Attention is a luxury good
(seths.blog)137 points by herbertl 7 hours ago
137 points by herbertl 7 hours ago
I can’t watch YouTube without an adblocker. On a surface level, I hate the ads. But, the main reason is the fact that I can’t stand how YouTube is fixated on trying to make you watch something else at all times. I need something to hide all the little cards and interstitials that pop up when pausing the video, the badges, all the obnoxious thumbnails, etc..
I also hide all of the videos on the sidebar except for the one that would be recommended next, just so I can know what might play if I leave autoplay on.
It is insane to me that the product got to this place. I get Google is all about advertising, but my goodness, YouTube is just designed to make you not pay attention for more than a few seconds.
Ublock Origin and Unhook[1]
Lets you remove as much or as little of the "UI/UX" as you want - don't want to see shorts, recommended vids, end cards etc - live comments (who even asked for that) you don't have to.
It collapses YT back to been an intentional thing - I'm looking for a video to watch, I watch it, it suggests nothing and I go on with my day instead of getting distracted by the skinner box.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-recom...
As somebody already mentioned, uBlock Origin helps.
I have these in my filters to make YouTube bearable:
www.youtube.com###comments
www.youtube.com###related
www.youtube.com###sponsor-button
www.youtube.com###donation-shelf
www.youtube.com##.ytp-endscreen-content
www.youtube.com###chat:remove()
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com###chat-container
Problem with that solution is that Youtube is not an independent company that one could be happy to pay for their services. You're paying Google, and there are more than enough reasons to not wanting to give Google any money at all.
That's the problem with corporations: they cover too much. I cannot pay Youtube while at the same time not giving an ounce of support to the company that wants to remove all remaining freedoms of the Android ecosystem.
> Or pay for a YouTube subscription?
At this point, if I had no choice like ublock: I'd still not pay them. Why should I? To enforce this behaviour so everybody suffers more? What about those people who can't afford a subscription? Why is their mind and attention free to be abused?
The advertisement industry has became disgustingly evil. I hate everything about it.
Youtube as we know it will probably be dead in a few years anyway. Tiktok has shortened everyone's attention span. I shockingly found myself clicking away from one of my favorite classic rock songs from my youth because I didn't want to stay the entire 3 minutes.
The only way to get a sane YouTube experience is to deactivate the history and only use the subscription page but that has other downsides.
My wife got a new android phone recently and she was showing me that her picture gallery now has ads. My Android phone from 5 years ago lets you look at the pictures in the camera app, but hers does not and makes you see ads to look at the pictures you've taken. This is evil.
Fossify Gallery
Ads on the picture gallery is insane. How is this even allowed?
Not the parent, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5
(A cheaper alternative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone)
I think that is where the power of current AI chat interfaces like chatgpt beats other digital interfaces. You ask a question. Get just an answer back in more or less same format or grammer. And no ads. No distractions. Clean.
Though it is tough for ai chat providers to keep it that way for long if revenue from subscriptions / apis does not offset the exorbitant compute costs.
I bought a new treadmill with a 24” screen on it. The screen should have been the red flag I guess. They want $40 a month to use the screen if I want to watch Netflix while I run, or sync my running data to Apple Health. There is no way to change this as far as I can tell and if they went out of business I’m sure my equipment would become a brick.
I guess it’s time to pop it open and do one of those classic “how I rewired this thing to work how I want” HN posts.
It’s always been like that, misanthropes, psychos, regular scoundrels, etc. have always existed.
Of course in the past there were less opportunities to hide or excuse that kind of behavior.
> misanthropes
You're underestimating the impact, in my opinion.
Almost EVERYONE puts their devices over relationships.
Not as bad, but even when the relationship gets priority, it can be mediated by the device. E.g., texting close family members. It's another chance to be a victim of attention-stealing because you start the device session for a good reason.
It seems clearly possible nearly everyone you know could be a closet misanthrope/psycho/scoundrel/etc. ?
And all they needed were convenient excuses and opportunities to indulge in that behavior.
i.e. it could genuinely be their true self, unattractive as it may be.
> No product is even remotely for the consumer anymore, they’re all just minimal pretenses to try and advertise you and extract more of your attention and money.
This is a beautiful sentence.
I would add that under modern-day aggressive hyper-capitalism all attention can be translated to money, so it's all just products whose job is to get you to buy more products.
The payoff is the last line: “ If you’ve signed up to offer an attention-luxury good, you undermine it when you also try to make it quick and convenient.”
Culture is also a luxury good, by this definition. If you read the Wikipedia summary of a Shakespeare play, you can fake a basic understanding of the plot. But you’ve gotten the social proof (e.g. dinner-party survival) without the deeper appreciation of the characters and their motivations.
As far as that goes, empathy seems to be a borderline luxury good at this point.
> As far as that goes, empathy seems to be a borderline luxury good at this point.
Empathy isn't optional. It's necessary for a functioning society. The fact that some people are starting to view empathy with suspicion is an indicator of the decline of this one.
> Culture is also a luxury good, by this definition.
Has always been. One of the key ways the upper class defines themselves is by their sensitivity for good taste AKA sensibility[1] (as in "Sense and Sensibility"). Haute couture, fine arts, etc. "Good" taste is of course dynamic, but that's beside the point.
[1]An understanding of or ability to decide about what is good or valuable, especially in connection with artistic or social activities. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sensi...
It seems that way (re empathy as a luxury) but I don't think it's true.
Empathy builds cooperation and biases towards game theory optimal, which increases chances of survival and furniture thriving.
It doesn't seem like this right now, because all our luxuries are built on momentum enabled by past empathy.
In fact it's the lack of empathy (and curiosity) for others that is causing more suffering and an increasing trend towards lose-lose dynamics, it's just hard to see because the scale across people, time and space is so vast.
Like everything else (reality as vibrations), it seems that global empathy oscillates up and down across generations, with a long-term trend upwards.
So I don't think empathy is a luxury, empathy enables luxury. It's just hard to see past the silver spoon narcissists and collective victim mentality in the current context. I'm optimistic more empathy is in our future, even if not short or medium term.
Well said. There's an odd suspicion of empathy at this point (even some right-wing Christians calling empathy evil which is really odd considering what the founder of their religion taught). There's so much grievance on all sides that's being fueled by various media outlets and algorithms. Grievance says "I've been uniquely wronged". And it leads to giving up on empathy so as to get even.
The concept comes from early psychology in the orbit of Freud. It was invented in 1903/1909. It's somewhat mystical and somewhat mechanical, an automatic feeling that we're supposed to have. These days we can be told off for lacking this supposéd thing. I don't like it, quite independently.
From what I understand about history (which is just enough to know there's a lot I don't know), it seems that collective victim mentality leads to a rise in authoritarianism.
Also yes a hallmark of a victim mentality is a lack of empathy for others. One believes that no one else cares about them, so why should they care about anyone else?
It's tragic, but it keeps happening, so maybe it has some bigger picture purpose that's hard to see from an individual's perspective. Doesn't feel great to live through though, and it can get really dark...
I suspect your comment references Allie Stuckey, who wrote a book "Toxic Empathy" and was viral in a video with this idea recently.[1] To the unfamiliar reader, her concept of "toxic empathy" can be boiled down thus-
-Empathy becomes "toxic" when it encourages a person to affirm sin, validate lies or support destructive policies
-Truth over feelings. Biblical love does not blindly affirm an individual's feelings or choices if those choices violate moral truth
For a tangible example of these ideas and their connect to the Gospel (what "the founder" taught), watch the video.
I know that words are largely arbitrary and arguing terms isn't very valuable but these phenomenons already have fairly commonly used names.
OP writes about conspicuous consumption/leisure, not really luxury. Similarly, while a Birkin bag could be considered a luxury good, its defining feature is being something more, the artificial scarcity and increased demand with price amke it a Veblen good.
Also, things you can buy with attention aren't really expensive, they're just constantly priced. That is you have 10-14 hours of attention a day, and you use it or lose it, every minute of attention is largely the same, with a little ADHD you can switch quickly. Listening to a concert online and going to the philharmonics costs about the same in attention.
> A Birkin bag is a luxury good, and so is reading an entire non-fiction book, listening to a public radio broadcast
The latter two items statement make this more of a self-report* than anything else. I have never read more more books nor listened to more podcasts than the year when I was homeless.
* the author doesn't actually enjoy those two things and considers their value to lie in signaling ("sending a message")
I had to re-read the brief article 3 times to understand it, I find the wording particularly difficult to parse for some reason. I admit, I am not the brightest, but there is something very off with how it is put together to me.
In that regard, he is practicing what he is preaching :) If his intention is to offer a blog post that is a "luxury" to read, that is, conspicuous consumption, he's doing himself a disservice if he makes it too easy to understand. I don't necessarily agree, but in the words of Jeff Goldblum, well, there it is.
Adam Grant had recently Daniel Immerwahr on attention span and how it really has not shortened despite popular beliefs.
In the age of social media and short-form content, many people insist that our attention spans are getting shorter. But historian Daniel Immerwahr reminds us that people have cried wolf for centuries about technology hijacking our attention. In this episode, Adam and Daniel dive into evidence that what’s changing is not our attention spans, but the objects of our focus. They also discuss moral panics of the past, compare the cognitive benefits of video games and the opera, and debate whether or not Marvel movies are a waste of time.
https://podcastaddict.com/worklife-with-adam-grant/episode/2...
Can't tell if it should be upvoted or not because attention is devoted to many addictive behaviours which I'd argue are not a luxury but the desperation of people who have been exploited or attempting to escape.
You don't become addicted because of luxury. Attention is not a luxury. It's our time. It's our most precious resource and when it's "wasted" it's often because something is going terribly wrong.
> You don't become addicted because of luxury. Attention is not a luxury.
Hmm, I think there's more nuance here, how about cars? Many people let themselves be much more dependent on them than they need to be, and in many cases adjusting their life around the car or the assumption that you'll always have this behemoth thing with an engine parked outside at all times sucking money out of your bank account, making your muscles and maybe social skills atrophy, exposing you to the risk of death all the time. You get comfortable with the experience of not having to do anything more than press a button, much like content addiction and smartphones, vaping, etc..
Removing the car creates a sense of pain, you have to move your body, possibly interact
> You don't become addicted because of luxury.
The definition of a luxury is “Something that is not essential but provides pleasure and comfort.”
I’d actually argue that you can only get addicted to luxuries. You wouldn’t say you’re addicted to food, water, or shelter because you need to have them every day.
Im not sending the rest of the world signals to because of how I choose to spend my time. Nor is the alternative optimized adaptive survival. I can’t figure out if I’m the one with the alien mind or he is. I go to music events because the experience is qualitatively different than listening to music at home, when I choose to do things, it’s because I want to, not because I have any interest in what other people think of me for engaging in those activities.
It fits the "attention is a precious resource" metaphor (in the sense of Johnson and Lakoff metaphors.
Alike overfishing, alike taking most of land from nature to cities, mining and agriculture, we can look at attention as a resource than once was ubiquotious, now is scarce... and luxury.
POV you are reading my drafts folder when I just got violently stoned off the penjamin.
It is. And focus, especially the ability to focus on a tough topic for a non trivial amount of time, is luxury, too.
I hereby advice anyone who has a non trivial curiosity about ∀ that requires focus and concentration (pretty much ∪ of HN interests) to appreciate it and care it as if it is your most precious procession.
I have said this before and I’ll say it again — if you are not super into getting a kid, don’t.
For those interested in that topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy
I think we can go further.
Human attention is the determinant of monetary value.
Gold is expensive because it takes a lot of human attention to find and refine it.
Food became cheaper when it required less human attention to make it.
The evil in this world would love to peddle the idea that having any free time, not living in a shitty apartment with four other people, or not dying of hunger or treatable disease is a “luxury”.
Not really a fan of this econ 101 language given that it if anything drastically understates the importance of attention. I prefer Ian McGilchrist's framing of attention as a moral act:
"Attention is a moral act: it creates, brings aspects of things into being, but in doing so makes others recede. What a thing is depends on who is attending to it, and in what way. The fact that a place is special to some because of its great peace and beauty may, by that very fact, make it for another a resource to exploit, in such a way that its peace and beauty are destroyed. Attention has consequences"
A good friend of mine is an Imam and he explained to me that in Islam heedlessness is even described as a sin(Al-Ghaflah). Attention is not just a luxury good, and forgetfulness just some waste of time or money, it destroys a person's ability to distinguish between what's real and what isn't.
One of the reasons why we seem to be so ineffective at combating distraction is I think because we've even lost that kind of language that makes clear how consequential lack of attention is.
> Luxury is a marker that we can afford to do something others might consider wasteful.
the most interesting luxury thing i saw was palmer luckey showing his modretro chromatic game boy in his interview with rogan this week. sapphire crystal screen, special alloy from the weapons factory, offline, 90s aesthetic, exists for the pleasure of it, etc. what luxury really is is an expression of value, or values. the most coarse version of that is "status," but what about religious garb, artifacts and symbols? to an atheist, a hijab or a cross is a luxury item, but to the wearer, they are the literal, existential point of being. it's pretty crass and unserious to suggest these are just status symbols in a materialist power struggle. things that express values that bring you joy or pleasure are not a "luxury," as this presumes you are nothing but an undifferentiated clump of cells with the same material needs as any other one, and any distinction in satisfying those needs is superfluous. and to what? your meaningless existence as grist for an eternal struggle? surely.
we need a new model of luxury. in economics, there are normal and inferior goods, then giffen goods whose demand becomes higher when the price rises, veblen goods whose price is inverse to utility, and some other ones, but they are all names for the shapes of price and demand curves, but they're all just curves.
materialist ideas about luxury are dumb thought terminating cliches that deprive others of the opportunity to contemplate or appreciate them. we need new thinking, imo
I interpret the post as the author trying to convey a message of self-worth.
From where I am, I can't possibly know if that's a genuine message with valuable advice, or some self-justification he's making about himself, or some trick (of which there are many related to messages of self-worth).
He acknowledge hints of these possibilities by saying that attention provides "a message to ourselves and others". That is a fascinating brain leak right there.
In a more real assessment of reality, the truth is that I don't have much control over my attention. Might as well just let it flow and see what I can do with whatever comes from the interaction, no worries.
Does that imply the risk of falling into an attention trap? Definitely. Anyone that says he is not subject to that risk is lying.
The article probably could just have been that statement, but I agree.
Every experience now just seems like people (companies) fighting over who can most obnoxiously distract you.
I bought a new phone recently for the first time in 8 years, and (a) had to set everything up all at once (ad blocking, no notifications, etc) which left me briefly exposed to how bad things are but (b) had to experience all the annoyingness of a modern phone trying to suggest things and sync things and bother me with stuff I don’t want.
No product is even remotely for the consumer anymore, they’re all just minimal pretenses to try and advertise you and extract more of your attention and money.
So yeah, outside some sheltered life of luxury, it’s a constant fight to preserve focus against people wanting to steal it.