sovereign person — to be counted?”
Robin’s newsletter went out while I was far away, backwoods camping on a little expedition organized by my partner. We wandered off to Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks to hike, swim, and paddle until it was too dark to hike, swim, or paddle any longer.
Midway through our adventure, it fell to me to move our kayak from one camping site to another, which meant venturing near the lake’s center (where it felt deep, like, really startlingly deep) on what turned out to be a very windy day. Paddling out, against the wind, required a lot of effort. But it was really, really satisfying.
Water spattered my face as my bow sliced through each little white cap, and as I dug into the water, the boat sped on—or that was how it felt.
After an hour of rowing, having neared the lake’s center, it was time for me to turn sharply. From that moment on, the waves rose at my back. They carried me and the kayak toward our destination. I tried to paddle, but the same exertions that had worked so well in phase 1, now resulted in a kayak askew, waves crashing down, pouring a worrying volume of lake water into the boat.
(Don’t worry! We had strapped little doggy life jackets to the two tents I ferried in the back!)
I had to adjust my strategy. I had to feel the wave coming, lifting behind me, anticipating its swell and direction. My strokes became shallow and occasional, steadying my course, so the waves could drive, not swamp, the kayak.
And then we flew: the kayak and I and the life-jacket-wearing tents. We flew and I felt a different kind of satisfaction growing—I felt more like I was one with the lake, letting it do the work, listening for its guidance.
Reader: this is all true. It is also a metaphor about this stage in the production of DEMOCRACY’S DATA.
I actually really liked writing this book. Writing is sometimes a grueling chore. More often, it is an escape. After my child and partner went to bed, after the dishes were done, I could settle in for some time to myself, just me and a text editor. It was glorious, and so satisfying to be doing something hard, and to be seeing progress, like rowing against the wind....
But that is behind me now. It is time to pivot hard, feel the surf, and ride the waves.
Because the book is here.
It is in my apartment:
It is making forays in the wider world:
What's that? Oh nothing! Just the Census Bureau's Deputy Director reading DEMOCRACY'S DATA!!!!!! https://t.co/Po5RxiduqR
— Dan Bouk (@danbouk) August 7, 2022
It is a beautiful object, lovingly crafted by the folks at MCD. I can’t wait for you all to hold a copy, and feel its not-insignificant heft!
DEMOCRACY’S DATA officially appears on August 23. But please do order a copy or two or three for you and your friends ahead of time ;-)
In the meantime, you can still register to watch Alex Hanna, the Director of Research at Distributed AI Research (DAIR, pronounced ‘DARE’), talk with me about all things DEMOCRACY’S DATA and genealogies of data in a conversation hosted by Data & Society’s Ronteau Coppin. It is going to be sparkling. Join us this Thursday, August 11 at 12pm ET!
You can also wait and tune in to hear me talk about the book as part of the American Inspiration series, presented by the New England Historic Genealogical Society on August 30 at 6pm ET. If you tune in to that event and buy a copy of the book, it’ll come with one of these signed book plates, featuring my new 1940 census “COOPERATE” stamp!
I cannot tell you how much fun that stamp is. Please let me sign and stamp your book too!
More events are coming in September, and I’ll tell you about them here soon.
This is my Shrouded and Cloaked newsletter, because I’m Dan Bouk and my goal in life is to convince people that apparently boring things are not actually so boring, and actually really important. I saw something online a bit ago that suggests I’m making some headway, courtesy of my friend Karen Levy. (Karen, by the way, has a very not-boring book coming out called DATA DRIVEN: TRUCKERS, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE NEW WORKPLACE SURVEILLANCE. I’m so geeked to read it.)
Karen called my first book, How Our Days Became Numbered, her favorite book to teach, saying:
It’s really fun to teach, because (and I hope Dan will forgive me for saying this) “1870s life insurance” may not sound especially juicy to a college student—but in fact, the book does a fantastic job showing how developing these seemingly mundane actuarial systems involved having to think very, very deeply about how we value life, and what risk is, and how much we can (and should) predict about the future based on statistics about the past. It’s especially great for students who are studying AI and algorithmic systems, because so many of the seemingly novel questions that come up about fairness and bias in these systems in fact have these profoundly deep roots.
Now, Karen: You don’t need to my forgiveness. Squeezing juice from mundane systems. That’s my brand!
Karen’s entire interview is worth a read!
As is, The Suitcase Clone, a $2.99 novella that I scarfed down this week. It reveals some of the backstory behind my favorite Robin Sloan novel, Sourdough.
That’s all, friends!
Thanks for reading,
Dan
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P.S.
How it started:
How it’s going:
