Well, I'm not sure who forgot COVID, but elements of this are absolutely true.

I've been reading The Count of Monte Cristo—a 1200 pages unabridged, clothbound edition that will spend 40 pages of wandering setup just to deliver one striking image. It was a banger in it's time, and it's still a banger, but it's striking how much it asked of its readers. It will take me the rest of the year to finish.

And this is the thing, we really do live in a toxic attention ecosystem that rots our brains. Like the author, I've been trying to reassert control my own attention, and it's shockingly hard to do.

I'm not sure if I'll manage to make it work. But let's suppose I do: I've deleted all social media, deliberately set my relationship with news, if I feel the urge to post dump it in a paper notebook instead, and somehow achieve the miracle of getting slack to chill out...

... much like learning to cook is great for me but doesn't solve the social costs from widespread ultraprocessed diets and resulting metabolic disorders, getting my own attentive house in order does not change the global brainrot and toxic political incentives.

If anyone has found a way to turn that tide, I'm all ears.

> If anyone has found a way to turn that tide, I'm all ears.

Leading by example might not seem like it has immediate or direct impact, but it does have an effect nevertheless. You don't necessarily need to beat everyone over the head with a new way to live life. This tends to have the opposite of the desired effect. If others passively observe you and think "wow that person looks super healthy and happy" they may subconsciously seek to emulate your behavior.

>we really do live in a toxic attention ecosystem that rots our brains

Well it can be like that if you spend your time scrolling stupid stuff on tiktok but for learning about the world, if you want to, I think it's better than it used to be. "40 pages of wandering setup" doesn't make you smart, it wastes your time you could be using to learn something more interesting.

> Well, I'm not sure who forgot COVID, but elements of this are absolutely true.

That it happened, perhaps not, but some of the details are definitely getting lost in the collective memory. The other day I heard a political commentator claim that lockdowns in the states were in place for “years”, which is false by any objective measure.