Episode 190: How To Do Nothing

January 11, 2022

Central Thesis

The advertising-supported attention economy hijacks innate human desires, induces anxiety, and degrades the ability to think critically. Intentional withdrawal of attention is a form of resistance and a prerequisite for meaningful action.

Key Arguments

• The attention economy is exploitative Social media platforms act like dams, capitalizing on our natural interest in others and an ageless need for community, hijacking and frustrating our most innate desires and profiting from them.
• The demand for constant productivity and engagement destroys deeper thought. Just as logging and large-scale farming decimate the land, an overemphasis on performance turns what was once a dense and thriving landscape of individual and communal thought into a farm whose production slowly destroys the soil until nothing more can grow.
• Deliberate incitement of anxiety and fear is used to control behavior. Advertising and clicks dictate the media experience, which is exploitative by design.
• "Doing nothing" is a necessary form of resistance and self-preservation. In times such as these, having recourse to periods of and spaces for doing nothing is of utmost importance, because without them we have no way to think, reflect, heal, and sustain ourselves individually or collectively.
• Refusal of online platforms can be socially and economically challenging. The personal or political decision not to participate in fuckbook may be interpreted by friends as a social decision not to interact with them.
• Regaining control of attention is akin to magic. When the pattern of your attention has changed, you render your reality differently.

Notable Passages

• "The business model of capturing your attention means that I'm really here to basically drill into your brain and get the attention out. So I can sell it to somebody else."
• "Over time, there's very little of us left to ponder what actually happened to us. The result is something like the sleep deprivation tactics the military uses on detainees, but on a larger scale."
• "Worrying all the time, panicking all the time, makes us stupid."
• "Stupidity is never blind or mute. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare thing that might be worth saying."

Rhetorical Approach

Jim uses a combination of personal anecdote (Charlie's story, plywood factory experience), analogy (economy/ecology, social media/firecrackers), and philosophical quotes (Odell, Deleuze, Thoreau, Shakespeare) to build his argument. His tone is conversational, sardonic, and often explicitly critical of corporate actors.

Connections

• Jenny Odell's book, "How to Do Nothing, Resisting the Attention Economy" is the central focus of the episode.
• Reference to previous episodes and familiar themes of corporate manipulation and the advertising industry.
• Explicit reference to Fuckbook as a shorthand for problematic social media practices.