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Jun 27, 2022Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

"The classic solution to Tragedy of the Commons scenarios is forced cooperation at the hands of a central authority, such as a government." It would seem-- to pick on the whaling example-- that the solution was a technological/process innovation that provided the need (first light and then caloric requirements) in a new and "better" way (i.e. fossil-based Kerosene, followed by margerine-alternatives.) Whatever the solution to the media commons problem is, it might require a re-classification of human "attention" as a commodity to be bought and sold. I believe the new understanding has something to do with individuals recognizing their attention as an inalienable part of their sovereignty and personal power. Not yet fully sure what with would mean and entail-- but there's some analogy here about moving from an economy based in slavery (human labor as commodity to be bought and sold) to an economy where a human being's labor is his own.

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I wrote a little ditty that pursues some of your ideas in a weird way once. Not sure it's totally informative but might be worth a read.

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/can-fortnite-rescue-humanity-from

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> three predominant flavors

It is a middle class illness, and that this pre-dates the internet. French guillotines and Russians firing squads, anyone? https://danco.substack.com/p/michael-dwight-and-andy-the-three http://www.zzzptm.com/lss-003.html

> the dopamine issue

Dopamine has more to do with anticipation and reward circuits. If it is not chemically induced, you only get The D if you are waiting for something to happen. That is why media dope-heads paradoxically act like the apocalypse is about to happen, desire a savior to save them, and they think that they have the insight (wokeness or "red pill") to make the former points happen.

Conversely, the best way to cut The D is to literally do the intellectual equivalent of the "ruined orgasm". One way is to get theories to "shoot themselves on the foot" instead of "aim for the target problem". e.g. Naïve democracy and capitalism does not optimize for problem-solving (aesthetic bias, populist gridlock), but perpetuates another set of problem called "cronyism".

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I haven't. SSC typifies these more broadly as "coordination problems," the solution typically being some kind of government entity that "coordinates." I'm not sure there's a market solution in this space, quite honestly, unless media companies paid you for your attention instead of you paying them with clicks.

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