Agreed 1000 times over. The same problem Big Data has faces statistics in general... a lot of people have been convinced that a tool created to aid human/scientific insight is now the insight itself. And these big-data/statistical insights are rarely useful, except in squeezing out extra business pennies at the expense of human agency.

I can top that, actually. I was dating someone with a Phd in genetic epidemiology who, in the natural course of a conversation, asked me if stars were closer or further away from us than the sun. Like you, I initially assumed it was a joke...

This is absolutely true, especially if you work for a huge company. Big companies that are hooked get raked over the coals, and I guarantee that your SAS licenses are costing you millions every year - yes millions (unless you're academic...). The company I work for is stuck with this very dilemma, where the more programming oriented love and use R, whereas those trained in house with little programming background get stuck in the SAS rut (I do think it's easier for beginners to use SAS, but I wholly agree with you that it's likely stifling innovation). R is still a good intermediary, and will be easier to get up an running for many employees than Python. In fact, check out RStudio if you haven't.

Along similar lines of thought, anything one would want to do privately or openly on the internet can be done right now, given the right software. The author of the blog is envisioning some future where every single thing on the internet has been locked down and sold out, but if we ever reach such a future you can be damn sure it will be arbitrarily easy to declare an alternative net illegal or have it co-opted by corporations. Then will we create yet another one? The point is, you can't keep running to gaps to create the next utopia; you have to keep the main internet open/privacy-respecting and you have to do that within the confines of the system, which is created and changed by the people (us!).

Wrong. For example, Pokerstars will send you a personal check that will have no problem clearing in any bank (it's from some non-descript LLC). If you win a large amount of money, you can have them wire the money directly to your bank. And I bank at Wells Fargo, the most hard-line opponent of working with the online poker sites.

No, you need the surrounding quotes to find his post (first result, too). That's some creepy. brave new world stuff, right there.

What a silly question. I suggest that you google the phrase "google are you watching?".