Mon, 03 Feb 2025 23:40:22 GMT

@chrislhayes.bsky.soci I just finished The Siren’s Call. Thank you for this book. It provoked many thoughts I want to share in hopes you can explore on future WHITpods. As a start, let me restate the book’s core premises, which I think are spot on.

Communication consists of grabbing attention and then using the focused attention to persuade. The alternative tactic of continuously grabbing attention through distraction can drown out persuasion.

Companies who run social media and cable TV have fallen for continuously grabbing attention rather than persuading. This is attention capitalism.

Algorithmically powered social media are the most pernicious form of attention capitalism. It enabled a style of political campaigning where Trump relentlessly grabbed involuntary attention to crowd out the opposition's attempts at persuasion.

(Corollary: he is using the same technique to govern: Relentless distraction at high muzzle velocity to prevent opposition, focus, or persuasion.)

Attention capitalism, enabled by smartphones and algorithmic social media, is a major contributing factor to the loneliness epidemic. An attention capitalist relies on creating a service that is addictive and hard to substitute.

This is similar to the playbooks of tobacco, pharma, big food, fossil fuels, and similar industries. Uniquely, the attention capitalist can monetize by selling the attention to advertisers and thereby make their service free to their users.

In the US, attention capitalists can exploit the “free” nature of the service and its presentation as presentation as “speech” to claim First Amendment protection and avoid accountability for their harms.

We don’t have to succumb. but to restore our personal happiness and our civil society, we need to regain control over our attention. I violently agree with all of this.

Here are follow-on topics that I hope you might explore with suitable experts.

Other countries have tried to regulate attention capitalism to mitigate its harms. The EU Digital Services Act is the flagship example. What is and isn’t working? The EU countries seem to be suffering similar polarization to the US, albeit milder.

And what positives can we learn from countries that explicitly censor speech and regulate disinformation? Are their citizens happier?

Dr. Paul Conti has written about agency as one of two keys to happiness. (The other is gratitude.) Attention capitalism is the thief of agency and thereby a creator of loneliness. How can we use this knowledge to create a social response?

And I have some observations about other parts of the book.

TSC argues a lot about a uniquely human character to attention and persuasion. This is speculative at best. When you watch birds sing, bees dance, dogs or dolphins chatter, You see a similar pattern of getting attention and then holding it with communication.

Across the animal kingdom, involuntary attention (and distractibility) is a necessary survival skill for prey. Similarly, focused attention is necessary for a predator. And socially focused attention is necessary for predators who collaborate in packs.

The universal, primal character of attention across the animal kingdom is a more likely reason for its power than some uniquely human twist.

The book also flirts with a Marxist argument that the commoditization of attention is analogous to the commoditization of labor. Maybe. A stronger argument would be that rent-seeking capitalism likes addictive products that are hard to substitute.

You use fast and factory food here as an analogy. Of course, we should regulate such industries to mitigate their harms. Let's raise the awareness that attention capitalism is another such industry, whose harm must be mitigated.

I am a big fan of yours. I listen to WITHpod regularly for its thoughtful interviews, although I skip “All In” with its soundbite segments. Since you wrote your book for readers, there may be others like me.

Thanks in advance for reading this thread!

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