Personality-driven egocracy is the natural result of the repackaging of politics as a pure entertainment product, as described in Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
For an example of how an attention-optimizer at the other end of the moral character spectrum from Trump can gain power, consider Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who literally got elected president out of nowhere by playing a guy who gets elected president out of nowhere on TV. If we are doomed to be dominated by attention-optimizers in this generation, we might do well to think about what mechanisms could favor Zelenskyy types over Trump types.
I so desperately want to be able to punch holes in Noah's argument- and I just freaking can't. As a high school teacher, I see my kids "branding" themselves, marketing themselves... Yeah, this has always been the case to some extent, but not only is it on steroids now, it's what they've been doing their whole lives, not just to get into college.
If this is one of the main ways in which these young people have organized their lives, then it stands to reason that, going forward, it's what they'll respond to.
I've grown tired of all the issues-based discussion around the election. That stuff matters, but I think we've moved- and to our detriment, continue to move- beyond that.
Nice work. As a newcomer here I’m glad to witness an at-bat like this; in baseball it looks like a solo shot over the top deck in dead-center. Haven’t read anything that traces the evolution from Burnham’s concept to now so convincingly, but that does seem to nail it.
I'd say that attention is zero-sum in a way that capital equipment and human capital are not. Land is also zero-sum, but monopolizing attention is a different sort of thing and not so easily monopolized as land, especially as new media lose their luster. Also, per the Green argument above, media decentralization encourages a recklessness, both in the early printing press and present era, that make influencer leaders a high variance bet at best.
Influencers may well be a new elite class, supplanting some of the role of both religious leaders and organization stalwarts. Similarly, we are seeing a return to patronage systems led by personalistic leaders and influencers can play that game well. But I think the scale will not match that of the mandarins as they must ultimately shove one another aside and not stand on one anothers' shoulders.
I'd make a distinction between "attention" and "status", even though in our world raising your status often comes from gaining a lot of attention.
Attention does not have to be zero sum in the long run. For example, in a growing population - there will be more "total hours" for eyeballs to spend. Same with a growing life expectancy. Or a major time-saving advance can free up more of your attention to spend on media. Like a self-driving car: it would allow you to watch video, where previously you could only listen to audio (or if you were a focused driver, maybe you couldn't listen to anything before). All those changes grow the total market for selling attention. Various attention merchants can grow their audiences simultaneously under those circumstances.
Status on the other hand - only one person can be on top. Only one musician at the top of the Billboard charts. Only one movie at the top of the box office. Only one podcaster at the top of Spotify, or YouTuber at the top of YouTube. That's closer to presidential politics. You can't win without someone else losing.
Really solid points. But I think it's flawed to assume that the change we are witnessing is necessarily and inexorably the future. People said the same thing about progressivism; but it was embraced in the mainstream, we tried it out, and people eventually rejected it. There is no reason to assume that the future will be easier to predict than the present was. I don't believe in people in the short term; we struggle to see past the short term and how things are immediatley impacting us. But we eventually learn in the long term through the mistakes we make in the short and medium term (e.g. negative feedback loops). My only concern is that social media and primarily consuming algorithmic information destroys those negative feedback loops by only showing us what we want to see, meaning if we have adopted a view that is incorrect we don't really see any indications that it is incorrect.
also just a general thing, imo if you like every comment the like is arbitrary. i appreciate the desire to show that you are reading the comments though.
Personality-driven egocracy is the natural result of the repackaging of politics as a pure entertainment product, as described in Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
For an example of how an attention-optimizer at the other end of the moral character spectrum from Trump can gain power, consider Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who literally got elected president out of nowhere by playing a guy who gets elected president out of nowhere on TV. If we are doomed to be dominated by attention-optimizers in this generation, we might do well to think about what mechanisms could favor Zelenskyy types over Trump types.
I so desperately want to be able to punch holes in Noah's argument- and I just freaking can't. As a high school teacher, I see my kids "branding" themselves, marketing themselves... Yeah, this has always been the case to some extent, but not only is it on steroids now, it's what they've been doing their whole lives, not just to get into college.
If this is one of the main ways in which these young people have organized their lives, then it stands to reason that, going forward, it's what they'll respond to.
I've grown tired of all the issues-based discussion around the election. That stuff matters, but I think we've moved- and to our detriment, continue to move- beyond that.
I found all this rather depressing, Noah. Well argued, but depressing.
"Well-argued but depressing" is kind of my brand.
Nice work. As a newcomer here I’m glad to witness an at-bat like this; in baseball it looks like a solo shot over the top deck in dead-center. Haven’t read anything that traces the evolution from Burnham’s concept to now so convincingly, but that does seem to nail it.
I'm more convinced by the Hank Green argument that this is first and foremost a media revolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8PndpFPL8g
I'd say that attention is zero-sum in a way that capital equipment and human capital are not. Land is also zero-sum, but monopolizing attention is a different sort of thing and not so easily monopolized as land, especially as new media lose their luster. Also, per the Green argument above, media decentralization encourages a recklessness, both in the early printing press and present era, that make influencer leaders a high variance bet at best.
Influencers may well be a new elite class, supplanting some of the role of both religious leaders and organization stalwarts. Similarly, we are seeing a return to patronage systems led by personalistic leaders and influencers can play that game well. But I think the scale will not match that of the mandarins as they must ultimately shove one another aside and not stand on one anothers' shoulders.
I'd make a distinction between "attention" and "status", even though in our world raising your status often comes from gaining a lot of attention.
Attention does not have to be zero sum in the long run. For example, in a growing population - there will be more "total hours" for eyeballs to spend. Same with a growing life expectancy. Or a major time-saving advance can free up more of your attention to spend on media. Like a self-driving car: it would allow you to watch video, where previously you could only listen to audio (or if you were a focused driver, maybe you couldn't listen to anything before). All those changes grow the total market for selling attention. Various attention merchants can grow their audiences simultaneously under those circumstances.
Status on the other hand - only one person can be on top. Only one musician at the top of the Billboard charts. Only one movie at the top of the box office. Only one podcaster at the top of Spotify, or YouTuber at the top of YouTube. That's closer to presidential politics. You can't win without someone else losing.
Really solid points. But I think it's flawed to assume that the change we are witnessing is necessarily and inexorably the future. People said the same thing about progressivism; but it was embraced in the mainstream, we tried it out, and people eventually rejected it. There is no reason to assume that the future will be easier to predict than the present was. I don't believe in people in the short term; we struggle to see past the short term and how things are immediatley impacting us. But we eventually learn in the long term through the mistakes we make in the short and medium term (e.g. negative feedback loops). My only concern is that social media and primarily consuming algorithmic information destroys those negative feedback loops by only showing us what we want to see, meaning if we have adopted a view that is incorrect we don't really see any indications that it is incorrect.
also just a general thing, imo if you like every comment the like is arbitrary. i appreciate the desire to show that you are reading the comments though.