Money is an Attention Allocation Technology (Part 2)
Asking yourself "What is Money?" is the 1st step into a philosophical rabbit-hole that could prove to be the most fascinating intellectual journey of your life…
The question “What is Money?” is deceivingly simple. One would expect the answer to be abundantly clear given its prevalence in daily life, but upon further reflection, most find money to be mysterious. Money is pervasive economic phenomenon, an interpenetrating field of energy influencing human perception, thought, and action. Yet despite the all-encompassing nature of money, its deepest truths remain hidden in plain sight. Here, we explore yet another answer to this curious question—money is an attention allocation technology.
Satisfaction and Desire…
“… after many thousands of experiments, we know only marginally more about attention than about the interior of a black hole.”—Stuart Sutherland
Like money, attention is one of those “everywhere and nowhere” phenomena, the true nature of which is often “hidden in plain sight.” As humans, we are constantly engaged in the movement of our attention from one thing to another. Attention moves according to how satisfied or gripped by desire we feel. Straightforwardly, satisfaction dispels attention, and desire draws attention. Here, it may be useful to draw our attention to a few vignettes…
Desire (as lust) can cause a beautiful woman to “get” a man’s attention as she walks by. Similarly, desire (as hunger) can cause the smell of a freshly prepared meal to “get” a hungry person’s attention. In these ways, attention moves toward desire in pursuit of satisfaction.
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On the other hand, a happily married man might not give the beautiful woman quite so much attention as she strolls by. Happily being the keyword here: which implies the man is satisfied in his marriage. Similarly, a person with a full belly might not give the hot meal quite so much attention, because a full belly is, by definition, satisfied, and presumably less persuaded by the smell of good food. In these ways, attention moves away from satisfaction (and typically onward toward some other unsatisfied desire).
As social animals, humans are constantly exchanging attention with one another. Attention is energizing, even to the point of making its recipients nervous in large doses, as any public speaker can readily attest. Everyone craves attention, to a greater or lesser extent. The total starvation of attention experienced by an individual in solitary confinement is the essence of this age-old torture technique.
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The thrills of enjoying an abundance of attention is the reason why “popular” is such a sought after mode of being, from high school to many other social circles. Of course, getting too much attention has its own costs, as any A-List Hollywood celebrity will tell you. But too much attention is better than none—as Oscar Wilde puts it:
“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
So what’s the point of me telling you all this? To say it again: attention flows in accordance with the human experiences of satisfaction and desire—and it is this conceptualization that I think we can map usefully onto classical economics.
Thank you for reading Money is an Attention Allocation Technology (Part 2).
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It would be nice if there was a link to Part I before or during the introduction.