Attention’s present-bound nature contradicts the notion of capital accumulation

Evidence

Attention is a form of presence to oneself and to one’s environment which is intrinsically linked to the flow of time. I can only be attentive to the present: you cannot ask me to be attentive (now) to what happened two days ago, or to what will happen in an hour. How, in these conditions, is it possible to speak of an ‘accumulation’ of attention – an unavoidable condition if we would like to consider attention in terms of capital, but which requires the persistence of the past in the present, contradicting the very nature of attention? — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 157

Categorization

• QUESTION: Crucial theoretical tension: how can evanescent attention be capital if capital requires past persistence? Worth chasing how Citton resolves this.
• DEEPTHINKING: The objection that attention’s flow-bound temporality resists capitalization is a paradigm-level puzzle at the heart of the whole attention-capital analogy.
• XREF: connects to: Attention functions as convertible capital that individuals and institutions can bank and trade — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 14; Attention cannot function as currency without homogenizing measurement — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 163; Attention functions as a currency that compounds like interest. — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 10 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention functions as convertible capital that individuals and institutions can bank and trade #contradicts (0.90) — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 14
• Attention functions as a currency that compounds like interest. #contradicts (0.85) — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 10
• Psychological destiny mirrors and instantiates the exchange principle of capital #contradicts (0.80)
• Attention cannot function as currency without homogenizing measurement #corroborates (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 163
• Attention inequality forms a distinct axis of class alongside money #contradicts (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 183
• The attention economy treats attention as uniform when its quality is secretly variable #contradicts (0.75) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 345
• Immediacy is the subjective corollary of accelerated capital circulation #complicates (0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 82