Junk information is growing faster than we can contain it. In the future, everything will be junk and nothing will be meaningful.

Robocalls are my de-facto example for this. They are impossible to get under control because they grow faster than we can combat them. The only solution seems to be nuking phone communications from orbit. It's like that part of the Matrix where the humans blotted out the sun.

The alternative? We don't answer our phones ever, even when it's important. Because of the frequency of robocalls, some people already do this. Junk information defeats actual information.

I'm calling this the "Data Apocalypse", co-opting a term for when we run out of data storage because of accumulation of junk information, but I think it works as a good umbrella term for the future of data in general.

The amount of server space required to store all this data will eventually overtake the amount of atoms on our planet. That's another problem.

Let's say we figure that out, though. We solve it through compression science. Then what? We still have more data than even billions of humans could ever parse through, and it grows exponentially every single day. How the hell can we quantify which is useful?

Instead, we just ignore it because it's junk. Nothing is meaningful, everything becomes junk.

I have no solution for this but I like to bring it up often because I don't see it discussed nearly enough. But it's already happening right now.