Zen and the Art of Data Maintenance: All Data is Suffering

Our reactions to the data we receive can cause a great deal of suffering. For example, there was a hospital with an outstanding reputation for being trusted at a deep level by many families. They used data to alert people about various medical actions that they recommended. One such alert was that when a person turned eighteen, they sent out notices to that person recommending they find their own primary care physician.

One letter that was sent out with this recommendation reached a family where the eighteen year old had died at that same hospital two years earlier! The family receiving the letter was intimately involved with the hospital and they were so distraught to receive such a letter at a time when they were still grieving.  It turned out that there were many data quality issues regarding peoples’ date of death that resulted in many other disturbances in numerous families.

There are many other situations where incorrect data can actually lead to bad health outcomes, including death. Examples of these include mistakes regarding drug allergies, drug interactions, or other mistakes in medical information.

Data can be used for many types of nefarious activities. For instance, an article in Wired described how a website stored video data regarding child sex abuse acts and how they used this data in threatening,  destructive ways leading to all sorts of suffering including suicide attempts.[i] We are often bombarded with social media data (both factual and misinformation) that are designed to hold our attention through emotional disturbances such as fear. These are generally intended to elicit reactions or control behavior regarding many matters including purchasing, voting, mindshare, or almost any other matter.

Have you suffered with data? How?

Data is the plural form of the Latin word, ‘datum’, which Merriam Webster defines as ‘something given or admitted as a basis for reasoning or inference’. Thus, everything we receive through our senses could be considered data. It could be numbers, text, things we see, hear, or feel. But how could all data be suffering? What about positive data that communicates increased sales, better health, positive comments, data showing helpful contributions, and so on? Data could be factual or not, and yet, either way, our reaction to it can lead to suffering.

This article will discuss how our reactions to any data can lead to suffering, whether the data is considered good or bad, viewed as positive or negative data, or is factual versus misinformation. To allow us to recognize root causes of data suffering and then provide ways to alleviate it,  I would like to share 8 principles that can help:

This column will address the first three principles and as a follow up in TDAN.com, we will look into the remaining principles.

Many ancient philosophies such as Buddhism, Stoicism and Cynicism, proclaim that the root cause of suffering is attachment. If we are attached and either crave or are averse to anything, this leads to suffering.

Likewise, if we are attached to any data, whether it seems positive or negative, this can also lead to suffering. For instance, if we receive data showing poor sales results, this may lead to disappointment and suffering. However, if we receive data regarding what we think is very positive data such as increased sales numbers, this can also lead to suffering since things change over time. Thus, when sales increase, we may be happy to receive this information. Yet, this sets our expectations higher and when the number decreases in the future, or the higher number leads to something we don’t want, then we can suffer again. I had a friend who was so excited because he was the highest producing sales agent for a quarter. Then he found out that, as a result of his excellent performance, his quota doubled for the following quarter. Thus, in order to receive the same commission as he just had made, he would need to he make twice the amount of sales.