The distraction economy

Before the shiny happy days of the internet, life was quite hard – we just hadn't realized it then. When you had a strange pain in your abdomen at 10 in the night, there were very few ways for you to learn more about it. Today, all you need to do is google it and surf in febrile uncertainty as one page leads to another and it looks like your worst fears are coming true, very rapidly. What you perhaps take for granted at each page that you visit, is a tiny innocuous looking piece of text. This text is a tentacle from google's dark underbelly. Without it, google would not have been able to find you the page in the first place. No. I am not talking about some analytics tracking code. I refer to the annoying advertisements that appear to know what I want, even before I do.

It takes effort to place them on the right pages at the right time. But those ads just sitting there do not do anything. You are required to click on them. And when you do, the economy is fueled that little bit. But there are billions like you. And thus come google's billions.

Just clicking on ads wouldn't obviously provide for a sustainable business model. One would need to pay someone something somewhere so the wheels can keep turning. So, millions of people click on links and enter into contracts with the companies that pay google to distract you with said links while you waste your time searching for something you don't really need.

What google does then, is harvest distraction. Logically, since it's survival depends on maintaining a dissipated audience, it will support activities that promote distraction. Limited attention spans are much in demand. Now you know why facebook and twitter are all the rage. They make distraction look purposeful. And they too shall create micro-distractions to distract you from the main distraction – for they too need to survive.

This being the situation, the current hope is that amidst all this noise there might be wisdom. Wisdom that can be congealed – strangely enough, using artificial intelligence. As we humans spew out whatever comes to our progressively weakening minds, there is a rush to create machines which will help us make sense of the coming madness.

Note: I wrote this... in one sitting... in under 30 minutes... without being distracted by the internet!

Human endeavor 2.0

The greatest ideas originate in the dark and solitary minds of individuals; Social activity, aka chatter, only helps commodify, propagate and hence simplify great ideas.

The economy, as we know it today, thrives on this simplification and yet opens itself to a massive risk; of compounding mediocrity that over time dries up the well and stops the flow of its own nourishment; killing itself in the process. A reprobate and exploitative economy killing itself may not be such a tragic event; it could perhaps be an event to celebrate, but what is tragic is the dilution and misrepresentation of human creativity.

Being alone lets you digest the information you have consumed, become a better person and if you have a creative bent of mind, create something that is useful to the world.

With each new generation, the bar is being lowered. With information constantly being thrown at us, there is an ever increasing need to be able to superficially skim the surface of understanding and move on to the next piece. We are adjusting to the speed, nausea caused by information overload is redefined as a high, humanity is well and truly on the information superhighway. Only problem is, with the decreased capacity and motivation to digest

information, we are the pedestrians - future road-kill.

So, the economy which will only allow 'monetarily useful' things to survive, and people conditioned to thirst for increased simplification, are together creating a society that is getting slow cooked in its own mediocrity.

Things cannot, quite clearly, carry on in this fashion for much longer.

A point will be reached when the junk we produce will become completely devoid of all meaning and our minds will be diluted to a point where we consume the junk automatically. 

Chances are, we are nearly there.

Corruption cloud

Corruption cannot be the sole preserve of Indian politicians, who are but a small subset of a largely self respecting group of Indians living in India.

The fundamental reason why corruption is so hard to isolate, let alone fight, is that it transcends boundaries, geographic and cultural.

Let's take an example. It would be naive to think that Britain, or any other country sending aid to India, or any other country, is an exercise in altruism. 'Global aid' is an inter-connected conglomerate of investment funds, which demands returns and expects profits. If it didn't, Britain or any other 'benevolent' society would soon run itself to the ground - something the British empire has managed to steer clear of for hundreds of years. The logical conclusion then, is that the British empire is reaping whatever it wants to reap and will continue to do so without complaining for many more centuries if it can get away with it. The problem today is that the global economy is going through an identity crisis and experts of all flavors are trying to find fall guys to take the rap, even as the really big guys, who control much of the world's wealth get increasingly cautious, selfish and greedy.


Then there are arbitrary, and dubious statements such as "280 Lacs crore of Indian money is deposited in swiss banks which is enough to pay each Indian citizen an amount of Rs. 2000/- for 60 yrs". While being sensational and eyeball grabbing, invoking self righteous exclamations at cocktail parties, which sink into oblivion as the next guest walks in and starts talking about the new car he bought, such tripe does not really serve any practical purpose. It would not take very long for a semi-decent and sufficiently motivated accountant to crunch numbers to come up with a statement along the lines of, "If the British returned all the wealth they siphoned off from India, India could pay its current and future population at least the current British minimum wage for the next 500 years". Such a statement too would be useless to the citizen, present or future, who is never going to have that money deposited in her bank account.

Further, statements like "... Indian money is deposited in swiss banks can be used to execute a 'taxless' budget for 30 yrs",  while being patently inaccurate in the face of scrutiny, also seem to consider a country's economy in isolation. If India were to stop collecting tax, the implications cannot but be global, which in turn will affect India's economy which in turn will affect the effectiveness of the so called 'taxless' budget. Yet another useless statement that does not help address corruption but rather confuses the issue further. I even wonder if the people who would like to cloud corruption are the ones who generate such nonsense.

What is required, instead, is a holistic understanding of the problem (if it is indeed one) of corruption before we even attempt to decipher it.

It is more likely that corruption is just an undesirable but unavoidable consequence of economics; like toxic fumes are a necessary consequence of the convenience of burning fuel. Whether one tries to ignore the fumes or sequester it deep underground, the fact remains that unless you stop burning fuel (which in today's world equates to 'stop living') the rot will spread. Similarly, unless you stop the economy in its current shape and size (which too in today's world equates to 'stop living') the rot will quite obviously proliferate.

I think what the world needs is a change in the attitude to consumption. An attitude of contentment could possibly eliminate the soil that fertilizes corruption. Such a change in attitude, on a global scale, will probably occur only over an extended period of time, or suddenly if forced by a massive global catastrophe. Either way, without that attitudinal change, copious amounts of self righteous finger-pointing are likely to be useful only for mildly entertaining news coverage.

Information potential difference

So, wikileaks has leaked tons of potentially embarrassing documents and Nira Radia's lobbying efforts are out in the open.

Like all events, they will have effects, but what do they change fundamentally for the world?

Businesses lobby to get preferential treatment – on policies – policies framed by bureaucrats and executed by politicians – politicians elected by citizens – citizens who work for and use the products made by the businesses.

So, business is the prime mover in our society, and what is the economy but a bunch of businesses?

Business is also, quite simply, the art of optimization. This optimization can happen at both ends – procuring resources for less and selling products for more than they are worth. The better you are at both of these, the bigger your business.

The selling end is relatively easier to understand – in one word, advertising. The procuring end is a little more involved. Recent unmasking has revealed the machinations behind the procuring that have hitherto gone unnoticed and been taken in the common citizen's stride, the fallen crumbs accepted as shiny products worth paying for with one's sweat and blood. This is not nasty per se - exploitation will always appear cruel to those who are not on the right (or wrong, depending on your views) side of the exploitation workbench.

The first deduction, then, is that there is no nexus between businesses, politicians and bureaucrats. There is business and then there is everything else that facilitates the large scale exploitation of resources that the economy requires.

The interesting thing, for me, is not the mechanics of the backroom dealing itself but the mask of propriety behind which people are required to hide. Why the backroom?

I think the answer lies in the nature of exploitation itself.

The exploitation of resources requires capital. Not everybody possesses or has access to capital. The generation, distribution and use of capital is controlled by a few people. Everyone wishes to be among those few. The fact that there is an entry barrier shows that there is an information 'potential difference' between the two sides. Those on the profitable side, the ones who possess valuable information, guard it - to protect their interests and prevent the dilution of the value of their assets.

Now, while these potential differences are critical for doing business, they are also dangerous. Sparks, as we know, can fly if the difference crosses a threshold. Hence it is in the interest of the haves to present an illusion of a smaller potential difference to the have-nots. This strategy was easier to execute when information did not travel too fast and leaks could be plugged before they breached the dividing line. Not so anymore.

The near instant spread of information across the globe reduces the potential difference by making the same information available to everyone at the same moment.

But how does one do business under these circumstances, if the very tools that sustain business are disabled, exposed and made to look vile? How can the economy function?

Recent trends seem to suggest that we are in the midst of an evolutionary process which will fundamentally change the way resources are exploited and as a result, the way business is done.

Rather than a huge potential difference that separates the haves and the have-nots, there will be numerous potential differences between individual citizens that they can choose to utilize for profit.

A move away from a few exploiting the many to a scenario where many exploit many. A more equitable future.

burst and sell

Google you think has cracked it. No dishonesty no underhanded behavior. Just helping people make money with beatific smiles slapped on their faces
wrong
sponsored ads are the bane of human existence
they are on every darn site out there
what do they do?
they count on a small percentage of people mindlessly clicking links

lets take an example:
you want to find out how plants harness sunlight

Route 1: sit in front of a plant and ponder the mystery
Route 2: google for it
End up at a site that shows the latest research on photosynthesis
About how quantum mechanics is what its all about
You are lost
Your mind is tired from the talk about molecular communication
Your eyes drift
Towards a sponsored links box
That says "photo equipment hire"
You click on it
Someone makes a few cents
You eventually end up at a porno site

Does it matter which route you took

The dotcom bubble burst for the simple reason that it did not make business sense

When an idea starts to make business sense, the idea is facked.
Business kills ideas and sells the entrails
At a premium

A real sieve

Thoughts colonize humans,
humans are bursting at the seams
they want to tell someone... something ... any damn thing....

As people say things to each other, more thoughts are created.. which then...

How about, you say, something useful ; like news, or medical operations performed across continents

I say, does it really matter?
so you knew 10 seconds after that famous plane ran into a tall building
how on earth did that help anything?

People are facked. all there is to it.

If there were a sieve that filtered crap on the internet...
No. Not a crappy sieve like rss or a search engine that actually makes things worse by duplicating crap
a real sieve that chews all the nonsense, spits out the waste, digests the sensible stuff and gives useful crap
hang on... i forgot ...

... you are that sieve.

In a grand vision, every single thought that ever colonized a human being, if it forced the poor bugger to create something made of earth, wind, fire and the other element, would end up on the internet

Grand is bad. you cant run an economy on grand.
You have to bicker about dollars.

So we can forget grand. at least until we humans can figure a radically different way of looking at ourselves.