WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.540 Okay, I want you to picture this for a second. 00:00:01.780 --> 00:00:05.320 You're walking down a narrow street in Tokyo. 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:08.599 It's a Tuesday afternoon. Maybe you're just looking 00:00:08.599 --> 00:00:11.339 for a quiet spot to grab some ramen. The air 00:00:11.339 --> 00:00:14.099 is crisp. The city hum is pretty low. Right. 00:00:14.179 --> 00:00:15.580 You're in your own world. You're in your own 00:00:15.580 --> 00:00:19.600 world. And then slowly this truck rolls around 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:23.120 the corner. It's covered in neon banners, but 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:25.679 the visual isn't what hits you first. It's the 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:28.019 sound. The sound trucks. I know exactly what 00:00:28.019 --> 00:00:29.440 you're talking about. The sound trucks. Yeah. 00:00:30.769 --> 00:00:32.789 Massive loudspeakers strapped to the roof, and 00:00:32.789 --> 00:00:36.170 they are just blasting political slogans or some 00:00:36.170 --> 00:00:39.350 ad jingle at a volume that, I mean, it literally 00:00:39.350 --> 00:00:41.909 vibrates your ribcage. It's an absolute sensory 00:00:41.909 --> 00:00:44.310 invasion. There's no escaping it. None. It just 00:00:44.310 --> 00:00:46.829 fills the entire street. It bounces off the concrete. 00:00:46.909 --> 00:00:49.329 You cannot ignore it. You can't even hear yourself 00:00:49.329 --> 00:00:51.810 think. And in that moment, your attention isn't 00:00:51.810 --> 00:00:54.329 something you're giving. It's being taken. It's 00:00:54.329 --> 00:00:57.170 being taken. It's aggressive. It's loud. And 00:00:57.170 --> 00:00:59.820 it is right in your face. And that's a really, 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:03.619 a very visceral place to start. Because while 00:01:03.619 --> 00:01:06.079 most of us, you know, we're probably not dodging 00:01:06.079 --> 00:01:08.640 sound trucks in Tokyo today. Yeah. That feeling, 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:11.620 that inability to shut out the noise, it's the 00:01:11.620 --> 00:01:13.659 perfect physical metaphor for what we're digging 00:01:13.659 --> 00:01:15.439 into. Because that truck isn't just annoying 00:01:15.439 --> 00:01:18.200 you, it's a thief. Right. And that's the key 00:01:18.200 --> 00:01:20.900 concept, attention theft. It sounds a little 00:01:20.900 --> 00:01:22.900 abstract until you realize you're carrying a 00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:24.760 miniature version of that sound truck in your 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:27.870 pocket every single day. Which brings us to the 00:01:27.870 --> 00:01:31.989 mission for this deep dive. We have a massive 00:01:31.989 --> 00:01:34.209 stack of sources today. We're talking economic 00:01:34.209 --> 00:01:36.730 theory, some pretty heavy psychology studies, 00:01:36.870 --> 00:01:39.069 the history of information management, and even 00:01:39.069 --> 00:01:41.230 some Wikipedia dives on Internet culture. Yeah, 00:01:41.269 --> 00:01:44.250 it's a big pile. It is. And we are going to unpack 00:01:44.250 --> 00:01:47.650 the attention economy. It's a term that gets 00:01:47.650 --> 00:01:49.530 thrown around a lot, you know, at dinner parties 00:01:49.530 --> 00:01:51.409 or in tech articles. Oh, it's just the attention 00:01:51.409 --> 00:01:53.769 economy. Right. It's become a bit of a buzzword. 00:01:54.090 --> 00:01:56.290 It has. But when you actually dig into the source 00:01:56.290 --> 00:01:58.870 material, you realize it's not just a buzzword. 00:01:59.129 --> 00:02:02.769 It is a fundamental tectonic shift in how our 00:02:02.769 --> 00:02:05.849 world assigns value. That's what struck me most 00:02:05.849 --> 00:02:08.250 going through all of this. We usually think of 00:02:08.250 --> 00:02:10.590 economies as being about, you know, money or 00:02:10.590 --> 00:02:14.229 oil or labor. But in this framework, the currency. 00:02:15.050 --> 00:02:17.830 is us. It's our focus. Yeah. Our consciousness. 00:02:18.189 --> 00:02:20.550 Precisely. So if we really want to understand 00:02:20.550 --> 00:02:22.750 why we feel so overwhelmed all the time, why 00:02:22.750 --> 00:02:25.330 those free apps are actually costing us a fortune 00:02:25.330 --> 00:02:28.210 and how this model is reshaping everything from 00:02:28.210 --> 00:02:31.310 scientific research to social justice, we have 00:02:31.310 --> 00:02:33.569 to follow the money. Or in this case. Let's fall 00:02:33.569 --> 00:02:35.550 the eyes. Okay, let's unpack this. I want to 00:02:35.550 --> 00:02:37.530 start with the basics because the sources make 00:02:37.530 --> 00:02:39.210 a really interesting distinction right off the 00:02:39.210 --> 00:02:41.349 bat about what attention actually is. Because 00:02:41.349 --> 00:02:42.830 I think I know what it is. It's me looking at 00:02:42.830 --> 00:02:45.569 something. But the economic definition is it's 00:02:45.569 --> 00:02:47.789 a lot more specific. It is. If you look at the 00:02:47.789 --> 00:02:51.629 work of Matthew Crawford, he frames attention 00:02:51.629 --> 00:02:55.129 strictly as a resource. And the defining characteristic 00:02:55.129 --> 00:02:58.550 of any resource is that it's finite. Like oil 00:02:58.550 --> 00:03:02.289 or gold or time. Exactly. You do not have an 00:03:02.289 --> 00:03:05.129 infinite supply of focus. Davenport and Beck, 00:03:05.289 --> 00:03:07.629 who wrote one of the seminal books on this, they 00:03:07.629 --> 00:03:11.550 define it as focused mental engagement on a particular 00:03:11.550 --> 00:03:15.710 item of information. Okay. Focused mental engagement. 00:03:15.750 --> 00:03:18.469 But here's the kicker. They argue that attention 00:03:18.469 --> 00:03:22.280 is the necessary precursor to action. Which makes 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:24.360 sense. I can't buy the shoes if I haven't seen 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:26.379 the ad for the shoes. I can't vote for the candidate 00:03:26.379 --> 00:03:28.580 if I've never even heard their speech. Right. 00:03:28.659 --> 00:03:31.400 So in any marketplace, whoever controls the attention, 00:03:31.659 --> 00:03:34.939 they ultimately control the action. If you control 00:03:34.939 --> 00:03:37.180 the precursor, you have an incredible amount 00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:39.659 of influence over the outcome. But here's where 00:03:39.659 --> 00:03:41.599 the history just gets wild for me. I honestly 00:03:41.599 --> 00:03:44.639 assumed this whole attention economy thing was 00:03:44.639 --> 00:03:46.900 a product of, what, the iPhone era? Yeah, or 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:49.400 the dot -com boom at the earliest. Right. But 00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:52.560 the sources, they took us back to 1971. Herber 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:55.620 Day Simon. 1971. I mean, we are talking about 00:03:55.620 --> 00:03:58.840 a world of rotary phones and like three TV channels. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:01.580 What on earth could he have seen back then that 00:04:01.580 --> 00:04:03.900 predicts where we are right now? Simon was a 00:04:03.900 --> 00:04:06.639 Nobel laureate, a psychologist and an economist. 00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:10.099 And honestly, reading his work today, it feels 00:04:10.099 --> 00:04:13.460 like reading a prophecy. He saw the very, very 00:04:13.460 --> 00:04:15.680 beginning of the computer age, the first hints 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:18.529 of the information explosion. And he wrote something 00:04:18.529 --> 00:04:20.769 that is basically the founding scripture of this 00:04:20.769 --> 00:04:22.829 entire field. He really did. I have the quote 00:04:22.829 --> 00:04:25.930 here. It's just it's fantastic. He said, in an 00:04:25.930 --> 00:04:28.329 information rich world, the wealth of information 00:04:28.329 --> 00:04:32.209 means a dearth of something else. A poverty of 00:04:32.209 --> 00:04:34.790 attention. A poverty of attention. A wealth of 00:04:34.790 --> 00:04:37.189 one thing creates a poverty of another. It's 00:04:37.189 --> 00:04:40.899 a seesaw. It's so elegant and it completely flips 00:04:40.899 --> 00:04:43.779 the historical script because for literally all 00:04:43.779 --> 00:04:45.959 of human history, the problem was the opposite. 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.180 Exactly. If you were a scholar in, I don't know, 00:04:48.220 --> 00:04:51.779 1850 or a business owner in 1920, your biggest 00:04:51.779 --> 00:04:54.439 challenge was information scarcity. You couldn't 00:04:54.439 --> 00:04:56.600 find the data. You couldn't get the book from 00:04:56.600 --> 00:04:58.279 the other library. You didn't know the price 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:01.050 of grain in the next town over. So naturally, 00:05:01.170 --> 00:05:04.009 we spent the last century building systems to 00:05:04.009 --> 00:05:06.470 solve that one problem. We built libraries, then 00:05:06.470 --> 00:05:09.029 the telegraph, then radio TV, and then, you know, 00:05:09.050 --> 00:05:12.149 the internet. We designed the entire world to 00:05:12.149 --> 00:05:14.449 flood us with information. And we succeeded. 00:05:14.589 --> 00:05:16.930 Man, did we succeed. We succeeded too well. We 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:19.730 completely overshot the target. Simon's whole 00:05:19.730 --> 00:05:22.129 point was that we kept building systems to produce 00:05:22.129 --> 00:05:24.850 and distribute information, when we should have 00:05:24.850 --> 00:05:27.949 pitted it decades ago to building systems that 00:05:27.949 --> 00:05:30.500 filter information. And because we never made 00:05:30.500 --> 00:05:34.139 that pivot, we are now just we're drowning. We 00:05:34.139 --> 00:05:36.139 are all trying to drink from a fire hose because 00:05:36.139 --> 00:05:38.399 we designed a faucet that can never, ever be 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:40.939 turned off. And that feeling, that sense of drowning 00:05:40.939 --> 00:05:44.399 is where the economics really kick in. And this 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:46.720 leads us to the next big concept from the sources, 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:49.540 this idea of mental capitalism. This was the 00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:51.259 part of the research that started to feel a little. 00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:54.259 a little dystopian to me. This idea from Michael 00:05:54.259 --> 00:05:56.920 Goldhaber and Georg Frank in the late 90s, they 00:05:56.920 --> 00:05:58.819 weren't just saying attention is important. They 00:05:58.819 --> 00:06:00.540 were saying it would actually replace money. 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:04.019 In a sense, yeah. Goldhaber's prediction was 00:06:04.019 --> 00:06:06.259 that as we move deeper and deeper into this information 00:06:06.259 --> 00:06:09.540 age, transactions that involve attention would 00:06:09.540 --> 00:06:12.439 just grow much faster than purely financial transactions. 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:14.920 And eventually, attention becomes the primary 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:18.170 currency. For many sectors, yes. I mean, think 00:06:18.170 --> 00:06:20.750 about it. For a media company or a social media 00:06:20.750 --> 00:06:24.170 influencer or even a modern politician, income 00:06:24.170 --> 00:06:27.209 and attention often ranks higher in importance 00:06:27.209 --> 00:06:30.490 than immediate financial income. Because if you 00:06:30.490 --> 00:06:32.470 have the attention, you can always figure out 00:06:32.470 --> 00:06:35.050 a way to get the money later. But if you have 00:06:35.050 --> 00:06:37.009 all the money in the world and no one is paying 00:06:37.009 --> 00:06:38.930 attention to you... You're dead in the water. 00:06:39.050 --> 00:06:42.649 You don't exist. In this model, the eyeballs 00:06:42.649 --> 00:06:44.709 aren't just a step in the sales funnel anymore. 00:06:44.769 --> 00:06:46.980 They are the wallet. You're paying with your 00:06:46.980 --> 00:06:49.500 time and your focus. Which is a terrifying thought 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:51.439 because I can always go out and make more money. 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:54.040 I absolutely cannot make more time. And that 00:06:54.040 --> 00:06:55.720 brings us right to the biological mechanism. 00:06:56.220 --> 00:06:58.540 Because if attention is this finite, valuable 00:06:58.540 --> 00:07:01.500 resource, and everyone is trying to mine it. 00:07:01.540 --> 00:07:03.600 And they have to get very, very good at extraction. 00:07:04.100 --> 00:07:06.300 Extremely good. We have to talk about the brain. 00:07:06.579 --> 00:07:09.180 The sources get into the neuroscience of this, 00:07:09.259 --> 00:07:12.100 and it essentially describes this zero -sum game 00:07:12.100 --> 00:07:15.180 that's happening inside our own heads. It is 00:07:15.180 --> 00:07:17.939 absolutely a zero -sum game. This is a crucial 00:07:17.939 --> 00:07:21.600 concept to grasp. Your brain has a limited amount 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:24.860 of metabolic energy and a limited amount of processing 00:07:24.860 --> 00:07:27.620 power at any given moment. So if I'm allocating 00:07:27.620 --> 00:07:30.540 cognitive resources to scrolling through Instagram... 00:07:30.540 --> 00:07:32.980 Then those are resources that are physically, 00:07:33.139 --> 00:07:36.040 biologically unavailable for anything else, for 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:38.819 deep reading or for complex problem solving, 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:40.800 or even just for being present and listening 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:42.399 empathetically to your partner. It's like the 00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:44.680 RAM in a computer, right? If Chrome is eating 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.259 up 90 % of it, every other program is going to 00:07:47.259 --> 00:07:50.000 lag and crash. That is the perfect analogy. And 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:52.000 the tech companies, they know this. They know 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:53.519 they're all competing for your limited mental 00:07:53.519 --> 00:07:56.180 RAM. So they have to utilize what... we call 00:07:56.180 --> 00:07:59.660 the dopamine loop. The notes referenced the social 00:07:59.660 --> 00:08:01.660 dilemma here, which I think a lot of people have 00:08:01.660 --> 00:08:03.839 probably seen. But can you break down the actual 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:06.779 mechanism? How are they like hacking our brain 00:08:06.779 --> 00:08:09.279 chemistry? It all relies on the brain's basic 00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:12.920 reward system. Evolution wired us to seek out 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:15.970 novelty. When our ancestors found a new berry 00:08:15.970 --> 00:08:18.850 bush or heard a new piece of gossip about a rival 00:08:18.850 --> 00:08:21.290 tribe, their brain gave them a little hit of 00:08:21.290 --> 00:08:24.189 dopamine. It feels good. It feels good. It's 00:08:24.189 --> 00:08:26.209 a little reward that encourages you to do that 00:08:26.209 --> 00:08:28.910 again. It's a survival mechanism. It was a survival 00:08:28.910 --> 00:08:31.250 mechanism. It was. Now it's a business model. 00:08:31.550 --> 00:08:34.990 Modern apps are engineered to trigger that novelty 00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:37.429 -seeking and positive feedback loop constantly. 00:08:37.850 --> 00:08:41.029 Every notification, every like, every single 00:08:41.029 --> 00:08:43.870 pull to refresh. Oh, the pull to refresh? That 00:08:43.870 --> 00:08:46.210 little animation? That is designed mechanically 00:08:46.210 --> 00:08:49.429 to resemble a slot machine lever. That split 00:08:49.429 --> 00:08:51.649 second of anticipation, what am I going to get? 00:08:51.690 --> 00:08:53.769 What's going to be there? That's what psychologists 00:08:53.769 --> 00:08:56.950 call variable ratio reinforcement. If you knew 00:08:56.950 --> 00:08:59.159 it was going to be there every time, You wouldn't 00:08:59.159 --> 00:09:01.659 pull. It's the unpredictability that spikes the 00:09:01.659 --> 00:09:04.340 dopamine. They are literally mining that chemical 00:09:04.340 --> 00:09:06.320 reaction to keep you on the platform longer. 00:09:06.460 --> 00:09:08.539 So they're mapping the geography of our brains 00:09:08.539 --> 00:09:10.600 and building a strip mine right on top of the 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:14.279 pleasure center. That is a very apt, if slightly 00:09:14.279 --> 00:09:17.940 depressing, analogy. Yeah. And all of this creates 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:21.019 a massive bottleneck in what traditional advertisers 00:09:21.019 --> 00:09:23.700 call the AI model. A -I -D -A. Okay, break that 00:09:23.700 --> 00:09:25.519 down for us. It's the classic marketing funnel. 00:09:26.299 --> 00:09:29.899 Attention, interest, desire, action. First, I 00:09:29.899 --> 00:09:31.580 have to get your attention. Then, I have to make 00:09:31.580 --> 00:09:33.740 you interested in what I'm selling. Then, you 00:09:33.740 --> 00:09:36.440 have to actually desire the product. And finally, 00:09:36.500 --> 00:09:38.940 you take action and buy it. Simple enough. Right. 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:41.500 But in the old days, the main barrier was the 00:09:41.500 --> 00:09:43.700 cost of transmission. It was really expensive 00:09:43.700 --> 00:09:46.679 to buy a TV ad or a full -page magazine ad to 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:48.980 get someone's attention. But no. Now, transmission 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:51.779 is effectively free. The cost of sending an email 00:09:51.779 --> 00:09:55.809 or posting an ad online is basically zero. We're 00:09:55.809 --> 00:09:57.870 living in an era of what the sources call a super 00:09:57.870 --> 00:10:00.110 fluidity of information. The gates are just wide 00:10:00.110 --> 00:10:03.070 open. Wide open. But the human funnel, the ATI 00:10:03.070 --> 00:10:05.850 funnel, it hasn't changed. The bottleneck is 00:10:05.850 --> 00:10:09.169 jammed right at the very top. Attention. We haven't 00:10:09.169 --> 00:10:11.570 evolved bigger brains or more hours in the day 00:10:11.570 --> 00:10:15.110 in the last 50 years. Exactly. So the only real 00:10:15.110 --> 00:10:18.070 limit on the entire global economic system right 00:10:18.070 --> 00:10:20.990 now is your finite ability to look at things. 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:23.370 Which explains why the tactics have to get more 00:10:23.370 --> 00:10:26.129 and more extreme. It's an arms race. If everyone 00:10:26.129 --> 00:10:27.590 in the room is screaming, you have to scream 00:10:27.590 --> 00:10:31.169 louder or weirder or more aggressively. And that 00:10:31.169 --> 00:10:34.450 arms race has casualties. This is where we really 00:10:34.450 --> 00:10:36.990 need to look at what the sources call the dark 00:10:36.990 --> 00:10:40.049 side. In economics, the technical term for this 00:10:40.049 --> 00:10:43.190 is negative externalities. I want to pause on 00:10:43.190 --> 00:10:45.750 that term negative externality because it comes 00:10:45.750 --> 00:10:47.750 up a few times in the source material. It's basically 00:10:47.750 --> 00:10:49.769 a side effect of a business that somebody else 00:10:49.769 --> 00:10:52.009 has to pay for, right? That's a perfect way to 00:10:52.009 --> 00:10:55.269 put it. The classic example is a factory. A factory 00:10:55.269 --> 00:10:57.909 produces steel, which is good, but it also produces 00:10:57.909 --> 00:11:00.250 smoke that pollutes the air and makes the neighbors 00:11:00.250 --> 00:11:02.700 sick. And the factory owner doesn't pay for the 00:11:02.700 --> 00:11:05.340 doctor bills. Exactly. The neighbors do. That 00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:07.679 sickness, that cost that's pushed onto a third 00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:10.620 party, that is the negative externality. So in 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:12.600 the attention economy, the app is the factory. 00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:15.159 The engagement is the steel. What's the smoke? 00:11:15.379 --> 00:11:17.919 There are several different kinds of smoke, and 00:11:17.919 --> 00:11:20.559 they're all pretty toxic. The first and most 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:23.759 obvious one is our mental health. We have seen 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:28.240 a very clear data -backed link. In numerous studies 00:11:28.240 --> 00:11:32.919 between heavy social media using social media 00:11:32.919 --> 00:11:35.519 addiction, really, and soaring rates of depression, 00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:38.899 anxiety, and low self -esteem, particularly in 00:11:38.899 --> 00:11:41.200 younger users. Because the algorithm doesn't 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:43.580 care how you feel. It just cares if you're looking. 00:11:43.799 --> 00:11:46.399 Precisely. The algorithm's only goal is to maximize 00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:49.360 engagement. Yeah. And unfortunately, from a purely 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:52.259 mathematical standpoint, humans engage. very, 00:11:52.279 --> 00:11:54.940 very highly with things that make us feel inadequate 00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:58.299 or outraged or fearful. So if making me anxious 00:11:58.299 --> 00:12:00.620 keeps me scrolling for 10 more minutes. The algorithm 00:12:00.620 --> 00:12:03.159 will choose anxiety every single time. It's hopelessly 00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:04.759 efficient. That's chilling. The algorithm will 00:12:04.759 --> 00:12:06.720 choose anxiety. Then there's the second cloud 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:09.279 of smoke, which is the data component. The whole 00:12:09.279 --> 00:12:11.620 surveillance capitalism model. To win the attention 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:14.490 war. Companies need to know exactly what triggers 00:12:14.490 --> 00:12:16.750 you personally. So they collect everything. Your 00:12:16.750 --> 00:12:19.409 demographics, your location, how long you hover 00:12:19.409 --> 00:12:21.690 over a photo of your ex, where your political 00:12:21.690 --> 00:12:23.529 leanings are, everything. And then they sell 00:12:23.529 --> 00:12:26.289 that data. Or they use it to build a scarily 00:12:26.289 --> 00:12:29.049 accurate profile that allows advertisers to target 00:12:29.049 --> 00:12:32.289 you with surgical precision. This raises massive 00:12:32.289 --> 00:12:35.529 ethical concerns about privacy and consent, but 00:12:35.529 --> 00:12:37.429 it also fundamentally changes the information 00:12:37.429 --> 00:12:40.169 ecosystem itself. And that leads to the third 00:12:40.169 --> 00:12:43.250 cloud of smoke. Disinformation. The sources mentioned 00:12:43.250 --> 00:12:45.649 a study from the Hankin School of Economics on 00:12:45.649 --> 00:12:47.889 this, and it basically said that fake news isn't 00:12:47.889 --> 00:12:49.710 just an accident of the system. It's a feature 00:12:49.710 --> 00:12:52.070 of the economy. It is an economically rational 00:12:52.070 --> 00:12:54.669 outcome. Yeah. Just think about the incentives. 00:12:54.870 --> 00:12:57.669 If you are a publisher and you get paid an attention, 00:12:58.029 --> 00:13:01.389 what is more valuable to you? A nuanced, complex, 00:13:01.690 --> 00:13:05.789 maybe slightly boring truth or a shocking, emotional, 00:13:05.950 --> 00:13:09.289 simple lie? The lie. The lie always travels faster. 00:13:09.529 --> 00:13:13.190 Much, much faster. Novelty grabs attention. Outrage 00:13:13.190 --> 00:13:16.950 grabs attention. So the economy we've built effectively 00:13:16.950 --> 00:13:20.570 subsidizes disinformation. It makes lies more 00:13:20.570 --> 00:13:25.250 profitable than facts. truth versus lies in the 00:13:25.250 --> 00:13:27.289 abstract, one part of the research that really 00:13:27.289 --> 00:13:31.129 upset me was how this disproportionately impacts 00:13:31.129 --> 00:13:33.970 marginalized communities. It feels like the algorithm 00:13:33.970 --> 00:13:36.789 itself has a bias. It does, but it's a bias born 00:13:36.789 --> 00:13:39.730 of pure math, not malice. If you program a system 00:13:39.730 --> 00:13:42.070 with the single goal of maximize engagement, 00:13:42.490 --> 00:13:45.970 it will naturally, logically prioritize content 00:13:45.970 --> 00:13:48.330 that resonates with the largest possible demographic. 00:13:48.690 --> 00:13:50.649 Which is usually the dominant cultural identity. 00:13:50.929 --> 00:13:53.980 Exactly. So if you are a minority, voice or you're 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:55.899 talking about a niche issue that's important 00:13:55.899 --> 00:13:58.399 but maybe doesn't appeal to the mainstream, the 00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:00.379 algorithm might just suppress you because you 00:14:00.379 --> 00:14:02.919 aren't efficient enough from a click's perspective. 00:14:03.259 --> 00:14:05.399 And we saw this with the reports from Black creators 00:14:05.399 --> 00:14:08.399 on TikTok. Yes. They've documented numerous instances 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:10.879 of what they call shadow banning, where their 00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:13.000 content just mysteriously stops appearing in 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:15.519 feeds, specifically when they post about topics 00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:17.779 like Black Lives Matter. So they're just shouting 00:14:17.779 --> 00:14:21.830 into a void. The system decides. that their message 00:14:21.830 --> 00:14:25.110 might cause friction or might not appeal to the 00:14:25.110 --> 00:14:27.490 broadest common denominator, so it just throttles 00:14:27.490 --> 00:14:31.029 it. If visibility is the currency of this economy, 00:14:31.330 --> 00:14:34.370 then these creators are being economically sanctioned 00:14:34.370 --> 00:14:37.070 by a machine. It hinders activism. It hinders 00:14:37.070 --> 00:14:39.710 awareness. You can't organize if you can't be 00:14:39.710 --> 00:14:41.909 heard. Exactly. There was one other negative 00:14:41.909 --> 00:14:44.009 externality in the notes that really caught me 00:14:44.009 --> 00:14:46.009 off guard. I just did not expect to see this 00:14:46.009 --> 00:14:48.490 in an economics discussion, and that's the corruption 00:14:48.490 --> 00:14:53.259 of science. Yes. The paper from Adrian Lenardic 00:14:53.259 --> 00:14:56.399 at Rice University. This is a fascinating and 00:14:56.399 --> 00:15:00.220 pretty recent piece from 2022. I usually think 00:15:00.220 --> 00:15:02.139 of scientists as being sort of immune to all 00:15:02.139 --> 00:15:03.700 this. You know, they're in the lab, they're doing 00:15:03.700 --> 00:15:05.080 the work. They aren't trying to be influencers. 00:15:05.340 --> 00:15:07.320 Well, they still operate in the real world and 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:10.379 they still need to secure funding. And Lenardic's 00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:13.279 argument is that science itself has started to 00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:16.200 succumb to the attention economy. The very metrics 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:19.340 for academic success are shifting. It used to 00:15:19.340 --> 00:15:21.720 be all about the long -term impact of your published 00:15:21.720 --> 00:15:25.679 research. Now, scientists are literally listing 00:15:25.679 --> 00:15:27.899 their media exposure counts on their resumes. 00:15:28.259 --> 00:15:30.299 You're kidding. I was quoted in the New York 00:15:30.299 --> 00:15:32.980 Times three times this year. That's a line item. 00:15:33.179 --> 00:15:35.899 That's a line item. PhD candidates are tracking 00:15:35.899 --> 00:15:37.940 their Twitter engagement on their latest paper. 00:15:38.519 --> 00:15:41.980 And the danger here is that this creates a really 00:15:41.980 --> 00:15:43.860 perverse incentive. If you want to get ahead. 00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:46.399 you might be tempted to release results that 00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:49.279 are flashy or shocking before they've been fully 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:52.080 peer -reviewed or replicated. So we get bad science, 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:53.940 or at least premature science, just because it 00:15:53.940 --> 00:15:56.019 goes viral. Or we get science by press release. 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:58.659 And the bigger danger is that if the funding 00:15:58.659 --> 00:16:01.600 always follows the attention, then the research 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:05.240 into unsexy, slow, complicated problems, which 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:07.440 are often the most important ones, that research 00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:10.299 gets defunded in favor of whatever can generate 00:16:10.299 --> 00:16:13.159 the headline. OK, so we've painted a pretty bleak 00:16:13.159 --> 00:16:15.379 picture here. I mean, we're addicted. We're being 00:16:15.379 --> 00:16:17.759 spied on. We're being fed lies. And now even 00:16:17.759 --> 00:16:19.620 the scientists are starting to click bait us. 00:16:19.700 --> 00:16:22.559 It's it's a lot. It is. But I want to pivot now 00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:25.659 to section four of our outline, because there 00:16:25.659 --> 00:16:28.120 is a paradox here that we need to address. We're 00:16:28.120 --> 00:16:30.419 paying with our attention for all of this because 00:16:30.419 --> 00:16:35.259 the actual stuff, the content itself is mostly 00:16:35.259 --> 00:16:37.340 free. Right. This is the flip side of the coin. 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:40.240 If I can get basically any song, any movie, any 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:42.799 article for free, either legally or illegally, 00:16:43.100 --> 00:16:45.740 why do we still pay for anything? This is where 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:48.419 Kevin Kelly's analysis from back in 2008 comes 00:16:48.419 --> 00:16:51.299 in. And it's just brilliant. He asks a very simple 00:16:51.299 --> 00:16:54.559 question. In a world where reproduction costs 00:16:54.559 --> 00:16:58.340 zero, what is left to buy? And his answer is 00:16:58.340 --> 00:17:01.350 what he calls the intangibles. Exactly. things 00:17:01.350 --> 00:17:04.029 that cannot be copied. If the digital file itself 00:17:04.029 --> 00:17:06.230 is free and abundant, you have to sell something 00:17:06.230 --> 00:17:08.289 else that wraps around the file. Let's run through 00:17:08.289 --> 00:17:09.730 these because I think a lot of listeners will 00:17:09.730 --> 00:17:11.869 recognize their own spending habits here. I know 00:17:11.869 --> 00:17:14.369 I definitely did. The first one on his list is 00:17:14.369 --> 00:17:17.069 immediacy. Immediacy is the premium you pay for 00:17:17.069 --> 00:17:19.190 time. You can probably get the new blockbuster 00:17:19.190 --> 00:17:22.069 movie for free on a pirate site eventually. Right, 00:17:22.210 --> 00:17:24.910 in a few weeks or months. But you pay $20 to 00:17:24.910 --> 00:17:26.789 see it in the theater on opening night. Why? 00:17:27.490 --> 00:17:30.069 Because you want it now. You are paying for priority 00:17:30.069 --> 00:17:32.230 access. I do this with books all the time. I 00:17:32.230 --> 00:17:33.990 could wait for the paperback or wait for it to 00:17:33.990 --> 00:17:35.950 come to the library, but no, I buy the hardback 00:17:35.950 --> 00:17:37.829 the day it drops because I can't wait. That's 00:17:37.829 --> 00:17:41.029 immediacy. Okay, number two is personalization. 00:17:41.569 --> 00:17:44.730 A generic medical article on WebMD is free. A 00:17:44.730 --> 00:17:47.470 diagnosis of your specific symptoms by a real 00:17:47.470 --> 00:17:50.950 doctor costs a lot of money. You can't copy personalization 00:17:50.950 --> 00:17:54.069 because, by definition, it only fits one person. 00:17:54.529 --> 00:17:57.369 The value isn't the raw information. It's the 00:17:57.369 --> 00:17:59.970 tailoring of that information directly to you. 00:18:00.089 --> 00:18:02.069 That makes perfect sense. Okay, number three 00:18:02.069 --> 00:18:05.349 is interpretation. This one is huge in the tech 00:18:05.349 --> 00:18:07.650 world. A piece of software like Red Hat Linux 00:18:07.650 --> 00:18:10.349 is technically free. The source code is open 00:18:10.349 --> 00:18:13.130 to everyone. But big companies will pay millions 00:18:13.130 --> 00:18:15.349 of dollars for the support contract. They're 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:17.170 paying for the manual. They're paying for the 00:18:17.170 --> 00:18:20.130 manual and the guide. They pay for the experts 00:18:20.130 --> 00:18:22.480 who can explain how you use it. how to customize 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:25.200 it, and how to fix it when it inevitably breaks. 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.680 You're not buying the product. You're buying 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.619 the expertise to make it work. Okay, next up, 00:18:30.779 --> 00:18:34.420 authenticity. This is the entire market for collectibles 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:38.619 or art or NFTs. You can copy a JPEG a million 00:18:38.619 --> 00:18:41.440 times for free. You can print a perfect copy 00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:44.640 of the Mona Lisa. But you can't copy the originality. 00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:47.740 People will pay a huge premium for the assurance 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:50.319 that this is the real deal. Signed by the artist. 00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:53.900 Bug free and genuine. Accessibility. This is 00:18:53.900 --> 00:18:55.799 probably my biggest. Oh, yeah. This is all about 00:18:55.799 --> 00:18:58.359 convenience. I could torn a movie for free, but 00:18:58.359 --> 00:19:00.660 then I have to find a good cedar, worry about 00:19:00.660 --> 00:19:02.839 getting a virus, maybe convert the file format. 00:19:03.339 --> 00:19:05.579 It's a whole process. It's a hassle. It's a huge 00:19:05.579 --> 00:19:08.799 hassle. Or I can pay Netflix $15 a month and 00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:11.960 just click one button. I am 100 % paying for 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:14.119 the button. I am paying to not have to think 00:19:14.119 --> 00:19:15.980 about it. That's it. You are paying for the absence 00:19:15.980 --> 00:19:19.500 of friction. Okay, next. This is about the physical 00:19:19.500 --> 00:19:22.680 manifestation of something digital. The MP3 of 00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:25.440 the song is free, but the concert ticket is $200. 00:19:26.099 --> 00:19:28.680 The experience of being there? The experience, 00:19:28.940 --> 00:19:31.559 or the text of the book is free online, but the 00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:34.519 leather -bound special edition copy feels good 00:19:34.519 --> 00:19:37.319 in your hands and looks good on your shelf. We're 00:19:37.319 --> 00:19:40.000 biological creatures. We still value physical 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:42.359 objects and real -world experiences. For sure. 00:19:42.519 --> 00:19:44.460 All right, what about patronage? This is the 00:19:44.460 --> 00:19:47.099 whole Patreon model. This is, as Kelly puts it, 00:19:47.160 --> 00:19:51.420 paying simply because it feels good. I do this. 00:19:51.480 --> 00:19:54.039 I support a few podcasters and YouTubers. I don't 00:19:54.039 --> 00:19:55.940 even really use the extra content they offer. 00:19:56.059 --> 00:19:58.440 I just, I want them to keep existing. I want 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:01.180 to support their work. It's a relationship. It's 00:20:01.180 --> 00:20:04.140 not a transaction for a good. It's a signal of 00:20:04.140 --> 00:20:06.599 support for the creator. And the last one on 00:20:06.599 --> 00:20:09.140 the list, findability. And this brings us right 00:20:09.140 --> 00:20:11.880 back full circle to Herbert Simon. When there 00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:14.460 are millions of books, millions of songs, millions 00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:17.180 of movies, the hardest thing isn't making one 00:20:17.180 --> 00:20:19.779 more. It's finding the good ones. The filter 00:20:19.779 --> 00:20:21.900 is the valuable thing. The filter is everything. 00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:24.960 If you are a trusted curator or an aggregator 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:27.380 or a critic that helps me filter through all 00:20:27.380 --> 00:20:29.420 that noise and find the one thing I'll love, 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:32.240 I will absolutely pay you for that service. So 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:34.720 the value has shifted from the content itself 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:37.200 to the context that surrounds it. In an attention 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:40.339 economy, context is king. The stuff is cheap. 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:43.220 The filter is expensive. But speaking of filters, 00:20:43.380 --> 00:20:45.940 sometimes the filter gets completely clogged. 00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:48.779 We need to talk about Section 5 of the outline, 00:20:49.079 --> 00:20:51.900 information pollution, because not all information 00:20:51.900 --> 00:20:55.299 is just content. Some of it is just garbage. 00:20:55.619 --> 00:20:58.960 Spam. Spam, yeah. The source material uses this 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:01.859 analogy of spam as pollution, and I really like 00:21:01.859 --> 00:21:04.180 it. It completely reframes how you think about 00:21:04.180 --> 00:21:06.819 the annoyance. It's a very helpful economic framework. 00:21:07.559 --> 00:21:10.579 If we agree to treat attention as a clean, valuable 00:21:10.579 --> 00:21:13.579 resource like fresh air or clean water, then 00:21:13.579 --> 00:21:16.779 spam and intrusive ads are basically smog. They 00:21:16.779 --> 00:21:18.900 impose a burden on the breather. Exactly. The 00:21:18.900 --> 00:21:20.940 burden is on you, the recipient. So when I spend 00:21:20.940 --> 00:21:22.920 10 minutes every single morning deleting junk 00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:25.500 emails from my inbox, that's me coughing on the 00:21:25.500 --> 00:21:27.839 digital smog. That's you coughing on the smog. 00:21:27.859 --> 00:21:30.960 And the economics of spam explain exactly why 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:33.000 there's so much of it out there. Why do spammers 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:36.180 send it? Because it is incredibly, unbelievably 00:21:36.180 --> 00:21:38.700 cheap to produce and distribute. The sources 00:21:38.700 --> 00:21:40.539 mention the conversion rates, and they're just, 00:21:40.599 --> 00:21:45.759 they're tiny. Infinitesimal, like .001 % or even 00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:49.380 less. But here's the math. If it costs me $5 00:21:49.380 --> 00:21:52.599 to send 10 million emails, and just one of those 00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:56.160 people buys my fake Rolex for $50. You've made 00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:58.839 a massive profit. The math works perfectly for 00:21:58.839 --> 00:22:01.529 the spammer. It works perfectly. But the cost 00:22:01.529 --> 00:22:03.369 of that transaction is distributed to everyone 00:22:03.369 --> 00:22:05.890 else. The Internet service providers have to 00:22:05.890 --> 00:22:08.849 process all adjunct data, and all 10 million 00:22:08.849 --> 00:22:11.089 recipients have to waste their time and attention 00:22:11.089 --> 00:22:13.910 deleting it. It's a classic tragedy of the commons. 00:22:14.009 --> 00:22:16.109 A perfect example. So how do we clean up the 00:22:16.109 --> 00:22:18.910 pollution? The outline brings up the Coase theorem, 00:22:19.089 --> 00:22:23.190 which sounds very serious and academic. Ronald 00:22:23.190 --> 00:22:25.390 Coase was a Nobel Prize winner in economics, 00:22:25.630 --> 00:22:27.849 and he looked at exactly these kinds of social 00:22:27.849 --> 00:22:30.490 costs. He argued that... You can manage these 00:22:30.490 --> 00:22:33.049 externalities by clearly defining property rights. 00:22:33.430 --> 00:22:36.690 So, if you define who owns the air, you can start 00:22:36.690 --> 00:22:38.450 charging people for polluting it. That's the 00:22:38.450 --> 00:22:40.609 core idea. Okay, so how do we apply that to my 00:22:40.609 --> 00:22:44.190 email inbox? Well, there are some really fascinating 00:22:44.190 --> 00:22:46.309 theoretical solutions that have been proposed. 00:22:46.869 --> 00:22:49.549 One is called the sender bond. A sender bond? 00:22:49.750 --> 00:22:51.990 How would that work? Okay, imagine if every time 00:22:51.990 --> 00:22:54.869 you sent an email to a stranger, someone not 00:22:54.869 --> 00:22:58.069 in your contacts, the system required you... 00:22:58.190 --> 00:23:00.970 to post a very small bond say five cents all 00:23:00.970 --> 00:23:03.930 right five cents goes into escrow exactly if 00:23:03.930 --> 00:23:07.009 the person who gets your email opens it and hits 00:23:07.009 --> 00:23:10.450 reply or marks it not spam you get your nickel 00:23:10.450 --> 00:23:13.349 back instantly no cost to you but but if they 00:23:13.349 --> 00:23:16.519 mark it as spam you forfeit the nickel The recipient 00:23:16.519 --> 00:23:18.559 might even get to keep it as a tiny compensation 00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:21.140 for their wasted time. Oh, I love that. That's 00:23:21.140 --> 00:23:23.839 genius. So if I'm a legitimate business emailing 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:25.900 a new client or I'm emailing my grandma for the 00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:28.359 first time, I don't care. I'm happy to put up 00:23:28.359 --> 00:23:29.880 the nickel because I know they want to hear from 00:23:29.880 --> 00:23:32.079 me. I'll get it right back. But if you're a spammer 00:23:32.079 --> 00:23:35.259 trying to send 10 million unsolicited emails, 00:23:35.539 --> 00:23:39.559 you would lose $500 ,000 in 10 seconds. You would 00:23:39.559 --> 00:23:42.529 go bankrupt. Immediately. Right. It completely 00:23:42.529 --> 00:23:46.029 destroys the economic model of spam by forcing 00:23:46.029 --> 00:23:48.710 the sender, the polluter, to actually take on 00:23:48.710 --> 00:23:51.029 the financial risk of their actions. Why haven't 00:23:51.029 --> 00:23:52.950 we done this? This sounds like the best idea 00:23:52.950 --> 00:23:55.470 I've ever heard. It's technically very difficult 00:23:55.470 --> 00:23:57.509 to implement across the entire decentralized 00:23:57.509 --> 00:24:00.450 Internet, but the economic logic is absolutely 00:24:00.450 --> 00:24:02.950 sound. And there's another version of this idea 00:24:02.950 --> 00:24:05.170 called interrupt rights. Which is what it sounds 00:24:05.170 --> 00:24:07.809 like. Pretty much. Literally selling the right 00:24:07.809 --> 00:24:10.640 to demand someone's attention. Imagine if your 00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:14.599 phone had a sort of a digital gatekeeper. If 00:24:14.599 --> 00:24:16.140 a telemarketer wants to make your phone ring, 00:24:16.299 --> 00:24:19.079 they have to pay a fee to get through. A tollbooth 00:24:19.079 --> 00:24:20.859 for my brain. A tollbooth for your brain. Yeah. 00:24:20.940 --> 00:24:22.799 And the really cool part is that the price could 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:25.079 be dynamic. The notes really dive into this. 00:24:25.180 --> 00:24:27.920 If you're a Fortune 500 CEO, maybe your interrupt 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:30.539 price is set at $500 a minute. But if you're 00:24:30.539 --> 00:24:33.799 a student, maybe it's 50 cents. Right. And you 00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.470 could change it based on your situation. During 00:24:36.470 --> 00:24:38.210 the holidays or when you're on a tight deadline 00:24:38.210 --> 00:24:41.130 at work, you crank your price up to $100. The 00:24:41.130 --> 00:24:44.309 message is, do not disturb me unless it's really 00:24:44.309 --> 00:24:46.650 worth $100. And then in the summer when you're 00:24:46.650 --> 00:24:48.710 bored, you can lower it. You lower it to $1? 00:24:48.849 --> 00:24:51.430 Sure, pitch me something. I can just imagine 00:24:51.430 --> 00:24:53.390 my friends getting a bill because they sent me 00:24:53.390 --> 00:24:55.589 a meme at 2 o 'clock on a Tuesday. Sorry, that 00:24:55.589 --> 00:24:58.670 meme just cost you $5. Well, presumably you'd 00:24:58.670 --> 00:25:01.769 whitelist your friends and family. But for advertisers 00:25:01.769 --> 00:25:04.250 and strangers, it forces them to do the math. 00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:08.299 Is this ad really worth pitching $2 to show to 00:25:08.299 --> 00:25:11.380 this specific person at this specific time? If 00:25:11.380 --> 00:25:14.079 the answer is no, they don't show it. The smog 00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:17.039 clears. It fundamentally reassigns the property 00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:20.440 rights. It says, I own my focus, and if you want 00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:22.559 to enter my property, you have to pay the entrance 00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:25.319 fee. That is the dream of the attention bond 00:25:25.319 --> 00:25:27.559 or the interrupt right. It's about realigning 00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:30.000 the economic incentives to protect the individual. 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:32.579 But right now, we obviously don't have that. 00:25:32.660 --> 00:25:34.960 We are living in the Wild West. And in the Wild 00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:38.420 West, people cheat. Which brings us to section 00:25:38.420 --> 00:25:42.059 six, the search engine war. Right. If attention 00:25:42.059 --> 00:25:44.380 is the most valuable commodity and Google is 00:25:44.380 --> 00:25:46.480 the main gatekeeper of attention on the Internet. 00:25:46.700 --> 00:25:49.680 Then ranking high on Google is like owning beachfront 00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:52.559 property in Malibu. And everyone wants to steal 00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:56.039 that property. This is the world of SEO search 00:25:56.039 --> 00:25:59.299 engine optimization. But more specifically, the 00:25:59.299 --> 00:26:02.240 gray market. We're talking about things like 00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:04.720 link farming. Right. Link farming, reciprocal 00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:07.680 linking, keyword stuffing, private blog networks. 00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:10.640 I mean, the list of tactics goes on and on. It's 00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:12.460 all about tricking the search algorithm into 00:26:12.460 --> 00:26:14.680 thinking a particular website is more important 00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:17.019 or authoritative than it actually is. It's an 00:26:17.019 --> 00:26:19.720 endless game of cat and mouse. Completely. Google 00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:21.799 updates its algorithm to catch the spammers, 00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:24.319 and the spammers invent a new trick to get around 00:26:24.319 --> 00:26:27.150 the update. It never stops. There was a specific 00:26:27.150 --> 00:26:29.109 and kind of famous example in the notes about 00:26:29.109 --> 00:26:31.829 Google bombs. This was a huge deal a few years 00:26:31.829 --> 00:26:35.329 ago. It was. A Google bomb is essentially when 00:26:35.329 --> 00:26:38.250 a large group of people on the Internet conspires 00:26:38.250 --> 00:26:42.150 to all link a specific, often derogatory phrase, 00:26:42.289 --> 00:26:45.309 to a specific website. Usually for political 00:26:45.309 --> 00:26:47.990 reasons. Like linking the words miserable failure 00:26:47.990 --> 00:26:50.890 to a specific politician's official biography. 00:26:51.470 --> 00:26:54.289 Exactly. And when enough people do it, the algorithm, 00:26:54.470 --> 00:26:56.750 which is just following the math, says, oh, wow, 00:26:56.869 --> 00:26:59.089 thousands of websites are saying that this page 00:26:59.089 --> 00:27:02.150 is the authority on miserable failure. And so 00:27:02.150 --> 00:27:03.809 it ranks at number one for that search term. 00:27:03.890 --> 00:27:06.509 It's a form of digital protest, really. But it 00:27:06.509 --> 00:27:08.630 forces the search engines into a really, really 00:27:08.630 --> 00:27:11.309 awkward position. It makes them judges. They 00:27:11.309 --> 00:27:14.420 have to decide, is this spam? Or is it protected 00:27:14.420 --> 00:27:17.400 political expression? If Google goes in and manually 00:27:17.400 --> 00:27:19.839 fixes the result, they're admitting to the world 00:27:19.839 --> 00:27:21.980 that they edit their supposedly objective results. 00:27:22.140 --> 00:27:23.759 But if they leave it up, their product looks 00:27:23.759 --> 00:27:26.420 broken and biased. It just shows how fragile 00:27:26.420 --> 00:27:28.700 these automated systems are. They're built on 00:27:28.700 --> 00:27:31.359 the assumption that links equal trust. But links 00:27:31.359 --> 00:27:34.539 can be weaponized. And on the user side of this 00:27:34.539 --> 00:27:36.740 war, we're developing our own defenses, too. 00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:39.660 We have what the sources call ad fatigue. Oh, 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:42.559 absolutely. I know I have this. My brain has 00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:45.359 just been trained to automatically ignore the 00:27:45.359 --> 00:27:47.539 top three results on any search page because 00:27:47.539 --> 00:27:50.299 I know they're sponsored ads. I don't even consciously 00:27:50.299 --> 00:27:52.559 see them anymore. It's like a blind spot. That 00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:56.279 is a real measurable biological adaptation. Our 00:27:56.279 --> 00:27:59.019 brains are learning to tune out the signals that 00:27:59.019 --> 00:28:02.420 we've identified as commercial or inauthentic. 00:28:02.420 --> 00:28:04.400 But that just makes the advertisers more desperate. 00:28:04.519 --> 00:28:07.490 Of course. They see you ignoring the banner ads, 00:28:07.670 --> 00:28:10.450 so they pivot to native advertising. That looks 00:28:10.450 --> 00:28:13.529 like a real article. Or they start using AI to 00:28:13.529 --> 00:28:15.970 track you across all your devices to find that 00:28:15.970 --> 00:28:18.230 one moment of weakness when you're most likely 00:28:18.230 --> 00:28:21.349 to click. You're ignoring us. Fine. We'll just 00:28:21.349 --> 00:28:23.490 get smarter and more invasive at finding you. 00:28:23.630 --> 00:28:25.329 It just goes right back to that same arms race. 00:28:25.509 --> 00:28:28.309 The more we defend our attention, the more sophisticated 00:28:28.309 --> 00:28:30.549 the weapons of attention theft become. Okay, 00:28:30.589 --> 00:28:32.630 before we wrap this all up, we have to talk about 00:28:32.630 --> 00:28:36.230 the final section, section seven. So far, we've 00:28:36.230 --> 00:28:38.390 kind of blamed the tech companies, the spammers, 00:28:38.490 --> 00:28:41.569 the advertisers. But there's another culprit 00:28:41.569 --> 00:28:45.490 in the attention economy. Us. It's us. We're 00:28:45.490 --> 00:28:47.430 doing it to each other. We are both the consumer 00:28:47.430 --> 00:28:50.230 and the producer of the noise. We have to talk 00:28:50.230 --> 00:28:52.529 about social interaction overload. This is that 00:28:52.529 --> 00:28:55.910 feeling of complete exhaustion from just maintaining 00:28:55.910 --> 00:28:58.630 digital relationships. Think about the scale 00:28:58.630 --> 00:29:02.099 of it. In, say, 1990. You might have kept up 00:29:02.099 --> 00:29:04.400 with maybe 20 or 30 close friends and family. 00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:07.099 You talk on the phone occasionally, send a letter. 00:29:07.220 --> 00:29:10.240 That was it. Now, you might have 500 friends 00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:14.039 on Facebook, 200 followers on Instagram, a professional 00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:16.960 network on LinkedIn, and five hyperactive WhatsApp 00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:20.559 group chats, all demanding your input. Every 00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:22.880 single one of those connections is a potential 00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:26.200 demand on my finite attention. Every happy birthday 00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:28.579 wall post, every comment you feel obligated to 00:29:28.579 --> 00:29:31.279 like, every photo you're tagged in. The researchers 00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:33.839 call these social solicitations. They're like 00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:37.119 these tiny accumulating micro debts. When someone 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:39.140 comments on your photo, you feel a social obligation 00:29:39.140 --> 00:29:41.380 to comment back on theirs. It feels like work. 00:29:41.619 --> 00:29:43.619 After a while, it genuinely feels like a job. 00:29:43.779 --> 00:29:46.819 Because it is work. It is cognitive labor. We 00:29:46.819 --> 00:29:49.559 are overwhelming each other with constant low 00:29:49.559 --> 00:29:52.180 -grade demands for attention because the platforms 00:29:52.180 --> 00:29:54.420 have made it frictionless to demand it. And then 00:29:54.420 --> 00:29:55.880 there's the concept of collective attention, 00:29:56.220 --> 00:29:59.000 the wave. The viral cycle. Yeah. We can actually 00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:01.660 measure this now with data. A topic, whether 00:30:01.660 --> 00:30:03.640 it's a dress that changes color, a celebrity 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:06.859 slap at an award show, a silly meme, it just 00:30:06.859 --> 00:30:09.980 spikes. The entire world, it feels like, looks 00:30:09.980 --> 00:30:12.019 at this one thing at the exact same time. And 00:30:12.019 --> 00:30:15.259 then, poof. It's gone. And the decay rate is 00:30:15.259 --> 00:30:17.539 getting faster and faster. The sensation of the 00:30:17.539 --> 00:30:20.099 moment used to last for a news cycle, maybe a 00:30:20.099 --> 00:30:23.279 week. Now it lasts for maybe six hours. Why do 00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:25.339 you think that is? It's that super fluidity of 00:30:25.339 --> 00:30:27.660 information again. There's always the next wave, 00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:30.220 the next shiny object pushing up right behind 00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:32.079 the current one. We don't have time to process 00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:34.200 or dwell on anything because the next thing is 00:30:34.200 --> 00:30:37.119 already screaming for our focus. So after all 00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:40.359 of this. Where does this leave us? We've traveled 00:30:40.359 --> 00:30:43.440 from Herbert Simon in 1971 predicting this poverty 00:30:43.440 --> 00:30:46.299 of attention, through the dopamine labs of Silicon 00:30:46.299 --> 00:30:48.579 Valley, through the pollution of our inboxes, 00:30:48.579 --> 00:30:51.460 and right into our own exhausted brains. It's 00:30:51.460 --> 00:30:53.440 a heavy realization to sit with. We build an 00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:56.599 entire global economy on the extraction and resale 00:30:56.599 --> 00:30:59.240 of human consciousness. It is the fuel that runs 00:30:59.240 --> 00:31:01.910 the modern internet. And we are seeing the costs 00:31:01.910 --> 00:31:05.089 all around us. Addiction, surveillance, political 00:31:05.089 --> 00:31:07.930 polarization, bad science, and just a general 00:31:07.930 --> 00:31:11.009 pervasive loss of individual and collective focus. 00:31:11.289 --> 00:31:13.990 It really feels like we're the frogs in the slowly 00:31:13.990 --> 00:31:16.569 boiling water. The water is bubbling and we're 00:31:16.569 --> 00:31:18.490 just sitting here scrolling. But understanding 00:31:18.490 --> 00:31:20.589 the mechanism is the first step to taking back 00:31:20.589 --> 00:31:22.960 control. We've talked about some of the big theoretical 00:31:22.960 --> 00:31:25.460 fixes like interop rights. We've talked about 00:31:25.460 --> 00:31:27.640 the importance of finding good filters. But those 00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:29.700 systemic fixes aren't here yet. I can't start 00:31:29.700 --> 00:31:31.900 charging spammers a nickel for their emails tomorrow 00:31:31.900 --> 00:31:34.839 morning. No, you can't. So for right now, today, 00:31:35.019 --> 00:31:38.660 the real so what of all this is this. Critical 00:31:38.660 --> 00:31:41.900 thinking is your only real defense. You have 00:31:41.900 --> 00:31:44.720 to actively recognize when your attention is 00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:47.069 being thefted. versus when you were giving it 00:31:47.069 --> 00:31:49.069 willingly and consciously. You have to become 00:31:49.069 --> 00:31:51.109 the bouncer at the door of your own mind. That's 00:31:51.109 --> 00:31:53.529 a great way to put it. Precisely. You have to 00:31:53.529 --> 00:31:55.549 start treating your attention like you treat 00:31:55.549 --> 00:31:57.750 the money in your wallet. You wouldn't just walk 00:31:57.750 --> 00:32:00.130 down the street throwing dollar bills out the 00:32:00.130 --> 00:32:02.049 window at every loud truck that drives by. I 00:32:02.049 --> 00:32:04.569 definitely would not. So why do we throw our 00:32:04.569 --> 00:32:08.009 focus, which is arguably more valuable, at every 00:32:08.009 --> 00:32:11.230 single notification that buzzes? Why do we let 00:32:11.230 --> 00:32:13.910 that sound truck park itself inside our brain 00:32:13.910 --> 00:32:16.890 for hours on end? That's the challenge. The notes 00:32:16.890 --> 00:32:19.170 did mention this concept of the intention economy 00:32:19.170 --> 00:32:21.910 as sort of the counter idea, the utopia. Yeah, 00:32:21.970 --> 00:32:24.130 it's a hypothetical future where the power dynamic 00:32:24.130 --> 00:32:26.710 is flipped. The buyer notifies the market of 00:32:26.710 --> 00:32:28.869 what they want. I intend to buy a new car in 00:32:28.869 --> 00:32:31.029 the next three months. And the market responds 00:32:31.029 --> 00:32:33.029 to them with relevant offers. Instead of the 00:32:33.029 --> 00:32:34.589 market just yelling at everyone all the time, 00:32:34.609 --> 00:32:37.029 hoping someone somewhere wants a car. It sounds 00:32:37.029 --> 00:32:39.460 peaceful, doesn't it? Sounds very peaceful. a 00:32:39.460 --> 00:32:42.420 hopeful concept. But until we get there, we are 00:32:42.420 --> 00:32:45.339 stuck here living in the attention economy. So 00:32:45.339 --> 00:32:47.279 here is the question we want to leave you with 00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:50.160 today. If your attention really is a currency, 00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:53.319 are you actively spending it or is it just being 00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:55.339 stolen from your wallet while you aren't looking? 00:32:55.539 --> 00:32:57.460 And here's a fun little thought experiment to 00:32:57.460 --> 00:33:01.180 go with that. If you could charge just one single 00:33:01.180 --> 00:33:03.779 dollar for every non -essential notification 00:33:03.779 --> 00:33:07.329 that interrupts you today. How rich would you 00:33:07.329 --> 00:33:10.049 be by dinnertime? I'd certainly be able to afford 00:33:10.049 --> 00:33:12.630 a very nice lunch, maybe even that bowl of ramen 00:33:12.630 --> 00:33:14.430 from the intro. I think I could probably retire. 00:33:14.750 --> 00:33:16.829 Thanks for diving in with us. Keep your wallet 00:33:16.829 --> 00:33:19.630 close and your attention even closer. See you 00:33:19.630 --> 00:33:19.990 next time.