A Billion Wicked Thoughts

An intriguing look into the semi-anonymous data that came from the internet. This book was written in 2010 and has some outdated concepts and data. The conclusions to which the researchers arrive are somewhat speculative and lack foundation in some parts. However, for the most part, an interesting read. I would love an updated version of this book.

Neuro is hot these days. So is teh interwebs, I hear. Add some sex and you've got a recipe for a promising book... but I feel disappointed in this one. It feels hastily tossed together. It definitely wasn't: The text and the excellent end notes all indicate tremendous care, attention to detail. This is a responsible professional work. Yet it still feels unsatisfying, incomplete. The best way I can think of to describe my reaction is by quoting “The plural of anecdote is data”. This sure is a ton of data ... but what is it representative of?

Women are picky; men, not so much. Women like emotional connection; men prefer wham-bam. This may not surprise you. But what does it mean? Is it our nature? Our culture? We have a snapshot of web searches for porn, from a small set of users over a small window of time. That does tell us much about who we are ... but why? Is it our nature? Our upbringing in sex-negative religiously-tainted agricultural society?

Perhaps most importantly: who are the controls? That handful of people who aren't sitting in front of a computer screen entering keywords? What are they doing? What can we learn from them?