Stand Out of Our Light

[droqen]

Regarding James Williams'
"Stand Out of Our Light"
recommended to me by Pinchazumos

[droqen]

FREEDOM AND RESISTANCE IN THE ATTENTION ECONOMY

Preface

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.

P.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?

[droqen]

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.

[droqen]

P. 16

We'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.

[droqen]

4    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.

[droqen]

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?

[droqen]

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?

[droqen]

P. 18

If 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.

[droqen]

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.

[droqen]

P. 19

You 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

[droqen]

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.

[droqen]

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

[droqen]

45

What 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?

[droqen]

P.68

Epistemic 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

[droqen]

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.

integrate 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.]