075 The Half-Huckster

A brief one

Previously I wrote that the “attention-scarce, information-rich environment rewards the production of extremes.” I still think this is true, but there are important things to attend to in the ambiguities and the middle grounds, too. For instance, a figure I think of as a half-huckster.

In terms of our attention economy, the huckster seeks attention, clout, status, validation, and probably money. They probably don’t believe their own bullshit, but it’s bullshit that serves a clear and definite ulterior motive, and anything else that serves the purpose (including criticism, mockery, and refutation) is welcome.

Non-hucksters are not guided by the pursuit of these things. They can be friend or foe. They can provide high or low quality information. But their intentions are reliably sincere. Criticism, mockery, and refutation of the non-huckster may or may not hurt their feelings, but it does latch on to the substantive content. One is satisfied that this is a person interacting in good faith.

The half-huckster emerges in something like an uncanny valley between these two areas. This is a figure who appears to exist in both good and bad faith. I don’t say this as a category of moral judgment, though this may correlate with immorality of some kind; instead I’m trying to concoct a label to identify the perception of those who exist in an escalationist audiovisual-attention environment whose extreme opinions may or may not be taken in good faith. For example—a brilliant (or simply a competent) intellectual who believes uncritically in some baseless conspiracy theory, reposting Joe Rogan clips or whatever, or who seems to drink the Kool-Aid of some awful mainstream political candidate, taking all of their campaign rhetoric at face value, and getting angry at those who don’t do likewise …