Trick(le Up) Economics
You've Been Tricked.
That device in your pocket that you've come to need so much? It's a lie.
You no longer ask friends for rides, just use an app.
You no longer buy direct from local restaurants, you use an app -- and pay a premium -- instead. Driving up costs for everyone.
You've been convinced that your neighbor, with whom you have run-of-the-mill political disagreements with, is your enemy.
And while you sit alone, you receive an endless stream of notifications, clutter and advertisements making you lonely, anxious and despondent. So you buy more, watch more, try to optimize more to suppress those feelings. And those feelings get worse, and it becomes a feedback loop.
It's called Trickle-Up Economics.
The reality is "they" need you more than you need them. They have created a world where consumers have all but a direct I.V. injected into their body chemistry to make them consume, consume, consume and vote and self-isolate with fear, anxiety and anger in a world that is, for all intents and purposes, safer than it has ever been.
$9.99 / month here.
$2.99 / month there.
3% transaction fee here.
$0.50 service fee there.
You're so afraid to miss out.
Multiply it by millions, hundreds of millions, billions, all being used and harvested for their attention, and you get an industry trickling up money from the masses to the few.
But they can't afford for you to notice; to notice that its 99% fluff designed to keep you staring. Consider that our political problems have absolutely nothing to do with "left" or "right" and more to do with an industry that has shaped an entire economy in its image. And, when push comes to shove, that image is empty.
It's a house of cards.
The entire economy would crash simply by people putting down their phones and spending time with their loved ones. Take a moment to really let that sink in.
So they keep you looking.
They keep you worrying.
They keep you angry.
They keep you afraid.
They keep you rooting for your team.
Sometimes your team wins.
Sometimes you team loses.
The "hit" is the same; you stare. You engage. You stay "informed".
But are you?
In what ways has your life actually improved due to that dopamine machine kept in your pocket?
How many moments of life have you missed?
How many moments of life are you entirely unaware that you missed?
Because when you're "engaged" you stop being present.
Your body is taking up physical space, but your awareness of the world right in front of you goes away.
It's as-if your life essence has been suspended in favor of some electrons sputtering back and forth between servers sitting in data centers.
Just consider it all. Do what's right for you.
The internet was built for the free and open exchange of information; for the interconnection of small communities into a broader world of information.
But today, it has been strip mined for all of the work humanity has put out together freely. Corporations, scammers and tech oligarchs have taken free information and monetized it. They have put a wet blanket across the web in the form of algorithmic feeds, pay-to-play advertising models masked as search engines and "social media", and funneled the uninformed masses into black-box platforms designed to manipulate and sell, sell, sell. But the products went beyond physical or digital items, and into the minds of people. People now sell their own thoughts to the highest bidder and lie about it. And the highest bidder is rarely a well meaning individual, politician, corporation or government. Because well meaning people and institutions have more integrity than that.
So the assholes win.
But all good people have to do is stop.
Stop looking.
Stop engaging.
Spend time alone.
Spend time with friends.
Spend time with your kids and neighbors.
Do the thing you were always afraid to do.
Be vulnerable.
Make the world a better place one moment at a time.
Start by looking up.