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Musings Report 2022-40 10-1-22 The Benefits of Renouncing Current Affairs and The News
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The Benefits of Renouncing Current Affairs and The News
Why do we pay attention to events over which we have zero control?
I am referring to Current Affairs and The News, a special branch of the media which profits from our attention (The Attention Economy) and our engagement with media platforms, outlets and commentators.
This branch includes both the corporate media of networks, newspapers, etc. and user-created content on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Substack, Patreon, etc.
This coverage of Current Affairs seeks to 1) present what's happening and 2) explain why it is happening by offering context / background and the causal dynamics beneath the surface.
This branch makes money by engaging our attention. It is part of The Attention Economy that monetizes our attention via adverts, subscriptions, etc.
This branch faces stiff competition for our attention.
Limitless pools of competition also make their living off our attention: hundreds of corporate media entertainment offerings, and millions of hours and pages of user-created content.
This competition tends to follow a power law distribution: only a small percentage of the competitors get the vast majority of the attention and the revenues from that attention.
Just as junk food manufacturers engineer their products to hijack our brain's taste-reward wiring that lights up when we taste sugar, salt and fat (and crunchy, creamy, spicy, etc.), Attention Economy competitors hijack our hard-wired attraction to danger and human drama.
There are many ways to engage our hard-wired attraction to danger and drama. Fictional narratives have tried-and-true formulas (a stranger comes to town, etc.) and in the user-created universe, there are dramatic personal stories, engaging personalities, etc.
"If it bleeds, it leads" still dominates TV "news" narratives because we can't stop watching train wrecks, volcanoes erupting, wars, chases, last-second victories or other forms of dramatic danger and destruction.
There is a second way to attract our attention: explain the causal dynamics so we can 1) learn to do things ourselves 2) better predict future outcomes.
Humans are wired to be active and socially engaged. We really can't do nothing for long. (Hence "idle hands are the devil’s workshop.") We seek social connections and learn from one another.
We are also wired to seek causal explanations so we can better anticipate the future. We naturally seek causal dynamics that make sense of semi-random events.
This is the foundation of science: identify and test the underlying dynamics of our physical world.
It is also the foundation of psychology and religion, which seek to explain the human mind and emotions and the spiritual underpinnings of human life.
So we have a volatile mix of millions of competitors for our attention seeking some sort of edge while also claiming to explain the causal dynamics of our complex world.
For many, the edge is exaggeration: exaggerate the danger, the drama, and strip down complex causal dynamics to emotionally engaging, simplified narratives.
In other words, manufacture junk food that's saltier, sweeter, richer and crunchier than all the other competing products in the Attention Economy.
If someone promises to reveal the best-kept secrets of dining in Paris, this might be an exaggeration, but we're wise to that possibility and understand that the content is an attempt to combine the attractions of entertainment with some potentially useful content.
We also understand that TV news programs have a slot to fill with some mix of content and advertisers who pay salaries and generate corporate profits, but this is different from content exaggerated for our entertainment.
"If it bleeds, it leads" is intrinsically disturbing, as we're being told "this is real" and so the suffering and destruction are real.
Just as we can't not look at the twisted metal and shattered glass of the wrecked car and the rotating lights of the ambulance as we slow down on the highway, we can't stop watching real-life dramas of danger, destruction and suffering.
A good example is the nature program. In one episode, we see the stressed-out cheetah mom desperate to bring down the antelope to feed her hungry cubs.
Our sympathies are aroused by careful editing so we see the cute cubs and the endearing mother.
On the next episode, we're treated to close-ups of the struggling antelope baby that arouse our sympathy and then the video cuts to the horribly threatening cheetah mom trying to kill the poor young antelope.
Our emotions are engaged by design. Life's struggles are packaged to engage our attention via sympathy.
Our desire to understand the underlying dynamics is also engaged by design by stripping complexities down to emotionally engaging simplistic narratives: good guys and bad guys.
These narratives can also be exaggerated to attract more attention and engage the content-consumer emotionally.
So not only are events being controlled by bad guys, the bad guys are really, really bad. Not only are they really bad, they are the sole source of all our problems.
In many cases, this simple narrative is superficially appealing. The drug lord and his gang are terrorizing the region, if we could only exterminate them, all would be well.
But the real world rarely maps to simplistic, emotionally satisfying narratives. Why are drugs so profitable? Will another gang arise to replace the one that was just exterminated?
The complex ecosystem of causal dynamics can't be reduced to a narrative that appeals to human's hard-wired fight-or-flight, us-versus-them polarization.
Put another way, junk food isn't nutritious, regardless of claims to the contrary. It can't possibly be made nutritious because processing the product to hijack our taste-reward system is what makes it junk food.
In the drug-gang example, the real enemy is us, wealthy-nation consumers demanding illegal drugs, and our legal system that declares some terribly destructive drugs legal (alcohol and tobacco) and others illegal.
Humans are hard-wired to seek ways to reduce the anxieties of uncertainties. Our ability to project into the future drives our anxiety: if we can anticipate what will happen if we do X or Y, then we can choose to do X instead of Y.
All-or-nothing thinking, i.e. polarization, tends to relieve our anxiety, as once we've identified the enemy and the causal dynamics, our flight-or-flight state of anxiety primed by the dangers we've been absorbing is reduced.
Sensationalism exaggerates the dangers and the drama, and so our natural reaction is to feel heightened anxiety.
In this state, we seek simplified narratives and causal dynamics to reduce our anxiety.
These simplifications are highly attractive, and once we embrace them, we're hard-wired to resist changing our loyalties.
Another hard-wired source of anxiety is powerlessness. When we have little or no control over events and dynamics, we feel stress that quickly becomes chronic and toxic.
Studies of jobs in which workers have little control confirm this. When workers have some control over their work, schedule, etc., their chronic stress levels are reduced.
This is why toxic bosses are so toxic: the employees are powerless to reduce the tyranny and abuse. Their only option is to vote with their feet, i.e. quit.
You see where all this leads.
Competition for attention drives sensationalist exaggerations of danger and drama and simplified, polarized narratives presented as causal dynamics.
Sensationalist exaggerations in entertainment and explanatory programming (the secrets of money revealed, best little-known beaches, etc.) draw upon our innate desires for novelty and useful knowledge.
If we glean a bit of useful knowledge, we're empowered by this gain of knowledge. Even though we know the little-known beaches are now crowded because the content succeeded in attracting attention, we still gained some useful context.
Even if the "secrets of money" are overly simplified and therefore of limited explanatory value, they add to our understanding of monetary theories and practice.
But in the real world of current events, being inundated with exaggerations doesn't empower us. We have zero influence over distant events or policies.
This powerlessness generates chronic anxiety which we are hard-wired to alleviate by polarizing the source of anxiety into fight-or-flight reductions of complexity which quickly harden into unshakeable loyalties to one camp, ideology, faith or explanation.
So both the exaggerated danger / drama and our powerlessness increase our anxiety.
Our innate desire to reduce anxiety by reducing complexity and circling the wagons around whatever simplification we've chosen is ripe for exploitation / hijacking by competitors for our attention.
In our desire to seek the safety of simplified loyalties, we avoid competing loyalties as this conflict increases our anxiety. To reduce our anxiety, we seek confirmation of our beliefs, loyalties and causal dynamics.
In speculation / investing, this manifests as Bears seek bearish commentators and charts, and Bulls seek bullish commentators and charts.
This relieves our anxiety but at a cost: we're better investors if we seek out competing views and hedge the possibility that we're wrong.
Maintaining a state of alert uncertainty is wearing. It takes practice, and the discipline to act on Plan B if Plan A falls apart.
Very few people develop this discipline, which is why the number of individuals who beat the market indices over the long-term is essentially signal noise, i.e. near-zero.
There's another problem with exaggerations to increase engagement in current events.. Authority and expertise are exaggerated to increase the potency of the explanation.
So the battle for narrative often boils down to competing experts with the same credentials (PhDs, former undersecretary of finance, etc.)
The problem is true expertise is typically narrow, and sensationalism is best served by an expert with a very narrow expertise claiming a much wider expertise.
And so a physicist with a narrow expertise can sensationalize some claim far beyond the actual limits of their expertise, and this attracts attention because "an expert said."
Unfortunately, it's rarely disclosed if the "expert" has a financial stake in whatever is being sensationalized or simplified.
The overriding financial interest of all competitors is to gain "market share" of attention by whatever means are available.
Just as we're powerless to control events or policies, few of us have enough knowledge to properly assess the claimed expertise or the claimed explanatory dynamic.
Statistics are rather easily gamed in ways that only those who have a bit of basic math can understand. ("Noisy data" that destroys a profitable claim can be removed, games played to exaggerate differences just above signal-noise into definitive claims, small sample sizes can be used to make grandiose claims, etc.)
I've plowed through Phase III pharmaceutical trial data because this is the only way to really understand if the data supports the claims being made about drug efficacy.
There's no way to become an expert in everything, but concerted effort can give us enough knowledge to understand contexts and be alert to simplifications that support whatever narrative is being promoted.
For example, I've read a great many books about the Vietnam War and I worked and befriended many combat veterans in the 1970s and 80s.
The war remains controversial because various simplified narratives are still being defended by loyalists whose identities have been intwined with one narrative or another.
Wars are complex and we should be skeptical of simplistic, reductionist narratives because stripping out the complexity also strips out the causal dynamics that matter.
Money is also complex. Economies are complex. Cultures are complex. (Try watching mysteries and police procedurals from Japan, Italy and Germany. Each tap different narrative attractors.)
Complexity isn't very attractive. It can't be sensationalized or simplified. It can't be exaggerated to good effect. It's hard to learn enough to make a realistic assessment of the expertise being claimed or the validity of the claimed dynamics.
Junk food is engineered to maximize profit. So are junk science, junk psychology, junk get-rich schemes, junk sociology, etc.
"Some expert said" has be to verified, and this requires a deep enough knowledge to establish the context and the evidence.
Video and narratives are expertly edited to implicitly support whatever narrative or loyalty is being promoted for profit.
Are we seeing the hungry cheetah cubs and mom, or the cute antelope baby and its worried mom trying to keep it from being killed by the cheetah?
The deeper the talons dig into our primal emotions of sympathy and anxiety, the greater our impulse to polarize into us-and-them, fight-or-flight, simplistic reductions of complexity and stake our unshakeable loyalties to one camp or another.
Each cycle of exaggeration, simplification and echo-chamber reinforcement of loyalties to reduce anxiety is profitable.
The better the editing, amplification and simplification, the more attractive the content to an anxious, powerless audience.
The reality is even the powerful have real-world restrictions. We can vote in a new mayor to advocate for what we support, but virtually the entire city budget is already fixed by existing contracts and obligations.
Vested interests are powerful because they have broad support of loyalists whose identities and financial self-interest are tied to maintaining the status quo, i.e. their share of the pie.
Where does all this take us?
In my new book on self-reliance, I offer this: take control of what you can control, and let go of everything else. Why invest time and energy in something we can't change?
If we're powerless, why invest time and energy in gaining enough knowledge to be able to spot self-interest, exaggeration and simplification? If we're passive observers, what's the gain?
Exaggerated danger / drama and powerlessness increase our anxiety, and so these are toxic to mental health. Whatever is toxic to mental health is also toxic to physical health, as the mind and body are one.
Current Affairs and The News exaggerate and simplify events and policies over which we have no control to maximize engagement and profits. The resulting anxiety, simplification and polarization are toxic to us as individuals and as a society.
We don't control The Attention Economy or events / policies. All we control is our reaction.
Renouncing the content-attention industry of Current Affairs and The News reduces our anxiety and frees up time and energy we can devote to gaining control of what we can control in our own lives.
Once we renounce this source of needless anxiety, our attachment to unshakeable loyalties, simplifications and emotionally engaging narratives decline.
If we're Bears, we can read the Bullish case without feeling threatened and upset.
We can focus our attention on gaining knowledge that we can apply to what we can control.
On the far margins of the context / causal dynamics space you will find Of Two Minds, the equivalent of a tiny outpost in the Oort Cloud.
This tiny outpost occasionally veers close to "News" or "Current Affairs," much like a comet on an elliptical orbit.
In other words, I am part of The Attention Economy, a.k.a. The Creator Economy, so I am not a disinterested observer.
That I have an audience is a source of continuous surprise. I confess to seeking catchy titles for posts, but beyond that, I'm not much of a competitor for attention or engagement.
I maintain a low-tech, old-fashioned website. I'm interested in identifying causal dynamics and explaining them as clearly as possible but without over-simplification.
This is what I look for when I'm seeking to expand my knowledge base.
We're powerless to change macro events, policies and dynamics, but if we understand the basic dynamics of energy, finance and The Attention Economy, it positively informs our reactions, i.e. our actions to gain control of what we can control.
Highlights of the Blog
Chart a Course To Self-Reliance 9/28/22
Loonshots and Collapse 9/26/22
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
As I say in my new book, we only control the completion of a project, not its success in the market or in the eyes of others.
When we finally finish a project we've poured our heart, soul, time and effort into, there's a bit of afterglow in having done our best work, come what may.
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Think Tom Brady is an ironman? George Blanda was still playing at 48
The creator economy: a power law -- many create content, few make a living doing so...
China Reins In Its Belt and Road Program, $1 Trillion Later
Grid renewal generates billion-dollar shock as costs of energy transition become clear (via Mike S.)
This is the benefit of dollar dominance. A strengthening dollar does not have a big impact on our import prices since stuff is already priced in USD. But foreigners face higher prices in their currency, and cut back on demand. They tighten their belts to lower our inflation.-- as I was saying months ago...
Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China (book)
Dr. Strangelove (1964) full film (via LaserLefty)
Researchers reconstruct the genome of the common ancestor of all mammals
Jackson Browne - Before The Deluge (live 1977) (8:48 min)
Hydrogen is unsuitable for home heating, review concludes
NYC Proposal Offers Cash for Spotting Parking Violations in Bike Lanes
The other Machiavelli: Finding lessons for leaders in a lesser-known work by the Florentine political philosopher.
"Kingdoms which depend only upon the exceptional ability of a single man are not long enduring, because such talent disappears with the life of the man, and rarely does it happen to be restored in his successor." Machiavelli
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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