🐈

attention at any given moment is finite. there's a theoretical max of total number of people x hours in a day. however wealth is theoretically infinite and so can control attention for long spans of time.

the stock market is not the economy. the stock market is forward looking and takes place in an imaginary future. it is mostly wealth games. the economy is what's happening NOW and takes place in the present. it is the manifestation of coordinated attention.

since wealth's coordinating output is bottlenecked by attention per moment, most of wealth is theoretically inert. like a deflating balloon, the only "active" air is the air that is rushing out of the hole.

however most wealth is active wealth. it's put to use to create systems that aim to "take advantage" of the world through profits. (and hopefully the invisible hand makes it non zero-sum & gaia doesn't die)https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1344882109282828291 …

if the economy were a computer, wealth would be the code that runs on computer. the stock market is not the economy, but it runs on TOP of the economy. it's information is embedded invisibly within the system and makes known its existence through REAL effects in reality.

when stocks crash, the economy can become depressed just like a computer w/ no code to run. with no future to look towards, there is no present. this parallels biological depression. it is an inability to imagine a better future.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1351777921338286080 …

popularity and leadership both focus attention in the present. they don't necessarily turn it into wealth. mob leaders and short-lived fashions often burn too brightly and die before they can crystallize it into wealth.

vice versa wealth does not always command attention. north korean billionaires do not have much sway outside externally. throwing money at wall-street protestors may just anger. the efficacy of wealth is bounded within its domain, which is a product of how it was crystallized.