People have been talking about the attention economy, trying to argue that we are building systems that never forget, that keep accumulating, because we can, because it is our instinct. And as a result, we're building our own panopticon, where the archives of our deeds are there for everybody to see, to ingest, to transform and to barf forth as AI slop. The records we keep only ever benefit our enemies, never ourselves. That's why I like automatic expiration of everything on social media.
Sometimes, archives are worth it. My blog is better curated than this feed you're following. I rarely delete blog posts. Maybe I should… If you're an organisation, you might want to keep archives. If you hold public office, official acts should certainly be archived. So there are some instances where archiving is OK. But for you and me, for most of us? Maybe not. And the hard-core record keepers can always run their own instances. Then again, I run my own instance and it can't automatically expire all posts, which is a bummer! That day will come, however.
As I'm thinking of this and as I'm talking to people, however, I'm starting to realize that perhaps the term attention economy is no longer true. I am living in the spoon economy.
I just don't have the time and energy for so many things. We are, collectively, mostly, out of spoons.
#Forgetting