5 ms·
And if we assume attention is valuable, while everything else is valueless, we've been pretty good at destroying what's valuable for what's valueless in the pas
by meric 10y ago
And if we assume attention is valuable, while everything else is valueless, we've been pretty good at destroying what's valuable for what's valueless in the past century.
Some of us pour our attention into games and movies instead of sharing it with those close to us.
Some of us pour our attention into hour long commutes where we spend our utmost effort not to give attention to anyone near us - it might make them uncomfortable.
Some of us pour our attention on those who already have a lot of it, who cannot possibly return it to us - famous youtube personalities, celebrities, porn stars even.
We spend our time fine-tuning our processes to be as "efficient" as possible, from the queue in the supermarket, to the queue in the fast food restaurant, to reduce our shopkeepers and waiters to mere actors following a script efficiently, and in some cases, completely replace them with machines.
We make our workplace a place where colleagues gather for majority of their lives, but make it difficult to form enduring long term friendships.
We spend lots of time worrying about economic inequality but much less time about attention inequality. The only relevant policy we do have is subsidised psychologic care.
It's inhumane to deny human food, that's why we provide welfare. It's inhumane to neglect a child's need for parental love, which is why we place orphans in foster homes (not perfect). And what about adults, what do we do about attention inequality in terms of family, friendship, and sexual partners? We just sort of leave it up to them to figure it out, and then when we read about suicides in the paper, we write a comment "if you feel this way please seek help immediately".
This is a summary of what I find wrong about modern society, and I have no solution besides enjoying the giving of time to those close to me when they ask for it.
We've become a lot more efficient trading away our attention for physical goods that don't really matter to us except to trade in a zero sum game for more attention.
- dsjoerg 10y agoI'm excited to see the phrase "attention inequality". I've had similar thoughts for a few years and suspect that's a fertile line of inquiry. I haven't gotten far enough along in thinking about it to say anything very clear, but I think the relationship between our attitudes about wealth inequality vs attention inequality is important and telling. To many who don't think deeply, wealth inequality is terrible while attention inequality is natural and no big deal. The two kinds of inequality cause each other, which is also interesting. But mostly I'm interested in how our attitudes about one kind can or cannot, must or must not, apply to the other. EDIT: To circle back to your point, I disagree that attention can be "destroyed". I prefer to say that attention can never be destroyed, only shifted from one thing to another. So if you are ignoring your family and playing video games, you have not destroyed your attention, you have instead shifted it to the video game (and its creators).
- meric 10y agoTrue, everyone has 24 hours a day, though what I really mean is the utility of that attention can be destroyed - the utility of 10 hours of your attention for the video game creator is measured in tens of dollars but could be priceless to your children. And I'm happy you are excited to see this phrase. :-)
- lmm 10y ago> Some of us pour our attention into games and movies instead of sharing it with those close to us. > Some of us pour our attention on those who already have a lot of it, who cannot possibly return it to us - famous youtube personalities, celebrities, porn stars even. I think you've got this backwards. Those technologies are ways for the people who have the most attention to give out more attention than they could ever possibly do in person. They're precisely what makes the attention economy positive-sum.
- inimino 10y agoYou're saying that the video game or the celebrity is giving attention to the person watching it? Either I don't understand your comment, or you are the one who has it backwards...
- lmm 10y agoYes. Not perfectly, of course, but it gives them the experience of having attention paid to them.
- meric 10y agoI can see how that's true in MMORPG's, but what about single player games? You could argue they give the temporary feeling of receiving attention, but it goes away when we stop partaking in that activity and we don't receive actual benefits of receiving attention - it was smoke and mirrors.
- lmm 10y agoI think it's the same experience. There's a reason these single-player games usually cast you in the role of someone important, pivotal even. What are those "actual benefits" that players miss out on?
- meric 10y agoWhen you spend an hour with your child, the child matures by another hour worth of your attention. The relationship also becomes an hour stronger, plus you gain memories associated with the hour. With single player games there is only the memory, no relationship building and no nurturing provided. Good observation about most games make us someone important.