Best history fact acquired today: apparently in the early Han dynasty the data-gathering necessary to keep accurate tax records was taken very seriously, as the recognized foundation of an operational imperial state.
Specifically, the actual emperor was expected to perform obeisances upon receiving the census and harvest data for the year. The translation of Jia Yi I’m looking at in this paper refers to this as being among ‘the rituals for receiving statistics.’
That’s banger.
Like, considered teleologically as historical context for the surveillance state, less rad! But rituals for receiving statistics. Just!
A whole ritual category for being provided with actionable datasets! That’s some real shit. This is the historical information I’m here for.
Ritual for receiving statistics = Ram in the I/O Tower