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  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Digital Technology
  • Part One: Laying a Foundation
    • Knowledge
    • Optimism
    • Choices
    • Humanism
    • Scarcity
    • History
    • Plan of Attack
  • Part Two: Capital Is Sufficient
    • Needs
    • Population
    • Capital
  • Part Three: Attention Is Scarce
    • Attention
    • Misallocation
    • Trapped
    • Limits of Capitalism
    • Power of Knowledge
  • Part Four: Enhancing Freedom
    • Economic Freedom
    • Informational Freedom
    • Psychological Freedom
  • Part Five: Taking Action
    • Growing Mindfulness
    • Fighting the Climate Crisis
    • Defending Democracy
    • Fostering Decentralization
    • Improving Learning
    • Promoting and Living Humanism
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix
  • References
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Part Three: Attention Is Scarce

In saying that attention is scarce, I mean that there is not enough of it available today to meet our needs. That’s what I set out to show in this part of the book. I’ll start by defining attention, before presenting several examples of needs that either are already no longer met due to a lack of attention, such as the need for meaning, or are at risk of not being met in the near future. After that, I will consider how much human attention is currently caught up in Industrial Age activities and how an increasing amount of attention is being trapped through our current uses of digital technology, such as advertising-based social networks. I will also discuss why market-based capitalism cannot be used to allocate attention.

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Last updated 4 years ago