Opinion: You have what Trump and Musk want (your attention)
Opinion: You have what Trump and Musk want (your attention)
And you have the power not to give it to them.
The currency of today’s oligarchs is attention. It is what makes them money and what gives them power. Admiration or outrage, it doesn’t matter: When we give them our attention, they define the terms of discussion.
Whether and how we give it to them, though, is our choice. It may not always feel that way—how could we not be mesmerized by the dismantling of democratic structures? But keep in mind: In Mary Harris Jones’ day, workers felt the same way about their labor. How could they possibly withhold it, when the bosses had all the power? Yet they found that doing it together flipped the script. It gave them power.
We also have the ability to withhold our attention—or rather, to choose whom we give it to.
Increasingly, people have begun doing that. Some are deleting Facebook or nuking their Twitter accounts. Some are staying on the platforms they enjoy, but changing the way they use them: Notifications turned off, phones put away at certain hours, whatever works.
This is kind of stupid. They don't want attention, they want absolute power. If we stop paying attention to them, they won't disappear. We'll just be less informed to our own detriment.
I think you're misunderstanding what they're saying about "your attention." They get the power from selling ads to you and what you're paying attention to.
Increasingly, people have begun doing that. Some are deleting Facebook or nuking their Twitter accounts. Some are staying on the platforms they enjoy, but changing the way they use them: Notifications turned off, phones put away at certain hours, whatever works.
Getting rid of my smartphone has been a huge blessing. The first 3 weeks of weaning off of it were pretty frustrating, but I don't miss it at all now.
Benefits:
- No doom scrolling (I will doom scroll on my laptop, but it's not an all day thing)
- I can't install anyone's shitty app for any reason even if I wanted to (but I never want to)
- It's got a camera, music player, TOTP app, calendar (plus sync), basic web browsing, GPS maps, and can be a hotspot for my laptop.
- It's got a satisfying sound/feel when flipping it closed. Seriously, didn't know how much I missed that.
- T-9 typing is way more accurate for me than dealing with auto correct and on-screen keyboard.
- No fingerprints all over it.
- Battery lasts for-freaking-ever.
- When a eatery asks me to scan a QR code for a menu or download an app to order, I brandish it like a badge as if I'm the sheriff of Ludditeville, say "Flip Phone!" and go on my merry way.
Really, the only downside is losing my bank app, but I've learned to do without that.
It's the bank alerts that I would miss. It's too bad they can't do that without an app. Very cool though. How long have you been off?
I can still get bank alerts via email, and that's good enough for my purposes. The main thing with the bank app is being able to set/adjust the spending limits (e.g. to approve a large transaction that's out of the ordinary). The alternative there is to just call the bank :shrug:.
How long have you been off?
Less than a year and going strong. I think last August I did a 30 day dumbphone challenge and stuck with it. The first 3 weeks were rough and like going through detox, but after that, it's been great.
I bought a used pixel and put graphene os + fdroid apps on it - no social media aside from voyager and signal (if that even counts).
Downside is that I became addicted to YouTube shorts from watching them in my browser lol
Yeah, I usually run Lineage but have wanted to try Graphene for a while; just never had a supported device. Technically my flip phone is a smartphone (albeit low end), but I've completely de-googled it and, like you said, have just the basic necessity apps from F-droid. I can browse Lemmy in Fennec on it, but it's very painful with the small screen, and I treat that as a welcome feature.
What did you replace your phone with?
A heavily modded Cat S22 Flip. Sadly, they don't make them anymore, but there's still some stock left you can get from Amazon or other resellers (though they've jacked the price since I got mine; it was $65 now it's $100-something).
It's technically a smartphone (albeit a low-end one) in a flip-phone form factor (runs Android 11 by default), but I've got most of the smart shit disabled and treat it like a dumb phone. It's also rooted, de-bloated, and fully de-googled.
People need to know what's going on, but doomscrolling makes everyone feel defeated. He has definitely stepped up the bullshit, but it's mostly the same.
We have to remember that all of his cronies were stealing from the government just as much last time. The real issue is that he's dismantling our government.
I'm waiting for the oligarchs with no morals to get pissed off enough. Will they? Have they seen what happens to the oligarchs in Russia? It doesn't end well for them. There is a lot of people "falling" out of windows. Do they think they're special and their money won't be taken? You're not special.