Paul Roberts -- The impulse society
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"The impulse society" is a bit of a rant against impulsive
consumerism and the economic system that encourages and exploits it.
But, it's a very informative and thoughtful account.  Needless to
say, since it's about our economic system and our society, this book
leads to associations with other aspects of our lives, for example,
our political system and its support of our economic system, our use
of the internet and how that is exploited by the companies that do
sales through the Internet and the companies that collect massive
amounts of data about all of us and are learning how to use that
data and analytics to influence our buying and our politics and
more.

A good deal of Roberts's criticism could be directed at *us*, rather
than at the firms and agencies that are trying to exploit us.  He is
criticising us for buying on impulse, for buying things we do not
need, for seeking to satisfy our wants rather than our needs, for
buying when we do not have the money to pay for it or when we really
should be saving that money for more important purchases.  And, it's
not only our purchasing and buying behavior.  We are attracted,
distracted, enticed to click and to follow what catches our eye,
what seems interesting or scandalous, what is entertaining, as
opposed to content that is enriching and informative.  This is what
Tim Wu (and others) call click-bait.  See "The Attention Merchants:
The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads", by Tim Wu.

Part of Roberts's criticism is about the individualistic and
self-centered society that we live in, a society that enables and
encourages us to seek gratification, to attempt to satisfy as many
of our wants as we can.

Some of our largest and most successful companies are based on a
business model that exploits our self-centered needs.  These are
firms such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snapchat, etc.  For more on
how they do this, see (1) "American Girls: Social Media and the
Secret Lives of Teenagers", by Nancy Jo Sales and (2) "iGen: Why
Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More
Tolerant, Less Happy-and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood-and
What That What That Means for the Rest of Us", by Jean M. Twenge.

And, we should be asking whether (1) we use social media so heavily
because we are impulsive or (2) we become more impulsive because of
our heavy use of social media.  Of course, the most likely answer
is: quite a bit of both.  Viewed through Roberts's lens of
impulsiveness, we and our social media are well suited for each
other.  Social media, after all, is another part of our
market-driven economic system.  And, a market oriented system is
designed to encourage us to buy more.  Since buying on impulse is
likely to generate more sales and economic activity than carefully
evaluating each purchase and only buying what we "really need", it's
only reasonable to expect that we'd evolve toward a system that
encourages more and more impulsively.  Actually, look at some of the
characteristics of consumer capitalism: (1) impulse buying, (2)
profit driven delivery of goods, (3) advertising to push additional
unnecessary sales, (4) want-driven rather than need-driven purchase
decisions, (5) control that emphasizes emotions over reason.  Given
those characteristics, we'd have to expect that social media
encourages our impulsiveness, which has as a result that social
media and consumer capitalism become mutually supportive.

One aspect of this critique that is too complex for me to understand
and evaluate is the suggestion that something about the impulse
society and consumer capitalism contorts and perverts the incentives
that work within the system.  Perhaps one aspect of that is that our
impulsiveness encourages our economic system to seek profit by
offering us the wrong goods and encouraging our impulsive buying
behavior in order to sell them.  That forms a positive feedback loop
and a vicious cycle.  Another form of that critique is Roberts's
claims that we measure the performance of our economy through
changes in our GDP, and that GDP measures many of the wrong things.
For example, we see improvement in the GDP when we use more remedial
health care costs, rather than expenditures on preventative medicine
and healthier lifestyles and when we spend more buying and repairing
automobiles, rather than on infrastructure and repairing the roads
that would keep our automobiles from wearing out quicker.  There are
lots of examples of this, and our economy and political systems do
not seem to have any self-corrective mechanisms for them.  In
general, the GDP numbers do not coincide with the well-being of
society or with our own well-being.

We have increasing productivity (produce more stuff with fewer hours
of labor), but what we produce is not what we need so much as what
we want; it targets our whims and impulses rather than what's good
for us.  This is part of what it means to say that withing our
economic system, the consumer capitalist system, the incentives are
wrong.  And, the incentives that drive production are skewed,
because we are impulsive.  And, the economic system encourages us to
be impulsive because it needs to push the goods that those
incentives and we tell it to.  And, so you have a positive feedback
system and a non-virtuous cycle.

We (our society, our economic system) are succeeding at unifying
customer psychology and marketplace mechanisms.  And, those
marketplace mechanisms are becoming more pervasive, more intrusive
and invasive, more automated, and more intelligent and effective.
This will become even more so as firms and institutions learn more
about how to use data science, big data, and AI to exploit those of
us who are less able to resist the enticements that are dangled
before our eyes.

If you decide to read this book, you should look for Roberts's
attempts to explain how our society functions, how the combined
social and economic and political system functions.  One aspect of
that explanation that is especially fascinating is Roberts's
attempts to explain how each of these systems influences the others.

He is also explaining what the trade-offs are, what we are
sacrificing and risking by moving towards a society that enables us
to satisfy so many of our whims.

A related aspect of this picture is the increasing size of the
financial sector in comparison with the sectors that actually
provide the goods: manufacturing, shipping, marketing, etc.  That
out-sized financial sector influences and changes the incentives
that operate within the system.  It influences who produces and
sells what; if influences who is able to buy and what they buy.  For
example, the increasingly easy access to credit (credit card debt,
student loans, car loans, home loans, and more) are part of the
mechanism for keeping that want-driven, consumer-based economy
going.

One point made by Roberts but hard to verify because it is rather
vague is that in our political system, we are not allowed to discuss
alternatives to our capitalistic, market-driven system.  Even
suggesting modifications to that system is met with resistance.
Mention the word "socialism" and you can shut down any discussion.
So, the likelihood that there will be political adjustments to our
impulse-driven economic system is very low.  And, the fact that in
the U.S.A, both of our dominant political parties have become the
parties in support of business and especial *big* business, does not
help a bit.

Big data, analytics, and targeted marketing -- We are going to be
facing this more and more.  Roberts believes that it is
destabilizing to our political system, in part because by giving us
each messages that are different and that conflict with the messages
given to other citizens, our beliefs become even more divergent and
divisive.  The messages that politicians send us become ever more
extreme because the use of micro-targeting and data science
convinces them that this is what specific groups of voters want to
hear.  And, as a result, we lose whatever ability we might have had
to see things from the perspective of other voters.  And, since the
use of big data and analytics requires lots of money and because
very rich people have lots of money, we have to worry that those who
are funding the extensive use of data science in political campaigns
hold extreme positions and opinions that are outside the mainstream,
often more economically conservative.

Given the increasing use of big data and analytics and targeted
marketing and messages, there are some specific things that we can
do in defense: Use a Web browser that blocks ads.  In your Web
browser, periodically clear browsing data (browsing history,
cookies, etc.).  Do only *focused* purchase, that is, do not
purchase impulsively or without consideration.

One worry I have about this kind of critique is that perhaps the
free market ideologues are at least part right.  Perhaps our free
market, consumer capitalist system is as good as it gets, or, at
least is less bad than the others.  It certainly delivers lots of
goods, and we *seem* to want those goods.  Still, even if there are
no better *kinds* of economic systems, it does not mean that we
can't make improvements to ours.  Certainly, if firms and large
corporations can make modifications to that system (e.g. through
lobbying), then we, the consumers at the end of that production
system, should also be able to.

And, speaking of delivery, another important part of this system,
you can read a fascinating account of containerized shipping in "The
Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World
Economy Bigger", by Marc Levinson.

So, what can we take away from "The impulse society" in the way of
personal guidance?  We are all controlled by our impulses and
desires and cravings.  Saying that we should not be so is almost
pointless.  But, we could all use a little more control.  We need to
learn to fight back against and resist the efforts of corporations
to "train" our impulses for their advantage.  Most of us would be
helped by being a bit more reflective, especially when we make
decisions about how to spend our time and what to purchase.  We'd
have fuller, more rewarding lives if we focused more on learning and
understanding and analysis, and spent less time on immediate,
short-term enjoyment.  If we spent a little time considering what
options and decisions would have *good* outcomes for our lives, we'd
likely have richer lives.  That is often called "wisdom", and it's
the ability or habit that we might acquire from thinkers like
Lucrecious and Epictetus the Stoic and Montaigne.

There are likely some specific habits and traits that we might
attempt to practice: And, *never* "like" anyone online.

05/16/2018

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