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. With In NYT Book Review: The Numerati
Posted Under: The Algorithm Method
As mentioned in the comments to this earlier post*, I reviewed The Numerati by Stephen Baker. That review is out, in tomorrow’s NYT Book Review section — first review I’ve done for them in years, though I used to write for them a lot. Anyway, it starts like this:
Maybe you’re the kind of person who doesn’t believe that the kind of person you are can be deduced by an algorithm and expressed through shorthand categorizations like “urban youth” or “hearth keeper.” Maybe I’d agree with you, and maybe we’re right. But the kind of people — “crack mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers” — whom Stephen Baker writes about in “The Numerati” clearly see things differently. In fact, they probably regard such skepticism as more fodder for the math-driven identity formulas they’ve created to satisfy the consumer-product companies and politicians who hire them….
Here’s the link.
[* Note: The review was already written and filed prior to that post, if that matters to you at all.]
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Reader Comments
Nice review.
It is interesting how we never see the actual algorithms used by the Numerati. Not technical appendix? No greek footnotes? There is too much Numerati fawning.
I like how Baker discusses “FaceBook” on page 104. Is this a new competitor of facebook? Minor aesthetics can be a pain in the ass not only to Numerati, but to authors as well…
It makes me think of the Itchy and Scratchy World Simpsons episode where Professor Fink misprograms his robots and says “mmm I forgot to carry the 1”
Indeed, a good review. (Why aren’t you reviewing more books?)
Funny thing is, not four pages later in the physical Book Review one finds a review of Russell Shorto’s “Descartes’ Bones” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/books/review/Rosen-t.html?ref=books), which addresses — albeit tangentially — a lot of what the Numerati are trying to achieve. Reviewer Gary Rosen writes: “[Descartes’] mind/body distinction, Shorto notes, has long been invoked in defense of ‘an eternal realm of thought, belief and ideals that can’t be touched by the prying fingers of science.’ ”
Later: “Shorto is right about certain enduring aspects of Descartes’s thought. [He writes,] ‘We are all philosophers because our condition demands it. We live in a universe of seemingly eternal thoughts and ideas, yet simultaneously in the churning and decaying world of our bodies. The result is a nagging need to find meaning.”
The first quote might suggest the Numerati are not Cartesians — and as regards their quest, I would agree — but the latter seems to say that, deep down, we all are.
Dr. Horowitz: Yes, actual math is definitely kept to a minimum in the book. It’s interesting to speculate how someone like maybe James Gleick might have approached/evaluated the subject.
Braulio: That’s a great cross-reference! I love thinking about the subject in that context.
As for reviewing, for a long time they just stopped asking me. Then they started again but there were conflicts on the first few (books by people I knew or whatever), and finally this came along, so I said yes. I hope I get to do more again.