When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.
Oligarchs are always feuding, but the battle grounds have moved. From land, to nations, to economies, to our very attention. The invention of the internet, and then more recently mobile internet, created a new direction of major economic growth (ie entirely new lands to conquer). With this change, some conquerors set aside their internal squabbles to gobble up these new lands. Yet eventually these too ran dry, and growth stalled. In response, figures like Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Thiel tried to create new lands to conquer – via crypto (as a central bank), metaverse (virtual lands), or AI (virtual laborers). Yet none have truly delivered as promised – at least not at the scale to match the ambitions of the billionaires seeking expansion. That’s my interpretation of power at that level, different war games over the years in different mediums – that’s all.
The average person’s experience with technology is one so aggressive and violative that I believe it leaves billions of people with a consistent low-grade trauma. Edward Zitron, Never Forgive Them.
The old attention powerhouse was arguably Rupert Murdoch/Fox news, and maybe the new replacement is Elon Musk/Twitter. I mean, his nazi salute took attention from the president during his own inauguration. His goal was probably to get a reaction and get attention and it worked…. No matter who wins in these battles for power and attention, common people typically lose. But transitions of power tend to cause the most damage. I personally believe Trumps real power is in avoiding any consequences, and Musk’s is just getting attention (first positive and now negative). Bitter, resentful people (e.g. internet trolls) just want to see these two upset the previous oligarchs and they will let the world burn to see it happen. The whole political situation is rage-inducing. And rage and addiction are two sides of the same coin.
Wars evolved from stones to swords, guns, tanks, airplanes, bombs, and eventually nukes. With weapons powerful enough to destroy us all, the battlefield shifted. Now the efficiency of drone strikes and surveillance information for precision attacks dictate the nature of war. However, the counter strategy to that is flooding the collective database with disinformation and chaos. The sheer volume of news and misinformation has helped fueled conspiracy theories and created new internet religious ideologies, destabilizing institutions, and fostering internet addictions (like making people feel uneasy if they don’t scroll for hours a day on some form of media).
The story of feuding oligarchs, in a way, is similar to how it was with Rockefeller, Carnegie, and JP Morgan. However, back then, a citizen’s time was linked to their work hours – which was the battle ground for worker’s rights that led to regulation like banning child labor or establishing the 40 hour workweek. Nowadays, citizens have become increasingly more involved and recruited in the battle in their off-time (e.g. engaging via some platform in the culture wars of left vs right, gender wars, etc or just logging on and sharing their private data – all to drive up numbers for growth for other battles going on). This ‘always on’ mentality drains the populace of time that rightfully belongs to us. The volume of political media in our lives is just too high to function normally – and it is a consequence of tech platforms and their ever increasing existential need for growth. And the battles wage on and on, forever. There is no war to end all wars here, just a moving landscape.
That’s my interpretation of the world today anyways. And the solution I’ve come to, is to make time for rest and space away from media. To create a safe space for attention to wander. One freedom we all have as long as we draw breath is to meditate. To have some tea and just sit. Or even to take a warm bath, read a physical book or play a card or board game. To lie down and listen to a comforting audiobook in some loungewear or watch some comfort TV. To rest and accept that daily life has a higher level of mental fatigue than in the past. We are just monkeys with cell phones. Let there be space and distance from the low grade trauma of the internet today. Develop community and friendships to rely on – strong social bonds to get through the storm that increasingly feels like it will never end. Remember the feeling that things will never get better has a name: despair. It is a feeling, not a fact. And feelings come and go, much like any storm.
What the scientists know now, but didn’t understand then, is that when the mountain blasted ash and rock across the landscape, the devastation passed over some small places hidden in the lee of rocks and trees. Here, a bed of moss and deer fern under a rotting log. There under a boulder, a patch of pearly everlasting and the tunnel to a vole’s musty nest. Between stones in a buried stream, a slick of algae and clustered dragonfly larvae. Refugia, they call them: places of safety where life endures. From the refugia, mice and toads emerged blinking onto the blasted plain. Grasses spread, strawberries sent out runners. From a thousand, ten thousand, maybe countless small places of enduring life, forests and meadows returned to the mountain. – Great Tide Rising by Kathleen Dean Moore
If I was someone who wanted the world to despair, I would have difficulties of my own. For example, if I truly wanted one person to be brainwashed or hopeless, I would isolate them, and I wouldn’t let them sleep or eat for a few days, so by that point most people would be pliable to believe almost anything if presented well enough (though it would be an expensive endeavor). With internet scrolling (much cheaper), a lot of people effectively do some version of that to themselves – and the pandemic vastly broadened the scale. In so many ways, I think we’ll be living with the aftermath of that event for many years.
While it is true that an effective democracy requires a vigilant and educated populace to function, it doesn’t mean EVERYONE needs to CONSTANTLY be aware of EVERYTHING happening in the world ALL THE TIME. Ever been on-call for work or something for 24 hours? It takes EFFORT, especially for someone anxious, to maintain a vigilance and readiness to act. What about being on-call for a week? A month? For years? It creates a subtle low-grade trauma of attention exhaustion – like a social media version of a thousand yard stare, which makes people more vulnerable to manipulation and forming insane beliefs. Honestly, to take it seriously for a second, if I legitimately wanted to monitor the news 24/7 to make sure I could respond to something major, I would need to make shifts. I would enlist three people I trust who have the same idea, and have each person covering one week per month. Which would mean we all got three weeks off – plus the occasional call or response. We would also probably need to have some time off from media all-together, like one to four weeks a year? Seems more sustainable, like a part time job, than a ‘one person, always on’ mentality where I’m doomed to crash and burn. Granted, complete disengagement at this point, however great it sounds, might not be doable either. The internet, media, and adversarial technology are likely here to stay for the long haul.
In a way, following politics and news through the media is a form of risk management. Too little attention and I might miss something relevant and fail to act (e.g. see people who don’t vote), too much attention and I gas out and cannot focus on actual life/work, etc (e.g. see everyone else). So, how do I manage the risk? Above I mention taking shifts with others. Alternatively I could take time off / manage it almost like paid time off of work – where I accumulate and use it. This is where the conclusion I’ve come to is to first and foremost be ABLE to make a conscious and mindful decision. That is, if I feel I cannot stop doomscrolling or hearing about Trump/Musk every day, I need to take a break and consciously create space. I need to regain control over the volume of the modern equivalent of watching the news on TV.
Realistically, we can’t do much if anything about the current political climate for a long time, and the opportunities to change anything are pretty rare. Better to be patient, and focus on sustainability and self-care. Let things slow down and breathe. Whatever will be, will be – the future’s not ours to see. Being able to let go is, in itself, a way to heal. It also helps me not be too exhausted to miss opportunities where I could actually make a difference or stay in good enough mental shape to not be drawn into misinformation or propaganda. I want to be able to decide consciously the amount I want to care about what is going on in the world – and where I want to focus more heavily (e.g. on those affecting my direct community, etc).
Enough sleep, Meditation, a good social community, a fitness routine, and generally healthy food can keep me clear-headed enough to avoid being pulled into a war between oligarchs I both hate. It’s more dull and boring, but the true opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. Oligarchs don’t really want to destroy ALL the common people, without them there would be no one to rule over. Trump needs a mark to be conned, maybe I cannot stop him from conning others, but I don’t have to be the mark. And eventually everyone is vulnerable enough to get conned – I just want to make sure if it must happen, that it’s something small.
Daeus Jorento 