LLM please give me a 100 word summary of this complex, affective, sociocultural analysis - these cognitive and attentional labors - that I may regurgitate in an act of display or knowing
“Structural Lens 2025: Attention Capitalism’s Cognitive Capture” explores how digital platforms exploit human attention, reshaping cognition and fragmenting shared reality. Social media algorithms prioritize engagement over truth, fueling emotional reactivity and forming “cognitive tribes” that resist opposing views. This erosion of common epistemic ground undermines democracy, public discourse, and institutional trust. The paper calls for reclaiming cognitive sovereignty through metacognitive awareness, educational reform, ethical tech design, and new boundary organizations that bridge divided realities. It emphasizes the need to reimagine attention as a collective resource, essential for restoring coherent understanding and addressing global challenges together.
Thank you for taking the time to do this. I intend to reread the article a few times to get a better grasp of it but I suspect that having read this synopsis will make those readings more productive. Peace be with you...
You have explained in detail one of the mechanisms behind the creation of the Network States (Praxis, Prospera, etc). This fracturing of collective truth is not simply a result of the information technology of our times. There is a coordinated effort by those who control Cloud Capital (social media platforms), as Yanis Varoufakis has coined the term, to divide the masses in order to restructure society. Peter Thiel and his fellow tech oligarchs are de-centralizing society in order to re-centralize it into smaller neo-feudal cities with a corporate “monarch” in control.
It’s all out there for people to read. Yarvin, Balaji, Thiel, etc. all say the same things out loud. They aren’t hiding their plans. The Praxis website itself is available to read.
right. so, not much of a conspiracy, if they have all they plans out in the open like that.
these bigboog dark enlightenment mooks are reaping the whirlwind into oblivion just like the rest of us. they don't have a plan - they are desperately trying to adapt.
and yeah, feudal techno-fash company towns is what we're getting. you'll love it because the alternatives will be far worse.
Thanks for helping clearing up my mind on these issues - your essay is most welcome! As you say 'We know together or not at all', but capitalism is not about togetherness. So we will have to wait for the emergence of some new entrepreneur who can spot a profit motive in stopping the platform industry's ongoing fragmentation and earn money on creating integration. May be we will have to wait for the last and only monopolist operating without competition?
I’m commenting after having read only the first two paragraphs: These are very bold claims, presented as if they are facts, or at the very least, near-universally accepted science. It will be interesting to see how well you defend these assertions in the rest of the piece.
…later… I’ve now finished the piece. Some good points raised for sure, but I hate the authoritative tone of your essay. You’re presenting hypotheses in many cases, but it is off-putting to hear them presented ex cathedra as it were. You refer frequently to scientific findings (not cited) and consensus within scientific fields but your approach is far from what is valued in science.
Thanks so much for the essay. I've spent many years thinking about such matters and it's great to see those thoughts cohered so well.
The Chinese word for computer translates loosely as electric thinking machine or electric brain.
Both are useful in this context.
I'm fortunate to have come of age before networked computer reality mediation, and long before the "social media" construct amplified the prior amplification.
And amplifier is how I view my interesting with the computer. I'm just as fortunate to have worked at jobs, financial political economic research, made easier with tech. For me the tech is an extension of my brain.
To recast, it isn't so much the tech that drives people astray it's their own amplified desires.
Truth seekers can more easily find truth.
Confirmation bias-ers will find their biases confirmed and so on.
As one might see in a rear view mirror, "mental dysfunctions are much closer than they appear."
I'm not sure what exact resources the author used, but for me it resonated with portions of Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Nicholas Carr's The Shallows and Superbloom, Brian Merchant's Blood in the Machine, Max Fisher's The Chaos Machine, Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now and You Are Not A Gadget, and Johann Hari's Stolen Focus. :)
Though the aim seems to be or is to capture attention and then manipulate it. The desired bottom line is the outcome wanted, likely an action, which may be a purchase, a vote. This needs to be considered since attention could be skipped to achieve that outcome. That could be dangerous. I would suggest to reconsider the essay with that input in mind.
Sorry - it posted unfinished, what I was trying to say “information architectures which strengthen rather than exploit human cognitive capacities” - your words articulate what a lot of us are struggling to understand and articulate ourselves, your essay really breaks it down and will allow us to re-think how we proceed - but my God how do we persuade the institutions that have the power to change things when they are under attack themselves ! Thank you for this amazing analysis
I can imagine a shared framework in which the long term goal of human survival and flourishing is a shared inclusive commitment that isn’t forgotten when we are hashing out any of the zero-sum games within the universal, overarching non-zero sum framework.
Unfortunately the current dominant incentive structure dictating our political economy can only give lip service to public goods like democracy, while actively dominating the government to give more tax cuts for the rich and more austerity for the poor.
Great text. Just a quick but not system 1 (Kahneman) remark: What if it is time to move away from centralized thinking and an organization of the society as a whole? To use a historical comparison: Less Roman empire more Greek polis (more or less city states).
This is an exceptional piece. Thanks. I was especially struck by this overview passage towards the beginning:
"Our attentional systems evolved to monitor environments where threats and opportunities appeared infrequently and required immediate response. The intermittent reward structures of digital platforms—where valuable content appears unpredictably among streams of lower-value material—creating variable-ratio reinforcement schedules, precisely the pattern most resistant to extinction. The same mechanism that makes gambling addictive now shapes how billions interact with information."
I need to re-read it and think about it carefully. The essay is worth detailed attention.I appreciate your summarizing many important ideas that aren't discussed frequently, even among literate, educated people.
Folks, if you want a banger of a read; “ A Web of Our Own Making”. I never recommend books., generally nobody cares…but I’ll stick it out there. Ready up for it. If you’re ok with anxiety…
LLM please give me a 100 word summary of this complex, affective, sociocultural analysis - these cognitive and attentional labors - that I may regurgitate in an act of display or knowing
“Structural Lens 2025: Attention Capitalism’s Cognitive Capture” explores how digital platforms exploit human attention, reshaping cognition and fragmenting shared reality. Social media algorithms prioritize engagement over truth, fueling emotional reactivity and forming “cognitive tribes” that resist opposing views. This erosion of common epistemic ground undermines democracy, public discourse, and institutional trust. The paper calls for reclaiming cognitive sovereignty through metacognitive awareness, educational reform, ethical tech design, and new boundary organizations that bridge divided realities. It emphasizes the need to reimagine attention as a collective resource, essential for restoring coherent understanding and addressing global challenges together.
Thank you for taking the time to do this. I intend to reread the article a few times to get a better grasp of it but I suspect that having read this synopsis will make those readings more productive. Peace be with you...
Very droll lol
You have explained in detail one of the mechanisms behind the creation of the Network States (Praxis, Prospera, etc). This fracturing of collective truth is not simply a result of the information technology of our times. There is a coordinated effort by those who control Cloud Capital (social media platforms), as Yanis Varoufakis has coined the term, to divide the masses in order to restructure society. Peter Thiel and his fellow tech oligarchs are de-centralizing society in order to re-centralize it into smaller neo-feudal cities with a corporate “monarch” in control.
no. this is not an analysis. this is a conspiracy theory.
More like conspiracy fact.
It’s all out there for people to read. Yarvin, Balaji, Thiel, etc. all say the same things out loud. They aren’t hiding their plans. The Praxis website itself is available to read.
right. so, not much of a conspiracy, if they have all they plans out in the open like that.
these bigboog dark enlightenment mooks are reaping the whirlwind into oblivion just like the rest of us. they don't have a plan - they are desperately trying to adapt.
and yeah, feudal techno-fash company towns is what we're getting. you'll love it because the alternatives will be far worse.
Desperate for immortality but not desperate for power. They are well connected to the powers that be.
My thoughts exactly. Thank you.
Excellent essay!
Thanks for helping clearing up my mind on these issues - your essay is most welcome! As you say 'We know together or not at all', but capitalism is not about togetherness. So we will have to wait for the emergence of some new entrepreneur who can spot a profit motive in stopping the platform industry's ongoing fragmentation and earn money on creating integration. May be we will have to wait for the last and only monopolist operating without competition?
The work or Buang Chul Han on this and adjacent ideas is germane to this discussion
That’s an original idea! To profit from integration, from synthesizing information, processing it through reflection, discourse, debate, & dialogue.
I’m commenting after having read only the first two paragraphs: These are very bold claims, presented as if they are facts, or at the very least, near-universally accepted science. It will be interesting to see how well you defend these assertions in the rest of the piece.
…later… I’ve now finished the piece. Some good points raised for sure, but I hate the authoritative tone of your essay. You’re presenting hypotheses in many cases, but it is off-putting to hear them presented ex cathedra as it were. You refer frequently to scientific findings (not cited) and consensus within scientific fields but your approach is far from what is valued in science.
Thanks so much for the essay. I've spent many years thinking about such matters and it's great to see those thoughts cohered so well.
The Chinese word for computer translates loosely as electric thinking machine or electric brain.
Both are useful in this context.
I'm fortunate to have come of age before networked computer reality mediation, and long before the "social media" construct amplified the prior amplification.
And amplifier is how I view my interesting with the computer. I'm just as fortunate to have worked at jobs, financial political economic research, made easier with tech. For me the tech is an extension of my brain.
To recast, it isn't so much the tech that drives people astray it's their own amplified desires.
Truth seekers can more easily find truth.
Confirmation bias-ers will find their biases confirmed and so on.
As one might see in a rear view mirror, "mental dysfunctions are much closer than they appear."
Any sources for all this?
I'm not sure what exact resources the author used, but for me it resonated with portions of Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Nicholas Carr's The Shallows and Superbloom, Brian Merchant's Blood in the Machine, Max Fisher's The Chaos Machine, Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now and You Are Not A Gadget, and Johann Hari's Stolen Focus. :)
Facebook.
Though the aim seems to be or is to capture attention and then manipulate it. The desired bottom line is the outcome wanted, likely an action, which may be a purchase, a vote. This needs to be considered since attention could be skipped to achieve that outcome. That could be dangerous. I would suggest to reconsider the essay with that input in mind.
Europe has regulation opposing this. The capture of the first attention is the manipulation.
Knowing the wanted outcome of that is important, it could be for good or for not.
Sorry - it posted unfinished, what I was trying to say “information architectures which strengthen rather than exploit human cognitive capacities” - your words articulate what a lot of us are struggling to understand and articulate ourselves, your essay really breaks it down and will allow us to re-think how we proceed - but my God how do we persuade the institutions that have the power to change things when they are under attack themselves ! Thank you for this amazing analysis
You make it worth their while.
I can imagine a shared framework in which the long term goal of human survival and flourishing is a shared inclusive commitment that isn’t forgotten when we are hashing out any of the zero-sum games within the universal, overarching non-zero sum framework.
Unfortunately the current dominant incentive structure dictating our political economy can only give lip service to public goods like democracy, while actively dominating the government to give more tax cuts for the rich and more austerity for the poor.
Great text. Just a quick but not system 1 (Kahneman) remark: What if it is time to move away from centralized thinking and an organization of the society as a whole? To use a historical comparison: Less Roman empire more Greek polis (more or less city states).
I really like the direction of this analysis, rebuilding our epistemic architecture is an almighty goal,
Superbloom -Nicholas Carr really brought this to the forefront for me
Where do you see good work being done on this atm? What further research did you do to buid this analysis?
Tried to indicate that this was too long winded and used pretentious language but nothing appeared
very long-winded analysis which overuses pretentious vocabulary
This is an exceptional piece. Thanks. I was especially struck by this overview passage towards the beginning:
"Our attentional systems evolved to monitor environments where threats and opportunities appeared infrequently and required immediate response. The intermittent reward structures of digital platforms—where valuable content appears unpredictably among streams of lower-value material—creating variable-ratio reinforcement schedules, precisely the pattern most resistant to extinction. The same mechanism that makes gambling addictive now shapes how billions interact with information."
I need to re-read it and think about it carefully. The essay is worth detailed attention.I appreciate your summarizing many important ideas that aren't discussed frequently, even among literate, educated people.
Folks, if you want a banger of a read; “ A Web of Our Own Making”. I never recommend books., generally nobody cares…but I’ll stick it out there. Ready up for it. If you’re ok with anxiety…