Summary: Another disturbing way in which Orwell’s 1984 foreshadows our world.
We see the world as numbers. Fixed numbers, such as its size. And numbers measuring its condition: population, income, temperature, and so forth. We measure history by the march of these numbers.
But a form of relativity has infected our databases, as the record of the past changes. For example, the record of economic statistics like GDP constantly change. Large revisions to data years or even decades ago, so that the revised version bears little relation to the original number (which we use for setting private and public policy).
Similarly global surface temperatures frequently change. Not just the current temperature! Older ones drop, recent ones rise. For more on this curious phenomenon see:
- Uh, oh – raw data in New Zealand tells a different story than the “official” one.
- GISS “raw” station data – before and after
- Rewriting the decline
- Weather balloon data backs up missing decline found in old magazine
- The Victorian Warmed Period
- Raising Arizona
- The Australian Temperature Record- The Big Picture
- HadCrut Is Hotting Up – adjustments over a few months
What to make of this? If nothing else, it suggests that we should be humble. What we know might not be so.
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