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Quantified Self

This Wired story on Quantified Self and how it will help us all is blithely positive to the point of being amusing. The self is fully quantified only when disparate subject areas of data come together to tell a cohesive story about the person. The fact that someone checks their personal email fifty times a day may have something to do with what is going on in their personal life which in turn may be related to their health or that of a loved one (as an example). 

From an employer's perspective that is wasted hours of productivity but without tracing the issue from start to end any decision made is likely to be incorrect. So does it help the individual to  allow access to all data about themselves irrespective of the context in which it will be used ? Just to ensure that decisions about them are taking all relevant parameters into account. And would that not be an egregious invasion of their privacy ? 

If indeed we allow our selves to be fully quantified, there will be a myriad of opportunities for products and solutions to help us run our lives on auto-pilot, think and take action on our behalf. Free up our time to pursue our dreams, passions and hobbies supposedly. Related technology will become our portal to the world in a much deeper way than anything Google or Facebook is currently capable of. So even with all the free time that we get out of this we may not have the wherewithal to be autonomous people capable of determining our own destiny. We will turn to the portal for assistance.

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