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Julio Vincent Gambuto (2023).? Please unsubscribe, thanks!? How to take back our time, attention, and purpose in a world designed to bury us in bullshit.? Avid Reader Press: New York

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x? the pandemic … I will call it … the circus

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xiv? “Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting,” … essay … maybe this crisis is an opportunity for all of us to think deeply about what we actually want in our lives

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xxiii? The treadmill goes nowhere … The answer is not to run faster.? It is to unplug the machine

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xxvi? only two classes of people in the United States: the rich and the not-rich … the middle is dwindling fast

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xxvii? In the United States … levels of happiness and leisure time have fallen … So has … life expectancy … incessant mass shootings

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xxvii? we have … to figure out how to cooperate, to create meaningful progress together.? And to protect and renew our greatest resource: the very planet we all inhabit.? It is suffering greatly, and we seem to just be sleepwalking toward its demise, half measure by half measure

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xxix? step away and question

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3-4? the streets of New York City were numbered, not named: so that no one person was considered more important than the rest

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4? The exponential growth of our nation [America] came at great cost to generations of indigenous peoples, enslaved peoples, and laborers … in the righteous “pursuit of happiness”

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6? he believed … that earning a living would bring him satisfaction, family would bring him joy, and a legacy would bring him meaning

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6? The tension between our political role – with a focus on that collective – and our economic role – with a focus on the individual – plays out in our lives every day

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10? economists now pin much blame for our society’s stark inequality on our tech … Click by click, we are undoing a strong middle class.? We are undoing a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth

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13? This is the opposite of trickle-down economics – the fantasy that a robust consumer economy would benefit the common good.? I will call it “click-up economics.” … It creates all sorts of success at the top, while squeezing wages at almost every other level … And it uses the power of concentrated capital not only to hike prices but to exert disproportionate control over our political system to keep capital concentrated and not distributed in any way that most would consider fair and just

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15? Sylvan Goldman … invented the shopping cart … in 1936

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17? Stephan Schambach … invented the online shopping cart.? Which has no limit

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19-20? “capitalism is broken,” … Few at the top want to fix it, because it is the brokenness that most benefits them … Regulations are few … And consumer protections are a joke

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21? The worst effect of click-up economics is that it has handed our society over to some very big forces … there are five: Big Tech, Big Brands, Big Banks, Big Media, and, yes, Big Parties (the political ones).? (I’m including Big Pharma and Big Agriculture under Big Brands.)

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22-23? This is monopoly capitalism.? And we’re right back to the age of the robber barons … In any given market in any given industry, we have very few choices … We are scaling whatever flaws in moral judgment are built into these systems.? And our government is doing too little about it

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24? the key to this brave new world … emerged sometime around 2010 … the holy grail of click-up economics

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25? In modern America … We have become subscribers

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26? Netflix … with a revenue of $7.71 billion (… paid $0 in taxes in 2020 …)

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27? The subscription model is the fastest-growing business model in America

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28? subscribe means “to sign under.”

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28? an entire generation of kids … aren’t taught cursive

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31? The Big Forces need the subscription model.? To stay as big as they are, they required mass subscription

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33? The infinite loop has taken over capitalism

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33? Jeff Bezos originally wanted to name Amazon something different: Relentless.com

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34? artificial intelligence.? AI is scaring the shit out of school systems, engineers, creatives, and even lawyers

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34? “labor automation.”

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34? Behavior automation

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38-39? The fuller our day is with pings and rings and reminders and notifications and messages, gently and not so gently steering us to participate in the digital Supercommunity, the less time, energy, and focus we have for our families, our partners, our actual friends, or the community of humans physically around us

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39? The infinite loop keeps us on autopilot in our lives, and addicted to consumption of all kinds

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41? The Big Forces work together seamlessly to keep this automated system intact

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41? Big Tech is the ringleader of all the Big Forces

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41? The average American has more than eighty apps on their phone

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42? “engagement.” … Your engagement gives companies major currency in business, in the culture, and in the world

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42? the “Internet of things”

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42? Big Data gives Big Power, and we’re the ones doing the giving

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43? Whistleblowers are coming forward to warn of the grave dangers to the mental health and social development of our kids and teenagers and to our long-term economic life and social stability … (… in May 2023, Geoffrey Hinton, considered “the godfather of AI,” quit his post at Google to warn the nation about the dangers of artificial intelligences …)

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44? Big Tech found a way to transform our clicks into money for the Big Brands … And money is power

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44? socioeconomics … We pride ourselves on not having classes in America, when we most certainly do … The American brand system … is how we reinstituted the English class system … Branding is powerful

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44-45? Using Big Data … marketers can analyze … and use very robust consumer psychographics … Psychographics … can tell marketers what your personal relationship is to … success, failure, growth, power, social standing, fear. ?The list goes on … It is the product of a system now designed to exploit human psychology … Big Data is being weaponized against us

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46? book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism … Shoshana Zuboff

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47? Education, awareness, and any true awakening does not serve the Big Forces

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48? We can have no true equity in our society until we properly balance the scales between brands, businesses, capital, and workers and consumers.? The subscription model does not give us more equity.? It gives us less

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49? The Big Banks shower the Big Brands and Big Tech with capital … which is our money

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50? James Baldwin … “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty know how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

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51? the Big Banks work for the wealthy

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52? Big Media creates and amplifies the stories that make this all “normal.”

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53? In the relentlessness of American life, the noise ensures that our attention is everywhere but on the things that matter

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53? book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy … Jenny Odell

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54-55? Big Media is made up of three entities: social media, the news … and entertainment … this is not healthy for society

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55-56? Platforms … Your past determines your future, so that you are predictable

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56? Both chokepoint capitalism and surveillance capitalism are key features of click-up economics

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60? “It’s just business,” … Business is highly emotional … the Big Forces need the Supercommunity, so they rely on and seek to manipulate that emotion.? Plainly put, they abuse that emotion

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61? Humanity is messy

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62? Emotion has great power.? And the Big Brands wield this power brilliantly

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62? the wealthiest 10 percent of American households … own 89 percent of all US stocks.? The top 1 percent of Americans own 54 percent of individually held stocks … wealth, not income

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65? Our globalized economy … shifts displeasure and suffering to other peoples in other lands … and … the toll it takes on the environment

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66? the Emotion Engine is making us all less and less tolerant … True liberation – true joy – comes from learning how to accept reality as it is

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67? click-up economics automates emotional abuse

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67? book On Bullshit … Harry G. Frankfurt observes that “one of the mostly salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit …”

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68? Rant

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69? Merriam-Webster declared gaslighting the word of the year in 2022.? Gaslighting is the intentional creation of an altered reality in order to manipulate.? The term comes from a 1944 … film in which a husband … raises and lowers the lights of the gas lamps … to convince her that she can’t trust her own perception of reality

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70? the advertising industry – a $148.8 billion message machine

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71? Good people are exhausted by the never-ending bullshit … It also creates constant conflict between the people around us

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73? Big Tech understands a very subtle truth about human relationships.? They are subscriptions … Every relationship is an agreement

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74-75? What matters here is that we have a choice … We get to decide how much time we want to spend with people … Joy comes from powerful decisions … “conscious uncoupling” … divorce … need not be the traumatic, dramatic, and toxic process so many of us know all too well.? It can be healthy.? It can be kind.? It can even be loving.? To know when things need to change is not failure

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77? Friends require work: That’s also why those of us over forty have such trouble meeting new people

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77? Americans now spend, on average, more than two and a half hours a day on social media … And we use an average of twelve gigs of data every month texting

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79? It is one of the great ironies of the twenty-first century that having more and more ways to connect and communicate is breeding more and more loneliness … Robin Dunbar contends that humans are cognitively able to maintain only about one hundred fifty connections at once

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80? social media … we have added a middleman into nearly every relationship in our social lives

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81? [Pete Buttigieg] part of a growing national conversation about mental health issues and personal relationships

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82? loneliness and isolation … a disconnect … Life is no longer full of joy, punctuated by bullshit.? It is full of bullshit, punctuated by joy

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82? Nietzsche proposed that if life is this eternal return, if it is an infinite loop, how might we each feel about reliving every choice we have ever made?

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83? Now is the time to make changes.? Big ones

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83-84? The difference between the haves and the have-nots will widen and widen … likely … to spiral into our society’s destruction

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85? Isn’t an automated society progress? … no … Progress would mean we are experiencing more joy, more freedom, more leisure time, more opportunities to connect and experience whatever it is in the world that we each deem to be our own personal version of happiness … We are … reverting to extreme levels of inequality

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85-86? book Civilized to Death … Christopher Ryan … “narrative of perpetual progress” or “NPP,” … Our way of life … is unnatural and works to condition out of humans our natural tendency for teamwork, egalitarianism, and the social balances that maintain peace and security … we have used the NPP to justify and fortify feudalism, mercantilism, and capitalism

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86? 2022, Timothy Snyder … On Tyranny … confusion between what is “bad” and what is “good” always stands to benefit the über-wealthy and keep the entire system in place.? Confusion is their friend

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88? Automation is not progress

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88? Bill Gates … “The first rule of any technology in business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify its efficiency.? The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify its inefficiency.”

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89? We are magnifying loneliness.? We are magnifying keeping up with the Joneses.? We are magnifying income inequality.? We are magnifying political and social strife.? Greed.? Impatience.? Isolation.? Fear.? And violence??

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92? we will get to some practical and tactical strategies … Change, even individual change, is not a solo act … the collective always influences the personal.? And the personal always affects the collective

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98? It is my strongest belief that happiness is our natural state before we bury ourselves in the never-ending bullshit of the modern world … Happiness comes from time spent with people we love.? Happiness comes from running toward hard conversations, not away from them.? Happiness comes from community and contribution and citizenship.? Happiness comes from quality, not quantity, from going deeper, not wider.? Happiness comes from finding and experiencing the joy – and pain – of life day in and day out

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99 Get uncomfortable … “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

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104? not all our promises are good for us.? Or for the world

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105? each of us is committed to too much we don’t want to be committed to

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107? “The inbox is nothing but a convenient organizing system for other people’s agendas,” … Brendon Burchard

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108? The digital detritus that our inboxes house creates massive anxiety for each of us

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115? Get rid of Chrome and Safari and switch to Brave, Firefox, DuckDuckGo, or Tot

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115? Do not bookmark pages

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115? Do not accept cookies

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116? get rid of your phone … I just bought a Jitterbug … It makes calls.? It receives and sends texts

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116 ?Leave your phone at home when you go out

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116? “downteching,”

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119? Unplug all your smart devices … Make your home quiet

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119? stop ordering online

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129? Unsubscribing calls on us to get rid of that which stands in the way of spending time with those we truly love to be around

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130? Stop filling up your calendar just because that is what you have always done … People’s feelings are at stake.? Human people with human feelings.? They deserve your best

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138? very few things in our world come with instructions

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141? (… It’s not our job to make everyone else feel okay.? But if the relationship is important to you, changing your approach can reinvigorate the dynamic.) … It’s okay to end relationships.? It’s okay to change them

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142? “If everyone is our friend, then no one is.”

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143? human relationships are each unique

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144? Every friendship is different … Friendships grow and change.? They call on us to grow and change with them

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149? break up your habits so you can re-evaluate whether they are on autopilot, and whether you want them that way.? Why do you do what you do …?? Is it out of joy or obligation?

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152? “rack focus.”

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153? “people audit.” … A people audit can help you get clear about who you want in your life

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154? “The pen is mightier than the sword.”? I often find that when I want to change my behavior, I have to change my language … language can really shape our reality … Language is also how a society inculcates its beliefs

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156? digital detox

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162? the United States is considered by many to be the most overworked developed nation in the world

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162? At work, we get to experience validation, praise, pride, triumph, confidence-building, and teamwork, and overcome fear, anxiety, insecurity, and disgust

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163? Even with these benefits, though, working in a capitalist economy is tough

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163? Work is also a challenging subscription to grapple with because it is universally mismanaged

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164? CEOs make 320 times the average worker

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166? We have talent … Many of us are just employing those in ways that boost productivity, wealth, and power for others, but not joy, wealth, or power for ourselves

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166? a job … It is where we learn behaviors and adopt attitudes that carry over into our personal lives

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167-168? A company’s mission is generally defined as the reason it exists … A company’s vision is basically … what their long-term vision for the business is … a company’s values are the ground rules set for behavior as individuals within the company and as a collective

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168? Make no mistake: where we work matters.? And we have more agency than we think.? Because we can also determine our own mission, vision, and values

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170? we must … place our own individual, professional mission, vision, and values up alongside and within the context of our larger organizations

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170? Unions are a major reason that workers flourished in the twentieth century … In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Big Forces found this kind of collective bargaining to be, well, inconvenient, and so they banded with the government to “break” unions in any way that they could

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170? Unions represent everyone and anyone who is not the owner(s) of the company

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172? When we speak up at work, when we find a voice that is respectful but clear, we can effect change

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172? Consider … subscribing to the belief that I could walk out of here tomorrow and it would be okay … What idea, notion, or belief is controlling how I behave?? Am I being controlled by my fear of being unemployed, or by my love of this job??

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173? exposing yourself to people who are powerful themselves teaches us how to access the power inside of us … powerful people are calm not dramatic; they choose their words carefully and after thoughtful consideration; they strategize and take one step at a time

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173? Ben Franklin said, “Motion does not equal action.” … we must learn to move less … find greater value in being still

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176? It is neither necessary nor cool to always be connected

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177? Make it a graceful approach … learn how to manage up.? Completely politely

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177? unsubscribe from meetings that accomplish nothing

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178? Leaders do three things when they want to effect change: (1) they ask their colleagues in similar positions at different places of work how it’s done in their world, (2) they think through who will be affected by that change and how they can minimize any negative effects, and (3) they explore new language and approaches to ensure that when they do raise their voice, it is clear, calm, respectful, and effective

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179? Managers respond well to proposals, not complaints, to solutions, not more problems … think about how it could benefit them

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179? You must meet leaders at their level (empowered) by being a leader (empowered).? Being cranky and whiny … (disempowered) triggers all sorts of emotions in people

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180? Power dynamics are real and strong

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181-182? There is nothing wrong with enjoying the company of your colleagues.? But there is a fine line … Guilt … shame … They may be or become friends inside and outside the office … boundaries … Humans love to test boundaries?

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191-192? Our underlying subscriptions are ideas, beliefs, and notions we each have about who we are, how the world works, and what our place and role is within it … These are the deeply held beliefs exploited by advertising and the messaging of the Big Forces … The narratives … are called sticky stories … The concept of underlying subscriptions comes from the world of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) … Aaron Beck … 1960s … 1979 … three “interrelated levels of cognition”: core beliefs, dysfunctional assumptions, and negative automatic thoughts … its insights have also been used – and abused – to exploit consumers … Organized religions … racism … nationalism … fascism

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192-193? According to CBT, it is our interpretation of the situations of our lives that influences us emotionally, behaviorally, physiologically, more so than the actual situation

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193? “Stop believing everything you think.” … Some Like It Hot … by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin … it is our choice to make up an empowering story about the message or a disempowering one … be mindful of that choice

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194? For me … five buckets of beliefs: inherited beliefs, experiential beliefs, educated beliefs, cultural beliefs, and narrated beliefs

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203? Now that we have located and identified our own individual sticky stories, as well as the collective ones we have all been subscribed to, the next step is to use language to interrogate them

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209? Unsubscribing brings greater challenges step by step, harder conversations, and trickier interpersonal and personal dilemmas for us to sort through and sort out … It is a strange place

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211? People, quite simply, may not get it or understand why you’re doing it … When you unsubscribe, you are stating publicly that the status quo just doesn’t work for you … In short, they will make it about them … Independent and critical thinking does not mesh with Big Media

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212? The dark well is a sacred time for you to discover or rediscover what life is like without the constant pinging and ringing, the exhausting running and going, and the endless need to be better, bigger, stronger, faster, richer

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214? Minimalism is the logical response to a culture of maximal consumption

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216? Walking without electronics … is an opportunity to think … A simple walk … reconnects you to your local world

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216? The act of caring for your belongings can be revolutionary in a world that tells you to throw them out and buy something new the moment something goes wrong

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216? Work with a therapist or coach

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218? Talk to strangers … Most of the algorithms that run our lives now are not designed to foster empathy … Pluralist societies … require an ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes

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218? Cook your food

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219? rewrite your sticky stories … take the disempowering belief and flip it, reverse it, rewrite it in an empowering way … Consider doing this in thirteen areas: Health, Finances, Intellectual, Spiritual, Play, Career, Space, Romance, Family, Extended Family, Friends, Community, Supercommunity

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226? You cannot renew your life until you properly mourn that which is forever gone or that which will now never be

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226? If we want to change “the system” or “dismantle” it, we would be well served to dismantle, reevaluate, and rebuild the architecture of our own lives first ?

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228? Sarah Montana … Real forgiveness has to let go of all expectations

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233? “renewal,” … “bring newness again.”

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234? At the personal level, renewal is a new state of being in which, quite simply, you love your life

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237? you have to define your values according to what matters to you, and then you have to commit to them and live them in your life … The very act of living – and living well – will always include at least one other person … We cannot experience deep personal change without renegotiating and communicating with others

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240? keep asking yourself … Does what I am doing right now … support, strengthen, deepen, and amplify what I have identified … as my true values, my ideas, beliefs, and notions about myself and about the world around me?

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241? For example, Go for a walk, even a short one, every day

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243? Keep exploring … Watch your words; they matter … be kind

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243? a brilliant therapist … said … Run to the love

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246? There is a significant distinction to be drawn between agreement and alignment … Alignment is a state of peaceful coexistence … It allows us to have plenty of relationships with those who look at the world very differently … when we are empowered and stand confidently in our beliefs, others become way less of a threat to our peace and calm?

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248? I wear a mask just on the subway

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248? Learning … is a lifelong pursuit

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249? I also dance when I can

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249? Play is for everyone

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250? If I die having achieved my goals, I’ll be thrilled.? If I die having not, I’ll be dead.? It won’t matter anyway

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250? a healthy human partnership … We put up with zero bullshit from one another

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251? My real friends love me just the way I am … Friendships are an opportunity for shared joy … I don’t go to parties, events, or dinners with people I don’t enjoy spending time with or who require anything more of me than me … And when I put them in my calendar, I put the commitment in for four to five hours, not forty-five minutes

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251? Community.? Time spent with others locally is important and exciting

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252? The world is full of good people

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252-253? technology serves specific goals in specific moments for specific tasks … Tech is not “the future.”? It is part of the future … Let’s give tech a supporting role.? The lead is far too important a part

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253? well-chosen items that will last a long time are worth the money … “Is there a local shop that sells it?”

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253? money is a means to an end, not the end itself

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254? Media … my heart and brain only deserve significant, important, and meaningful information and stories

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255? Let’s choose government.? Let’s walk away from politics

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255? It is time to play “hard to get” with brands, business, tech, media, government, and the banks

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256? we cannot rely on social wellness to go viral

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256? demand of our representatives … to stand up to the Big Forces and act for the common good

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256-257? George Monbiot … Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis … buy less … consume less … drive less … “the great political transition of the past fifty years, driven by corporate marketing, has been a shift from addressing our problems collectively to addressing them individually.? In other words, it has turned us from citizens into consumers.? It’s not hard to see why we have been herded down this path.? As citizens, joining together to demand political change, we are powerful.? As consumers, we are almost powerless.”

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261? If consumerism centers on products, citizenship centers on people

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261? the Greeks, the very founders of democracy, practiced, taught, and built social and community bonds based on eight types of love

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262? Adam Smith … the government has a responsibility to protect its citizens from abuse by the market

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264? Pick something, anything that commits you to working with other people to effect positive change

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268? “profit is king” thinking … Milton Friedman … “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.”

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269? What we saw in the immediate years that followed this [2019 … Business Roundtable] Purpose was record-breaking profits from America’s leading corporations and the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression

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270-271? A business model that sends zero dollars to the federal government in taxes is not one that can ever claim it is “supporting the communities in which it works.”

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272? co-ops remain a more affordable option, compared to renting or buying a condo

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272? Einstein … “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”?

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275? anger breeds more anger … If you want to advocate for wellness, you have to come from a place of wellness

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275? You can’t lead by constantly bitching about things

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275? you can lead from wherever you are … there are endless loci of power for you to focus on

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277-278? Welcome to the 2020s.? The times we find ourselves living in beg us to reevaluate who we are … It is time that we make peace with the truth about our modern, digital world: this system keeps you small because it benefits from your smallness.? Now it is time for you to be bigger.? It’s time for all of us to be bigger … The future will be full of more change than we can even imagine … What is constant is that humans will always seek love, trust, hope, inspiration, joy, laughter, pride, and respect … It calls on us to control what we can control and let the rest go.? It calls on us to be present – really present – to our lives