Arha

I think I have to make a project of conserving my attention.

Siphoning off attention has flowered into the primary business of the global economy. They have the resources. They have the tools. They have the people.

They have the extraordinary advantage on their side that people think they can't be fooled. You think you can't be fooled. I think I can't be fooled.

It wasn't true even when Dorothy Sayers wrote Murder Must Advertise, in 1933, a year which saw some other significant events. But read the novel (it's worth reading again!) and ponder how quaint it is, how primitive the tools were. They are far, far better now. More subtle, with a far wider reach. And infinitely configurable, in real time, directed by artificial intelligences that are already smarter than we are.

We, my friends, are toast. Buttered and jammed. They will eat us.

They are already eating us, and they are empowering us to marinate and cook each other. They don't mean any harm: they just want to make a buck. But that won't make us any less eaten.

Every day, I think I can make a Devil's bargain with them, and win. And every day I lose a little more of my soul.