For the past few weeks I have been obsessed with the contents of the Waking Up app, I have had the app for a year now(courtesy of my therapist) but only recently started using it. The meditation sessions are nice but what really got me hooked was Sam's argument against free will. Firstly, for the fact that it actually made sense. Moreover, for all the positive conclusions the argument brings about. However, I am having a harder time grasping non-duality and have been going over the theories ever since. But this is not a post on that.
While listening to one of his interviews I heard Sam quote Netflix's CEO. In case you don't know me, Netflix is my dream job. But the quote had me thinking. It goes like this:
We’re competing with sleep, on the margin
It started to bother me very soon. If I keep following the same path as I am on right now, would my Key Performance Indicator soon turn out to be keeping people from sleeping? Do I really want to specialize in stealing people's attention?
This weekend I was enjoying the sea and the clouds somewhere in Texel— not binging Netflix.
Why is attention so important? Well, if you haven't heard, "Attention Is All You Need" (Sorry, had to do that). For technology giants the most tried and tested way of making money is selling ads. People don't really log into Facebook to see ads. So they have to give them nice things to look at and then sneak in some ads. There is a great documentary called The Social Dilemma that has a bit about how these algorithms work. Recently, Netflix also pivoted hard on Ads. Apparently it is the only model that works when money is short and people cancel their subscriptions. At this point Netflix is even investing in their own advertising technology. So now they have more reasons to keep you glued to the screen.
There is an all out war going on for grabbing people’s attention. This is not new and was not really unknown to me. In fact, there have been many books written on the topic. There are Wikipedia entries on the phenomena such as attention theft and attention economy. These, along with other morally grey practices, are how the tech product companies of the world make their billions and how nerds like me enjoy being comfortably employed. So it’s a bit evil, but a job is a job is a job— right? Unfortunately, I wield the dual edged sword of passion/profession (Profassion? Prassion?). Sometimes I joke with my friends about how I've gamed the system. All I really do is have fun and people seem to pay me for it. One of the only reason I am a functioning adult is because my hobby turned out to be profitable. So I tend to be very invested in what I do. It's a part of who I am and I would like very much for It to amount to something. This is why I am now bothered by the path I have carved out for myself. And the question now is… what do I do about it?
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