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Jill Lepore, historian and essayist, wrote a piece that appeared in the New Yorker this week, titled The Artificial State. She is writing about the effects on our political discourse on "the digital manipulation of attention-mining algorithms" in the service of "minutely message-tested online engagement."
Her analysis on the depth and reach of this attention-mining pushing us down rat mazes of irritation and reward toward the cheese or poison to be consumed, startled me into awareness. It's not that I don't know how all this works. Nonetheless, Lepore's case was so compelling, it opened a new door into my metacognitive awareness.
Since at least 1995, I've worked hard to resist the attention-mining algorithms. I've never joined FaceBook or Twitter. I was on Instagram, which I liked, but only stayed on briefly because it made me feel more alienated from my loved ones than I felt connected. I never joined Amazon Prime, and I'm not on Tik Tok. I eventually joined Linkedin because I was afraid having no social media presence would arouse the suspicion that I was in the witness-protection program, which is plausible given my upbringing. (Feel free to ask.)
I even avoid most news sources. I'm on the sources where reporters and commentators will get fired for lying -- sadly a small list. And even on those, I avoid opinion pieces.
Even with news it turns out there's not much I need to know. Nearly all of the information generated is captured by the old-fashioned word, gossip. There's a tiny amount that will make me a better person or cause me to lead a better life. At the same time, people find me surprisingly well informed. I'm out in the world and learn things from the people I encounter.
On Wednesday, November 6, I was up early to meet two people I admire, Dave and Clint, at 6am for coffee at our local McDonalds. I had gone to bed early, and, as is my custom, I don't consume media before bed or in the early morning hour or so. As I drove into the parking lot, a man who had been rummaging in the lot's trash can went floridly across the parking lot, screaming that Trump had won. I got the news of the US presidential election in a moving car from someone who was sadly and literally a madman.
I was now as informed as anyone in the world.
When Lepore's analysis arrived a couple of days later -- in print -- I started to see how tweaks of irritation and reward were breaking through as I engaged, email, texts, and web searches. I had accepted a flood of small pushes by email and text from brands or services I had interacted with or bought something from and were now "maintaining a relationship" with me by poking me down the rat maze with micro-targeted irritations and reward. I'm now systematically blocking them as they show up. When I need new socks, I'll know how to find them. Did I just unsubscribe from a National Geographic newsletter? Yeah. I know where to find them. Good as they are, I don't need them pushing me.
After several days of unsubscribing from these pushes -- and it's going to take a while to extinguish them all as they come in -- I admit I miss the pokes -- and find I have more mind space. I'm still letting a select number in. More on the better person -- better life test later.
What's fascinating and chastening is I did this to myself. Lepore points out, "It’s not a conspiracy. There’s nothing secret about it." It's like the corner bar. No one will force me to go in. No one will trick me into knocking back shots instead of club soda with lime. I have to choose the potentially addicting substance. At the digital bar though, they're not going to stop serving when I've had enough.
More on mind control, that is, controlling our own minds rather than sourcing them out to others, next time.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper
REFERENCED IN THIS LETTER:
Jill Lepore: https://scholar.harvard.edu/jlepore/home
The Artificial State: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/11/the-artificial-state