Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don’t need. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder, the founder of OkCupid, uses it to show us who we truly are. For centuries, we’ve relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Today, a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. Data scientists have become the new demographers. Are you a racist? Plainer-looking than you might wish? Inclined to vote left? Big data knows—and it’s talking. Demographers, entrepreneurs, students of history and sociology, and ordinary citizens alike will find plenty of provocations in Rudder’s book. We met up with Rudder at the Texas Book Festival.
