It thus comes as little surprise that Newsom has been wholeheartedly embraced by conservatives such as Newt Gingrich. He himself says he admires the Tea Party for its grass-roots activism (although not for its politics). Many tech-people share his views on openness and transparency and the positive powers of collecting data. But where and when to stop — do I want a fitness app on my mobile that reminds me of my daily exercise and then have this information cross-checked with my health insurance? My instincts tell me this would be a particularly dim Californian version of nanny-stateism. 

What the case of the "Gavinator" suggests is something else, something which usually gets lost in the European discussions about Big Data. From time to time, it can be productive to think freely about government across party lines and to engage in that somewhat transcendental American way of thinking. I for one have my issues with government being "open", mainly because I think that hierarchies and a streak of well-informed elitism are not necessarily a bad thing in politics. 

Newsom, though, highlights individualism. What that truly means can, perhaps, only be understood in California, it occurred to me at a party on a grand old estate overlooking the Bay. The house and the thousands of acres of land weren't in the hands of one of the many super-rich families of the area (of which there are plenty), but had been rented out to a startup that develops augmented reality glasses. Its employees, all smart, confident and in their mid-twenties, lived in the grounds, as if forming a peculiar individualistic commune — focused and for themselves, and yet driven to pursue a goal collectively. To recreate such an atmosphere artificially, however, would mean not to foster these drives, but to strangle them.