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Everything is already fake. How Western Media and Advertising work is the root cause. Cutting and pasting from the first sentence on MIT's class on the Attent
by cen4 2y ago
Everything is already fake.
How Western Media and Advertising work is the root cause.
Cutting and pasting from the first sentence on MIT's class on the Attention Economy.
"In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan proposes that in paying for space and time in newspapers and magazines, on radio and television, advertisers are effectively buying a piece of the reader, listener, or viewer. And he wryly observes that the ad agencies “would gladly pay the reader, listener, or viewer directly for his time and attention if they knew how to do so.” The absurdity of this proposition underscores the essentially mediated nature of human attention."
The class clearly shows how Human Attention is over exploited way before AI showed up.
All Human Attention is mostly directed towards Consumption, Status Signaling and Accumulation of Wealth through Mass Media/Advertising/Marketing/PR/Influencers etc.
There are examples in history where Human Attention at large scales can be directed towards things other than Consumption, Status Signaling, Accumulation of Wealth. A big one is Gandhi and his influence on a huge variety of people to live a simple life.
But ofcourse the moment charismatic leaders like that exits the stage, the Attention Allocation defaults back to status quo.
So we need very different leaders and a very different kind of Media and Advertising ecosystem to cause shifts in how finite Global Human Attention gets allocated. Lot of imagination is required. Unfortunately our most imaginative minds are in service of financial overlords and rent collectors to sell the plebs new iphones and more Star Wars movies, "experiences" and merch.
- dragontamer 2y agoAre you fake? I'm not fake. -------- The discussion here isn't about traditional media (which has a lot of fakeness yes. But I'd like to imagine that musicians still love music, actors still love acting, and celebrity chefs still like sharing good recipes in traditional media). The discussion here is about social media, of which Hacker News is just one of many. There are certainly brigades who try to push their politics in here. But is that happening yet between you and me? I don't think so.
- cen4 2y agoWhat ever form of Media you take, the purpose is Attention Allocation. You have finite Attention. If you spend 10 minutes paying attention to this story, that time is gone for good and unavailable to be used on anything else. In that sense HN has decided how your attention is allocated and shapes who you are. Since Attention is finite like Oil, Land or Gold there is a big ongoing war to capture or steal as much of it as possible. And all media that captures your attention shapes you. Just like once the British capture the middle east. Their actions shape the future of the middle east.
- intended 2y ago> would gladly pay the reader, listener, or viewer directly for his time and attention if they knew how to do so. At this point, I would rather engage in this transaction, than the myriad attempts to waylay me and my privacy. I’ll watch 1 ad, with full attention, tell you if it was boring or not, and if I liked it. If YouTube has an expected ad show for a single user at 1 every 15 minutes, and the average user watches YT for 4 hours a day, over 30 days, that’s 480 ad views? Assuming that 80% of them are repeats, that means that If I watch about 8 ads, I can be done with it. This is mostly impossible, I know. Still I would rather figure this out, than have to deal with the crap we are dealing with today.