droqen's forum-shaped notebook

Quote from: SubtitleFREEDOM AND RESISTANCE IN THE ATTENTION ECONOMY

QuotePreface

In order to do anything that matters, we must first be able to give attention to the things that matter.

Ah, this is a book about paying attention to the things that matter to us. Interestingly, this isn't so much something I have a problem with anymore... I'm free.

QuoteP.13-14, quote from Herbert Simon (1970s)

in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. . . . information consumes . . . the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

This seems like an exhausting way to think about the problem--I mean, I get it, but who has the attention to think so much about attention?

I guess the book might get into that; I'm talking strategy and it's still laying out the problem! But basically my strategy for allocating attention is to allocate it to one thing at a time: the most important thing. No matter how much information there is, I can know that there exists some most important thing.

The second part is modulating how much time (and attention) is assigned to the task of finding the most important thing. Perhaps I should redescribe my strategy; Allocate all my attention to one thing at a time: That which is the most immediately and intuitively important. The end goal is to arrive at a lifestyle which supports that mode of being.

P. 16

QuoteWe're only just beginning to explore what these systems [of guidance, like news, education, law, advertising, etc] should do for us, and how they need to change, in this new milieu of information abundance.

Quote4    Bring your own boundaries

Oh, yes! Here we are. My boundaries. This is what I was discussing before... jumping the gun a bit I guess.

Hmm and here is an anecdote about Tetris which describes a great fault in my strategy as described above; games, among other things, are designed to catch exactly that impulse which searches for the 'immediately and intuitively important.' What's to be done about that?

Also, is Tetris a source of information?

Hmm and here is an anecdote about Tetris which describes a great fault in my strategy as described above; games, among other things, are designed to catch exactly that impulse which searches for the 'immediately and intuitively important.' What's to be done about that?

Also, is Tetris a source of information, delicious information?

P. 18

QuoteIf you wanted to train all of society to be as impulsive and weak-willed as possible. . . invent an impulsivity training device . . . that delivers an endless supply of informational rewards on demand.

In a rather inflammatory move, Williams uses this cute metaphor of a fictional (but not fictional) device called an 'iTrainer' which is just a cellphone and blames our woes on it. He's not wrong, but it's not a good look in my eyes, relying on the cuteness of this metaphor for a rather long time. The basic idea is that if people used to have willpower, but giving them too many rewards has reduced their willpower. Okay. No need to make it sound so malicious.

P. 19

QuoteYou don't want just any rewards to get delivered -- you want people to receive rewards that speak to their impulsive selves, rewards that are the best at punching the right buttons in their brains.

Ah, this is very related to dopamine and ~ The Hacking of the American Mind (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=309.0)

I'm dwelling too much on the negative but I think it's important to catch these oh-so-ironic in this case patterns of attention grabbing in the act: Williams' writing structure is following a framework I've seen time and time again. 'Things are bad' 'Things could be good, if only someone would do something about it' 'However, things are bad.' It's a form of, like, motivational negging common in nonfiction books. It's particularly insulting seeing it here, though - it's an effective attention grabbing tactic.

Values. I'm getting caught up in the attention argument rather than focusing on what really matters. Values.

45

QuoteWhat do you pay when you pay attention?

Effectively Williams says (with my dreaded nemesis, a list, a list, a list) you pay with your life. Time. And yes, this is true, but he uses this actually salient point only to reiterate how important attention is, to justify a further exploration of 'what attention is.' Hmm. I'm unforgiving of this book, it seems. I'll try to meet it where it's at. What is so interesting about attention?

P.68

QuoteEpistemic distraction is the diminishment of underlying capacities that enable a person to define or pursue their goals: . . . reflection, memory, prediction, leisure, reasoning, and goal-setting. . . .

at its extreme, epistemic distraction . . . removes reflected-upon, intentional reasons for action, leaving only impulsive reactions in its wake.

~ Lists (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=497)

What epistemic distraction blocks is a more interesting concept to me than the distraction itself. Ironically, the distraction seems to be a distraction.

From page 68, a quote taken in turn from The Oxford Handbook of Attention, maybe from a paper within called 'Natural Mechanisms for the Executive Control of Attention'? Bibliographies are hard.

Quoteintegrate associations across many different experiences to detect common structures across them. [These commonalities] form abstractions, general principles, concepts, and symbolisms that are the medium needed [for good thought.]

The above quote is used in the book to describe what is lost, what is taken by attention, but I much prefer it outside of that context, presented as appreciation of what we have all the time, of what we may notice and choose to strengthen further. Something "good but too weak", to bring out through successive transformations.

P. 104

Quote. . . the perspective of infraethics views society itself as a sort of persuasive technology, with a persuasive design goal of maximizing moral actions.

Quote from: Luciano Floridi[infraethics is attention to the infrastructural] first-order framework of implicit expectations, attitudes, and practices that can facilitate and promote morally good decisions and actions.

Williams briefly discusses societal 'reboot', musing on whether such a thing could be necessary. This is a bad line of thinking.

He goes on to describe some goals!

P. 108

QuoteAs a society, we ought to . . . ask what we ultimately want advertising to do for us. . . . The presence of a series of organizations dedicated to a task can in no sense be justification for that task.

An interesting observation... I of course believe the first part. In all contexts of human activity, we must pursue knowing what we want.

The second part—it's so tempting to think of reboot when seeing things that appear to be at best vestigial and on top of that possibly, probably, harmless. Perhaps the fact that it is being done is no 'justification' for a task, but attention paid to tearing down seems so much less useful than attention paid to finding and building upon what would take its place.

P116

QuoteWhat can policy do in the short term . . . ? . . . Set standards for the measurement of certain sorts of attentional harm—that is, quantify their "pollution" of the inner environment . . .

Hmm. Policy. Policy isn't really my thing, but it is powerful. I return to the thought of smooth unfolding, of structure-preserving transformations. But information seems good.

P116

Quotequantify their "pollution" of the inner environment -- and require that digital media companies measure their effects on these metrics and report on them periodically to the public.

P117

Quote"Whatever man you meet," advised the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations, "say to yourself at once: 'what are the principles this man entertains as goods and ills?'" This is good advice not only upon encountering persuasive people, but persuasive technologies as well. . . . Do the goals my trusted systems have for me align with the goals I have for myself? There's nothing wrong with trusting the people behind our technologies, nor do we need perfect knowledge of their motivations to justifiably do so. Trust always involves taking some risk.

"professional oaths."

These next few pages talk about professional oaths and discusses what a "Designer's Oath" might look like, what we might expect from it, where it might fail, what its drawbacks might be. They are a good handful of pages of thinking and I am much more aligned with the idea of an oath than a set of rules.

I'm going to quote pieces of what Williams describes as the "alpha", designed to be built upon and changed and made 'more poetic and memorable than this', because I think the spirit of it is extremely good. In particular i love the very first sentence, how it frames the enormity of the responsibility of the task at hand:

P130

QuoteAs someone who shapes the lives of others, I promise to. . . care genuinely about their success. . . align my projects and actions with their intentions, goals, and values. . . respect their dignity, attention, and freedom, and never use their own weaknesses against them. . . measure the full effect of my projects on their lives, and not just those effects that are important to me. . . communicate clearly, honestly, and frequently my intentions and methods. . . promote their ability to direct their own lives by encouraging reflection on their own values, goals, and intentions.

"As someone who shapes the lives of others. . ."

I suppose that most everyone shapes the lives of others. It's both inspiring and humbling to think about.

P128

Quote. . . the degree to which we are able and willing to struggle for ownership of our attention is the degree to which we are free.

I don't know, this just seems so narrow. Williams rightly identifies attention as a crucial ingredient but mistakes it for the whole pie—"attention == freedom." It is not. He doesn't need to overstate the importance of his thesis! It's important! But he does, and this undercurrent has irritated me the whole time.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book. It's important to have and claim the capacity and will to own our attention. It's just not the only thing on the road to freedom, even if it seems like the bottleneck in our modern times.