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Created: October 2022, Last Updated: December 2022

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A race to the bottom? Related: social media, 24/7 news, faster (tech) content cycles (OODA), neuroplasticity/addiction, the atomization of culture, content needs to be increasingly outrageous in order to exceed most people’s filters

https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi/status/1587345566912036865?s=46&t=aAhzwtcdm3IAhNa2Jio8uA

Weaponized:

https://twitter.com/60minutes/status/1589418795243917312?s=46&t=lBJthw772kLQgSNTyOK0HQ

The Term

**Paying Attention: The Attention Economy,** Berkeley Economic Review, 2020

The term “attention economy” was coined by psychologist, economist, and Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon, who posited that attention was the “bottleneck of human thought” that limits both what we can perceive in stimulating environments and what we can do. He also noted that “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention,” suggesting that multitasking is a myth.

Later, in 1997, theoretical physicist Micheal Goldhaber warned that the international economy is shifting from a material-based economy to an attention-based economy, pointing to the many services online offered for free. As fewer people are involved with manufacturing and we move away from an industrial economy, emerging careers work with information. Although the “information economy” is a common name for this new state, Goldhaber rejects this; information is not scarce, attention is.

<aside> ❓ Case in point: FreeWater

”FreeWater is paid for by ads that are printed directly onto eco-friendly cans and cartons.”

All that matters is the story: climate-friendly and donates to charity?

“If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.”

</aside>

Albert Wenger, World After Capital

As discussed in Bloomberg podcast w/ Albert Wenger (USV) and based on his book (World after capital, gitbook here)

‎Masters in Business: Albert Wenger on Global Venture Capital Firms on Apple Podcasts

• transcript

“Attention is to time as velocity is to speed.... Velocity is speed (with) direction. Attention is time (with) intentionality.”

Markets fail at allocating attention because prices cannot exist for directing our attention to problems and opportunities most crucial for the survival and thriving of humanity. The climate crisis, for instance, is both more severe and more imminent than most people realize, and it is a direct result of our failure to pay attention. How quickly we address this crisis will to a great extent determine the shape of the current transition.

Renewable LCOE declines - an example of what happens when meaningful attention is correctly applied

via Lazard

How much are eyeballs / time worth?

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