Statistician Simon Raper used Wikipedia and the open source graph visualization software Gephi to create a map of the history of philosophy. For me the most underwhelming aspect of this – and there is something tiresome about enumerating the ways in which things suck – is how it sets up an expectation of awe and wonder – something about the thrill of big data and cybersomething and rhizomatic whatever – when there is nothing to wonder about. It’s just a graph created by a standardized tool which belches out graphs in a way that has inspired awe and wonder in the past. That’s not to say that the map is meaningless or uninteresting, but what is incongruous is that while the map derives its appeal from the subject matter, the subject matter in this case seems wholly subordinate to the process imposed on it.