Tag: Economy

Letting go..

There’s no trying new things without letting some things go.

There’s no new life, if there’s no death.

There’s no bandwidth to explore new books, genres, TV shows, people, if we’re not ready to abandon the ones that turn stale, or we grow out of, or finished.

Bandwidth is finite. Cognitivo capacity is finite. Time is finite.

A core constraint on growing, changing, exploring, is our reluctance to let go of some of what we have and are.

Create space by letting some mediocre stuff go. Then fill it with something new, untested, unusual. If it fits, great. If it doesn’t, chuck it and try again. Something new, untested, unusual.

Attention economy – a monopoly, and my dues

The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?‘

Sean Parker, ex President at Facebook

We’re living in an attention economy, and Facebook is the (almost-)monopoly firm.

This also answers:

  1. Why I don’t use Facebook and WhatsApp?
  2. Why I’m not as active on Twitter anymore?
  3. Why I’m not proud of still being moderately active on Instagram?
  4. Why I’ve given up watching TV, at least for the time being?

If it’s an attention economy, then I want to be paid for my attention. And a dopamine shot isn’t a worthy currency for me.

Different decade, same story

No one wanted to think about the gangs of no-hope teenagers who already took over the nearby park all day, drinking lager and waiting for something to happen to them, trapped in a forgotten village in no-man’s land between a ten-shop town and an amorphous industrial sprawl.

Meena, in Anita & Me, by Meera Syal