RESHARED POST FROM JENNY WINDER

Lots of great lessons on the #attentioneconomy in this essay by Dan Dennett, which is about the life and death of memes as a biological phenomenon.

One aspect of attention economy that has gotten some push back is the idea that you can’t store attention the way you can collect and store traditional currencies. Dennett gives a similar argument in this essay:

It is important to remember that there is very little inertia in culture; an art form or practice (or language or institution) can become extinct in a generation if its elements aren’t assiduously reproduced and reproduced.

The argument, roughly, is that cultural trends that were previously “popular” (that is, memetically successful) may suddenly lose that popularity if it isn’t maintained and curated properly. I believe this generally supports my intuition that you can’t store attention; you can’t reap the benefits of former success in the present if the work hasn’t been done to maintain that attention along the way.

Jenny Winder originally shared this post:

The social cell What do debutante balls, the Japanese tea ceremony, Ponzi schemes and doubting clergy all have in common? By Daniel Dennett

New Statesman – The social cell

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