The document discusses the future of data visualization and the challenges presented by massive amounts of digital data. It notes that data visualization will become ubiquitous and invisible as more data is collected from sources like social media, governments, individuals' digital lives, and science. The document traces the history of data visualization back over 13,000 years and outlines Doug's self-study degree program for learning skills like historical and contemporary data visualization techniques, statistics, computer algorithms, and distributed programming needed to make sense of large and diverse data in the future.