'There is no mine where you can extract data from the ground. We make them ourselves. “

#privacy #data #Maximfebruari #Syri #rechtsbescherming

Reality is so complex that the human mind is not sufficiently equipped to understand it. But simplifications of that reality in the form of data collections do not bring understanding any closer, no matter how much people would like to. Because these data are eventually produced by the human mind.

'Data doesn't exist just like that, 'says February. 'There is no mine where you can extract data from the ground. We make them ourselves. “

Because of this, he mistrusts when people make choices or think they can make predictions based on data and algorithms. “Against the pretensions of having invented a new system that allows everything to be controlled and overseen, I feel a kind of religious resistance. “

Maxim February

A HANDFUL OF DATA
If you had to reduce Maxim February (56) to a handful of data yourself, that might look like this. He is a lawyer, promoted moral philosopher, novelist and columnist for NRC. He made his debut in 1989 with The sons of the view. His second novel, De literary circle (2007) was about reading clubs and his latest, Klont (2017), about 'data ication' and the unreliability of the public speaker. He is a member of the advisory boards of digital civil rights movement Bits of Freedom and healthcare organization Zorgveilig.nl - Yes.

February was a quarter century together with translator and Gerda Meijerink, who died in 2016. A year earlier, a large part of their house had been burned down. About both events he wrote columns for NRC: 'Now that my beloved is dead, I seem to be alive myself 'and 'Only the wimp body I have, and satisfaction with the world'.

His columns were awarded the Heldringprize for columnism in 2018. A typical Maxim February column starts with a treacherously light opening phrase like “It's always what” or “In the car there are commercials on the radio”. He then palms you with his mildly mocking humour — which he prefers to make himself a victim — and then quietly guide you through fundamental questions and insights. https://www.vn.nl/maxim-februari/