There’s a lot to unpack in the categorization of “important secrets”. I’d argue that the secret-est data isn’t actually known by anyone yet, closely followed by secrets kept in someone’s head, not in any vault or hidden compartment. Then there’s “unpublished but theoretically discoverable” information, such as encrypted data, or data in limited-access locations (chests/caves, or just firewalled servers).
Then comes contextually-important insights buried in an avalanche of unimportant crap, which is the vast majority of interesting information, as you point out.
I think I agree with all that. My claim is that the vast majority of interesting+important secrets (weighted by interestingness+importance) is in the “buried in an avalanche of crap” category.
Makes sense. Part of the problem is that this applies to non-secrets as well—in fact, I’m not sure “secret” is a useful descriptor in this. The vast majority of interesting+important information, even that which is actively published and intended for dissemination, is buried in crap.
There’s a lot to unpack in the categorization of “important secrets”. I’d argue that the secret-est data isn’t actually known by anyone yet, closely followed by secrets kept in someone’s head, not in any vault or hidden compartment. Then there’s “unpublished but theoretically discoverable” information, such as encrypted data, or data in limited-access locations (chests/caves, or just firewalled servers).
Then comes contextually-important insights buried in an avalanche of unimportant crap, which is the vast majority of interesting information, as you point out.
I think I agree with all that. My claim is that the vast majority of interesting+important secrets (weighted by interestingness+importance) is in the “buried in an avalanche of crap” category.
Makes sense. Part of the problem is that this applies to non-secrets as well—in fact, I’m not sure “secret” is a useful descriptor in this. The vast majority of interesting+important information, even that which is actively published and intended for dissemination, is buried in crap.