Feedback Loops

I recently* had a tweet that I was pretty proud of.

I’ve been thinking more about these kinds of feedback loops. They tie into what might be my primary belief: that human identity and consciousness consists of attention and intention.

Attention and Intention are at the core of almost every metaphysical practice. Religious ritual, magical practice, meditation, journaling, whatever you might have as “that thing that moves you beyond the basic existence of production and consumption.” These carry their own hazards of excess, but I don’t see too many wizards around, so I think the cognitohazard risk is low.

The interplay of attention and intention is to me why the doomscrolling-algorithm practice is demonic and destructive. Forget the neurological aspect of it, it’s an active practice in de-soulment. You are turning off all intention. Doomscrolling is nihilistic in that it gives up all will and forfeits it to the ba’algorithm.

There is no attention to be paid here- because attention implies agency and doomscrolling is not something we (and I’m including myself here purposefully) actively choose. It becomes a base case whenever we interact with any algorithmically driven content supplier.

There is no intention to be made here- because intention implies a purpose or something that is gained either at the end or through the medium of the activity. The end of a doomscrolling session is never because you have reached some level of satisfaction but because some other thing beckons you.

My personal rebellion against this is that I make content sporadically and poorly. By intentionally choosing to not optimize for the algorithm I do not contribute to the attention/intention vacuum.

*I am proud of all my tweets, they are second only to my children