The Sirens' Call

By Chris Hayes

• References economist Herbert Simon's 1971 essay
• Aspects of attention:
  • Voluntary - mindful focus
  • Involuntary - like a crash
  • Social attention, the cocktail effect - hear your name in a conversation
• Short-hand for attention mining: hail, grab, hold
• Prehistoric privacy was rare: the notion of a "bedroom," a separate place where different family members can sleep in privacy, is at the earliest a seventeenth-century invention
• Parable of Kojève: the star seeks recognition from the fan, but the fan is a stranger, who cannot be known by the star. But the star cannot recognize the fan. The fans recognition of the star doesn't satisfy the core existential desire… so the star seeks recognition but gets attention
• A shoutout to the 2008 financial crisis - subprime attention in terms of how Meta has sold ads
• Describing social media like Meta, X, TikTok - Platforms regulate attention to keep your attention on the platform. There is no purpose other than that. That is their value proposition.
  • Amanda Ripley coined the term: "conflict entrepreneurs" to describe trolls
• Compares belief in conspiracy theories to feuding gods of Ancient Greece
• Possible regulations may be similar to labor law