Time and attention are the ultimate currencies. There is a reason why we "spend" the first and "pay" the latter. And while we do indeed "spend" time and "pay" attention, they are unfit as money because we can't accumulate either. There is a reason why using proper money frees up time and allows for an increase in long-term thinking—both individually and for society at large. Money is as important for capital accumulation as it is for distributed cognition, and if the money is broken, both of these things deteriorate. And with it, so does our time and attention. By using attention as the de facto currency online, we destroyed depth and nuance, as well as our collective attention spans. image

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The attention economy has us neatly segregated into echo chambers of personal truths. Ironically, the only truth worth pursuing in the attention economy is how to keep the maximum amount of people maximally outraged for the maximum amount of time. All while keeping participants unaware that they are trapped in an algorithmic prison of their own choosing. image
Yup it's incredibly fucked up.
Gigi's avatar Gigi
Time and attention are the ultimate currencies. There is a reason why we "spend" the first and "pay" the latter. And while we do indeed "spend" time and "pay" attention, they are unfit as money because we can't accumulate either. There is a reason why using proper money frees up time and allows for an increase in long-term thinking—both individually and for society at large. Money is as important for capital accumulation as it is for distributed cognition, and if the money is broken, both of these things deteriorate. And with it, so does our time and attention. By using attention as the de facto currency online, we destroyed depth and nuance, as well as our collective attention spans. image
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Why is attention economy tied so heavily to keeping maximum amount of people outraged for the longest possible time? Why outraged and not amused..happy..? I agree with your thesis and I observe that on X a lot but still can't figure out why masses are addicted to those who literally call them "retards".
Thomas 's avatar
Thomas 1 year ago
Very true points. Love how you are able to often link certain far apart topics together and make intelligent conclusions.
So true the “show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome” It should be no surprise that “we’re the product”… v4v totally turns that upside down though What if my attention is not for sale? Or what if my attention is actually a lot more expensive? I predict as Nostr grows we will see a lot more ways of getting better value for our attention Critically they will be bespoke to the user, individually focused, rather than the centralised tech companies