#and how many systems are set up based on control. coercion. fear. instead of care

[trans-axolotl]

content note: this post talks about eugenics, incarceration and institutionalization, and violent ableism

tangent from that post because i didn't want to start writing an essay on someone else's post and this is about a conversation i had irl this month, not intended as a reply to that post. but i actually feel very complicated about the idea of whether or not we should be pushing for more "accessibility" in jails and prisons and psych wards and institutions. i put that word in quotes because i don't think there is ever a way that being incarcerated is actually accessible to our bodies and minds; it is a disabling experience on so many levels. i'm not going to list out all the reasons why on this post; i've made so many posts talking explicitly about the harms of institutionalization before and i don't want to do that again right now. Talila Lewis has given several interviews about ableism, incarceration, and disability that are really worth reading and go more in depth into what that violence looks like. Liat Ben Moshe has also given another interview about disability and incarceration that goes over many of the same topics. given that these places are intense sites of violence towards disabled people, it feels difficult for me to claim that they could ever truly be accessible in any meaningful sense of the word.

what's also true right now is that institutions and prisons are incredibly inaccessible for physically disabled people in particular. i've been arrested with a wheelchair, i've been institutionalized with a feeding tube on top of that as well, i've been held on medical floors for psych treatment before, and i know very well exactly how bad it is. i've watched myself and so many other physically disabled people almost die in these places because of sheer neglect. i have physically disabled neighbors who were killed in these places. it is so dangerous for physically disabled people who are locked up in these places, yet at the same time, often psych wards are so inaccessible that physically disabled people just can't even be admitted because wards refuse to take people with mobility aids, medical devices, specific types of medication or care needs, if you have some kinds of terminal illness, and on and on and on.

what's also true is that when these places are so inaccessible that many physically disabled people are excluded and unable to even access them in the first place, it doesn't mean that we then somehow access other types of care instead. it just means that we're also discarded and left to die. this also is a really similar dynamic for a ton of other marginalized groups that get excluded from psych care--many of my comrades who are people of color have also experienced this same type of denial of care. initially i think that can seem like a confusing contradiction--how is it that psych wards are locking up some people up against their will but refusing to take in other people? but when you start thinking about the underlying logic at the core of these systems, it makes sense.

psych wards operate under this idea that madness must be cured by any means possible, up to and including eradication. institutions are a way of disappearing madness from the world--hiding us away so that we don't disturb a sane society, and not letting us free again until we either die in there or are able to appear like we've sufficiently eradicated madness from our mind. preventing physically disabled people from accessing inpatient treatment is operating under the same assumptions--except that this particularly violent convergence of ableism is happy to just let us die, both because it eradicates madness from the world and because they view our lives as unworthy of living in the first place. eugenics is still alive and well in the united states and it's still fucking killing us; both inside institutions and outside of them.

i would never tell someone that they're privileged for getting institutionalized--i think that would be a cruel thing to say to someone who has just survived a lot of violent ableism. and at the same time, our current systems of mental health care are set up in a way where not being able to access inpatient care can be a deadly logistical nightmare. there are some partial hospitalization programs that have such a long waiting list that you can only really get in if you just got an urgent referral because you're getting discharged from inpatient care--how the fuck are physically disabled people supposed to access those programs? if you need meal support for your eating disorder 6 times a day and the only places that offer that are residential treatment in a house with stairs, what the fuck are you supposed to do? if noncarceral outpatient forms of treatment like therapy, support groups, PHP programs, peer support funding, etc etc etc are often prioritizing people who have recently been discharged from inpatient care, how are you supposed to access any type of mental health care at all? (to be clear i know that not all forms of outpatient care operate in this way, but a lot of state run/low cost programs that accept Medicaid/Medicare operate in that way, and i've seen it cause enough barriers that i know this is a very real problem.)

so when i think about what it would take to actually ensure that physically disabled people can access mental healthcare, there's a lot that comes up for me. on one hand, so much of my work is about tearing down institutions and ensuring that no one is forced into these places to face that type of violence. on the other hand, so many physically disabled people need care right now, and we have to figure out some way of making that happen given the current systems we have in place. i will never be okay with just discarding physically disabled people as collateral damage, and any world that we're building needs to be one that embraces disability from the beginning.

i keep thinking about the concept of non-reformist reforms that gets talked about a lot in the prison abolition movement. the idea behind non-reformist reforms is that usually, reforms work to reinforce the status quo. they're usually talked about in liberal language of "improvement" and "human rights", but when it comes down to it, they're still giving more power to harmful institutions and reinforcing state power. an example of a reformist reform is building a new jail that is bigger and has "nicer" services. or when the cops in my city tried to get funding for more wheelchair accessible cop vans. these are reformist reforms because when it comes down to it, it's still giving more money and legitimacy to the prison system and increasing the capacity to keep people locked up--even when people talk about it using language about welfare for prisoners, that's not actually what's happening. having more wheelchair accessible cop vans would be dangerous for the disabled people in my city--it's helped us out a LOT that it's so difficult for the cops to arrest multiple wheelchair users at once.

non-reformist reforms are the opposite of that--they're reforms that work to dismantle systems, redistribute power, and set the stage for more even more dramatic transformations. They're sort of an answer to the question of "what do we do right now if we can't go out and burn down all the prisons overnight?" Examples of a nonreformist reform are defunding prisons, getting rid of paid administrative leave for cops, shutting down old prisons and not building new ones, etc. they're steps we can take right now that don't fully abolish prisons, but still work to dismantle them, rather than making it easier for the system to keep going.

so, when we apply this to the psych system, what are some nonreformist reforms that could help make sure that all disabled people are having their needs met right now? Some ideas I'm having include fixing the problem of PHP/outpatient care requiring referrals from inpatient, increasing the amount of Medicaid/Medicare funding for outpatient mental health care, building physically accessible peer respites that allow caregivers to stay with you if needed, increasing SSI/SSDI to an actually liveable rate, creating more disability specific mental health resources, support groups, care webs, and a million other things we'd probably need to actually get our needs met. non-reformist reforms for people in psych wards right now might look like ensuring everyone has 24/7 access to phones and internet, ensuring that disabled people have access to mobility aids in these spaces, making sure that there's accessible nutrition for people with dietary restrictions and/or feeding tubes, and more.

when i see people saying that we need to ensure that psych wards or prisons are made accessible it makes me feel nervous. i worry that the changes required to do that wouldn't actually provide care to disabled people, i worry it would just make it easier for increasing numbers of disabled people to get locked up and harmed all while people claimed it was a success story of "inclusion." i worry that it would just continue to cement carceral treatment as the only option for existing as a disabled person, and that it would make it harder for us to live in our communities, with the services and adaptations we need. when i think about abolition, i'm always thinking about what can we do right now, what do disabled people who are incarcerated and institutionalized need right now, what can we do right now to ensure that everyone is surviving and getting their needs met. i'm not willing to ignore or discard my incarcerated disabled comrades in the moment because of my dreams for an abolitionist future, i'm always going to support our organizing in these places as we try to survive them.

overall i guess what i'm saying is that i think making inpatient psych care accessible would require dismantling and fundamentally destroying the whole system. I can't imagine a way of doing that within the current system that wouldn't just continue to harm disabled people. and that as a psych abolitionist i think that means we have a responsibility to each other right now to fight for that, to understand that physically disabled people not being able to access mental health care is an incredibly urgent need. I refuse to treat my MadDisabled comrades as disposable: our lives are valuable and worth fighting for.

i'm also going to link to the HEARD organization on this post. They're one of the few abolitionist organizations that does direct advocacy and support for deaf and disabled people in prisons. if you or one of your disabled community members ever gets incarcerated in jail/prison, they have a lot of resources. donate to support their work if you can.

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Bite (Part Three)

Summary: Peter’s team is invited onto a big case in which their involvement will have serious consequences. (Part 3/3)

Word Count: 5,077

Warning: Some violence and not-so-subtle PTSD

Additional Note: Some prison slang is used in this chapter and explained here for clarity. Shiv = stab, smokes = cigarettes, “a dime” = ten years.

           “I want you to know that I didn’t intend for this to happen,” he said finally, lifting his head. His usually kissable lips were frowning. “And I tried resisting.”

           That made you frown. What was there to resist? Coercion? “Resisting what?” You asked him worriedly.

           That worry only increased tenfold when he answered, “Blood.”

~~~ Bite ~~~

           Of the hundreds, even thousands of things that you knew Neal could have said, what he actually did say hadn’t even made the list – but it sure was eerie, and if his goal was actually to pull your leg, set you off-kilter, then he had succeeded without a doubt.

           “Blood?” You echoed, recoiling and leaning away from him in your chair. His eyes darted briefly to your shoulders as they moved back before he looked to your face again, his mouth tightening unhappily. “What the hell, Neal, I’m being serious!”

           “So am I,” he responded, looking momentarily hurt. “I told you, I didn’t want this.”

           You still didn’t understand. “This – this being what?”

           Neal licked his dry lips and looked over your shoulder, his eyes fixated on a spot on the wall. “This goes back to the Brady case,” he admitted. You leaned back towards him, both to hear his quiet speech and because you had realized you’d moved away. No matter how unsettled you were, you knew your friend would never hurt you and there was no need to put distance in the way. “The last operation.”

           “The one that failed.” You remembered it well. The concern and fear when your team stopped responding, the anger towards Brady, and the sympathy and worry for Neal and Peter, who had both been through an awful experience. Not to mention the paranoia and distrust that had rocked the office in the immediate aftermath. “Someone had tipped him off.”

           “No,” Neal corrected you quickly, and you looked to his eyes sharply. How could he know what had happened? Not even OPR had managed to figure out why the operation took a nosedive. “There wasn’t a mole. Brady had already made us himself from the second Peter went to scare him.”

           How? Peter had worked many high-profile cases, but was careful to stay out of the spotlight, and the bureau had liaisons who did their best to make sure agents didn’t get their pictures out in the media. Did they miss one? Was that how Brady recognized Peter? But then, how had he tied Neal to Peter, and why risk going to prison when he could have simply cut ties with Nick Halden and fled the country?

           “If he knew it was a setup, then why did he call you back to his office?” You questioned.

           Neal sighed softly. “Spitefulness. Pettiness. Malice.” You took in a breath as you understood. It wouldn’t have been enough for Brady to just not fall into the trap. He had to make the feds regret trying to trick him. Neal looked down at his hands and stroked the thumb of one hand firmly against the palm of the other while he kept calm and recounted what had happened. “Peter could have been a cop doing his job. Me, I was clearly undercover, manipulating him.”

           You cut in with another question. “What I don’t get is how he knew you weren’t Nick.” You were very careful in the bureau to keep the identities of Neal Caffrey and Nick Halden separate. “How did he make the connection?”

           Neal hesitated and he looked down again, his beautiful blue eyes training on the repetitive movement of his hands. You decided to give him a count, and if he didn’t answer in ten seconds, you were going to say his name in a stern tone. You only got to eight before he looked up, mouth open to talk. He stopped himself short, swallowed, and turned his head to look towards the glass doors before he started again.

           “He knew I wasn’t who I said because he knew Peter and I had been spending time together.” Neal was shifty in a way you hadn’t seen before. There was his usual fashion of shiftiness, quick and deflective, when he was trying to get away with a lie of omission, particularly when he had come to a case lead through not-so-scrupulous ways. Then there was this – shifty out of discomfort, unease, like he felt squirmy just for thinking about it. “When Peter went to his office, Brady could smell me.”

           Neal stopped, giving you time to think, to catch up, and to understand. You looked at him and he was still facing away from you, so you just saw the hardness in his jaw as he gritted his teeth.

           “Neal, we aren’t dogs, people can’t smell other people,” you exasperatedly started to say, but slowed down. This wasn’t just Neal trying to spin a story. It was his freedom on the table, and if he wanted to lie then he could be much more convincing. It was true that people couldn’t smell other people – but maybe Brady wasn’t a person, wasn’t a human.

           Blood.

           “No,” you whispered, feeling petrified. Had Brady-?

           “People can’t,” Neal agreed softly, looking to his hands again. You could see his knuckles whitening as he pressed into his palm harder, relieving his stress and anxiety with pressure. “Vampires can.”

~~~ Bite ~~~

           Something had been off from the start, but Neal didn’t want to be hasty and pull the plug on a good operation. Though he was guilty of pressing Ruiz’s buttons, Neal understood the agent’s desperation to catch this shady businessman and wanted to do what he could to hold Brady accountable for murder. Brady didn’t have any extra muscle with him, nor did he change the meeting place to somewhere without people in shouting distance, so Neal thought that even if he was twitchy, he wasn’t completely sold on his paranoia. As long as he was careful, he would get out unscathed.

           It didn’t take long for Brady to bring up Peter, which surprised Neal slightly. Maybe the man was jumpier than he had thought. Neal was being cautious and calculating, but on the outside he made sure to be flippant and unruffled, like a pestering FBI agent was neither new nor troubling. Brady didn’t take the offered bait in Neal’s response, though, and instead asked a very pointed question.

           “And what experience would you happen to have with the feds, Nick?” Brady had asked testily, staring down at Neal from where he was sitting on the edge of his own desk. The man’s hazel eyes looked dark and thin around the wide pupils, and Neal decided right then that it was too close of a call. There was too much excitement in his system for it to be a hypothetical question, and a person couldn’t dilate their eyes on will.

           He almost missed the businessman’s hand moving into a desk drawer while formulating a response. “I’ve met a few,” Neal replied evenly, scowling, in character, not appreciating the insinuation that he cooperated with feds. “But none were a very hard sell.” He did see the motion as Brady took his hand out of the desk drawer, holding onto nothing. He was curious what it had been for, but mostly he was grateful that Brady hadn’t taken out a gun.

           “Is that so?” Brady asked, easing himself off the desk. He put his back to Neal, and while he wasn’t looking, Neal let out a slow breath, sure to keep it silent so that his relief wasn’t heard. The company founder circled his furniture and Neal willed him to stay on that side of it and keep the three-foot piece between them.

           “It is,” Neal said, cocking his head to portray Nick’s (earned) arrogance. He just had to wait another thirty seconds, maximum. The phrase ‘hard sell’ was the safe word. There would be at least one, but probably two or three, agents storming in before Brady had a chance to even go for the gun safe Neal knew was behind that framed picture on the wall.

           “Mm. Funny.” Brady commented coolly, staring at Neal like he thought the conman would be easily intimidated. It was almost insulting, really – if a good stare were all it took, Neal would still be a starving street scammer. “Because, see, I know from a reliable source that you’re all buddy-buddy with Agent Burke.”

           It was truly a test of self-control not to give away the mounting anxiety. Neal played it off while counting down in his head. “Sounds to me like you need to get better sources,” he snarked. Twenty seconds.

           “Based on what you’re saying, I can’t trust anyone these days.” Brady just sounded angrier now. Neal wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have just made a move to excuse himself and taken his chances, but it was too late now, and Brady had less than twenty seconds left.

           “It’s a very disappointing world we live in,” Neal hinted stoically. Fifteen seconds.

           Brady opened up a desk drawer and Neal shifted his feet slightly, prepared to get up if the businessman took out a firearm. “Not even myself,” Brady growled lowly, and Neal did hear a growl under the words, like he was in the room with an angry bear and not just a slighted crook.

           “What are you saying?” Neal challenged him coolly, and immediately regretted it, because Brady took out a long dagger with a curved scythe on one side. Suddenly, ten seconds seemed like an awfully long time to wait, so the conman decided to give his team an incentive to hurry up. “That’s an awfully big knife you have there,” he casually remarked while standing quickly from his seat.

           Brady shut the drawer by hitting it with his knee. “I could smell you on him the minute he walked into my office,” the man hissed, a low, animalistic growl emanating from his throat between words. “You’re working for them. You came in here thinking you could take me? I’m the one doing the taking.”

           “Who said anything about fighting?” Neal put his hands up to show that he was unarmed and harmless while backing away. The man was inching around the desk and Neal was still counting two seconds in his head, but now he couldn’t afford to wait patiently. “Listen to yourself. This is insane!” He laughed nervously. Anyone would be nervous when someone was angrily threatening them with a knife that looked like a cross between a dagger and a filleter. “I’m in cahoots with him just because we wear the same cologne?”

           “It wasn’t cologne!” Brady shouted, his forehead turning pink as it crept up his ears and the side of his neck. He took a sudden, lunging step forward and Neal dropped his arms, pivoting on his heel to sprint for the door.

           He hadn’t cleared three paces before a hand caught the back of his shirt and yanked him by the collar. The pressure of his tie knot yanking up into his throat made him cough and splutter while being manhandled towards the left wall. The artist stumbled, feeling an ankle slip and twist, and Brady, who had somehow moved twice as fast as Neal, threw the younger man to the ground with strength not remotely suggested by his frame.

           A kick to the side had Neal on his hands and knees, groaning through gritted teeth and trying to focus on the way out. It had been long enough. There were three agents already in the suite – if they weren’t here yet, then it had to be either they couldn’t hear or they had been trapped, too. Neal prayed for the former. If they heard radio silence for too long then they would know something had happened. Wouldn’t they? Right?

           “It’s not a bad plan,” Brady chuckled, seeming to be over his sudden rage. The growling sound had stopped. “Might’ve worked, too, if I didn’t have this extra ace.” He moved his right hand with the dagger.

           Neal flinched back, ducking his head to protect his face, waiting for the sting of a cut or the pierce of a stab. Neither came, and the apprehension had his hands trembling on the low-height rug. He looked up despite his better judgment and dropped his jaw in shock. Brady had sliced open his own wrist and was letting his blood drip down his hand.

           The man gave him a nasty smile when he saw Neal’s surprise. “This?” He waved the knife carelessly. “It isn’t for you. This is.” He put out his bleeding hand near Neal’s head and he cringed away, keeping far from the blood.

           “What kind of sick game are you playing?” Neal panted, eyes going to the office door, begging it to open. He didn’t care who was on the other side – just someone sane. Someone who would help him.

           “Don’t be such a priss,” Brady snapped irritably. “You’ll have to get used to blood.” He put the dagger slowly down towards Neal’s right side, holding the blade uncomfortably close to the artist’s cheek. Neal gritted his teeth. “This’ll be for you if you don’t. Make the better choice, Nick. Survive.” Neal didn’t answer. He didn’t know what he was supposed to be choosing and didn’t want to give Brady the satisfaction of knowing that he was ignorant and confused. He just stared down at Brady’s hard, polished shoes. “Come on,” Brady coaxed lowly, the growl beginning again. “Play along. It’s eat or be eaten.”

           Neal swore his heart doubled in pace right then as he understood, no further questioning necessary. It was all lining up. It was impossible. It was obvious. The sense of smell, the growl, the speed, the strength, the blood. What did he want more? To stay human or stay alive? Did he even fully know what it meant, to be something other than human in this time? Surely the last time a person made this choice, it was in the days of Salem.

           “Tick, tock.” Brady’s voice had a chilling edge that Neal had only heard come from Adler before. The cold flat of the dagger was pressed into Neal’s shoulder and the clinging drops of Brady’s blood soaked into his suit jacket. “It’s been a long time since I was this generous. I don’t like being ignored.”

           Life or death. Half-life or death. Whichever it was, it was something other than death. Neal didn’t want to die. He had the home he was making for himself during his work-release, and he intended to keep it once he was free. The entire world was waiting for him when he was free. He had friends, good ones, people he loved, that he wanted to see again. Neal didn’t understand why anyone would ever choose death, so truly, regardless of what Brady said, it had never been a real choice to begin with. He had to accept that help wasn’t coming. Not this time.

           Neal didn’t choose to live. He had to live, and he did what he had to for survival. Brady kept the knife on his shoulder with the scythe turned towards his neck, just in case he got any ideas.

           How much? How long? He felt choked by the thick blood in his throat. “Stop,” he pleaded in a cough, muffled by the vampire’s split skin. “No, no.” He started to turn his head but a hand grabbed his hair and yanked him back while the wrist at his mouth pushed harder on his lips. The pain lancing through his skull made his eyes water. The flat of the knife pressed harder into Neal’s shoulder, reminding him how close the blade was to his throat, forcing his obedience.

           As he drank more blood, Neal felt increasingly sick. Like he was forcing down spoiled milk, his stomach twisted and clenched. His face felt hot. This was supposed to turn him? It felt more like poison. The cramping was so bad that it made him lightheaded and he could almost stop tasting the iron on his tongue. The slamming open of the door didn’t register at all in the side of his vision, but Neal did hear Peter’s voice from far away.

           “Drop the knife!” His partner was screaming. The knife pressed harder into Neal’s shoulder and the artist felt the hand leave his hair. “Drop it!”

           The wrist was moved at last. His lips still felt wet. Neal swallowed and gagged, shutting his eyes tightly and pressing his hand into his abdomen in pain.

           “Should’ve known you’d come back for more, Burke. You don’t know when to quit,” the vampire snarled above him.

           The pressure at his shoulder was released and suddenly the legs were gone from in front of him. Neal slouched forward, barely catching himself with his free hand. The colors were blurring and turning feverishly bright. Whatever Brady did whilst Neal was staring sickly at the carpet, Peter didn’t like it; the gunshot sounded like a bomb, like another exploding jet, right in his ears. Neal screamed as he collapsed onto his side. It was too loud. Too loud. No more bombs. He was so hot. The white of the walls was so hot. It all burned his eyes.

           Peter’s voice was angry – no, well, yes, angry but also scared – and there was another bomb right behind him. Neal sobbed, curling in as much as he could to protect himself. His insides felt like they were on fire and he could see, again, the flames of the jet on the backs of his eyelids. He thought he could smell smoke. Explosives.

           All he could think was how it was happening again. He had lost Kate and now he was losing the people he loved, again, in more explosions. They took Y/N, they must have, that must have been the first – now second – bomb. And he couldn’t hear Peter anymore, not since the second – third overall – why did this keep happening -

           “Neal. Neal!”

           A hand shook his shoulder, digging in as tight as claws. “Peter,” Neal gasped, barely able to breathe through the pain and the grief.

           “It’s me, buddy.” His partner’s face was suddenly there and Neal realized he’d opened his eyes. When had he closed them? Peter was swimming. His skin was all bright. Something was very wrong and even though his brain felt like it was baking, Neal knew the problem was with himself. “Keep your eyes on me, okay? Help is coming.”

~~~ Bite ~~~

           Vampires were largely thought to be extinct. If they had survived the periods of hunting and slaughter, then they had opted to keep to themselves in remote locations. Brady must have been one of the few left, and somehow slipped under the radar for decades to avoid being detected. That explained why he was so hard to find a history on. While they were best known (and most feared) for relying on the blood of others to survive, most folk stories said they had superhumanly keen senses. Some reported abnormal speed and strength, but those accounts were relatively new to the folklore; whether or not they were true was anyone’s guess.

           Except for Neal, who didn’t need to guess. Who had learned, firsthand, how quickly those keen senses had set in, and who had torturously learned while his mind was suggestible, terrified, and hazy from the illness and agony of an unwanted mutation. You couldn’t even imagine how horrifying must have been to smell the gunpowder, hear the explosions so intensely, and attach a feverish heat to the brightness of the colors. It was no wonder Neal had called out in the following days.

           “Help did come,” Neal murmured, not meeting your eyes. “But I don’t remember much after that. My memory’s in and out until a couple days afterwards.”

           “So… you’re a vampire now?” Was the first thing you quietly asked him. Neal looked at you and nodded once, jaw tight, eyes looking dark. You couldn’t imagine how angry, scared, cheated he must feel for having this virus shoved onto him. “So that means you need blood,” you continued, talking through your train of thought. Neal had seemed to rebound awfully fast between the first and second weeks after the incident – maybe because he had stopped starving. “The prostitutes,” you realized. “You’re not paying them for sex, you’re paying them for blood.”

           “There’s mutually-assured destruction if they report me,” Neal claimed almost defensively. His shoulders were still open but you could see how badly he wanted to just turn away and fold his arms protectively around himself. “To say how they know what I am, they’d have to admit I hired them. Sex work is still criminal. And, because of their work, most of them get screened every three months.”

           “But you don’t know what they’ve caught in the meantime, or what they might do to you or tell other people,” you said, dismayed. Neal was putting himself at risk in many different ways, and the worst part was it wasn’t his regular brand of headlong overconfidence. He truly did not feel he had any alternatives. “Neal, you could have told us, we’re your friends, we could have helped.”

           “Helped how?” Neal scoffed so harshly that it sounded like it hurt his throat. “This isn’t reversible. I have to live with this for the rest of my life. If I told, and the bureau decided that being this thing makes me a liability, or a public safety issue, then I go back to prison. Being a snitch and a vampire? The first guy to shiv me would win free smokes for a dime. I wanted my friends. I hate what I have to do. None of it was a gamble I could afford to take.”

           You looked down for a minute, understanding. It hurt that he thought his team, you included, might do anything that put him at risk. The last thing you wanted was to see him in prison. He had to have been scared. Upset. Angry. Frightened for his safety and his future, and his health. And what was he going to do if he couldn’t afford a hooker’s prices every week? You were so hurt that he didn’t trust you enough to come to you after you had been so close to taking that step into being more than friends, but as you tried to see it from his perspective, you couldn’t fault him for it.

           “I wanted my friend, too,” you admitted to him, looking up guiltily. If you had pressed sooner, maybe you could have convinced him to tell you everything weeks ago.

           Neal’s face softened in response as he finally loosened up. Strands of dark hair tumbled out of his coif and into his face as he shook his head gently and reached for you, putting a hand on the side of your thigh and leaning towards your chair.

           “It isn’t your fault,” he promised you in spite of his frown. “No one would have guessed. How could you? Vampires are supposed to have died out. I didn’t want to risk myself, and I didn’t want to scare you.”

           “You wouldn’t have scared me,” you promised immediately. There wasn’t even a thought behind it. Neal had never, could never scare you; this you had known for what felt like forever. Even when you finally connected the pieces and knew what he was telling you, there hadn’t been fear in your system. Just shock, and fear on his behalf, and so much sympathy that you almost cried.

           “I scared myself,” he disagreed, implying that you would have been scared, too. He stroked his fingers down to your knee before pulling his hand off. “That first week, everything hurt so badly I could barely speak. Everything was so much brighter and so much louder. Nothing I cooked satisfied the hunger, and then I had to spend eight hours a day surrounded by dozens of bodies of fresh blood.” The conman swallowed hard while thinking about it. “It would be like if you hadn’t eaten in days, then sat for hours in a steakhouse and couldn’t order anything.”

           It should have been chilling to hear Neal compare his coworkers – yourself presumably included – to steaks, but oddly, it wasn’t. You couldn’t pull a Dahmer comparison out of your hat and you still didn’t feel remotely threatened. However desperate he may have been, Neal had never caved. He had never hurt anyone. You had always loved his pacifism and no matter how his biology may have changed, his recount only seemed to prove that his self, Neal, had not.

           “Every time I think I know how strong you are,” you told him, amazed and impressed. “It turns out that I’m still underestimating you.” To be so hungry and so in pain, and to keep to himself for fear, and still be able to function in the office? He had been quiet, sullen, out of character, but functional. That was a feat.

           Neal’s eyes widened just a touch before he blinked and tried to reign in his surprise. The more you talked, now, the more you could see the tension draining from his body. The negative reaction he had anticipated failed to occur, and the artist was beginning to see that there was no need for all his anxiety. His shoulders and back were less straight and he sat more comfortably, more openly, to continue conversing.

           “Ah…”

           Unsure how to respond to your compliment, Neal looked at the matching mugs of coffee still on the table. You now wondered why he had brewed himself one when he had already said that he needed blood to be sated, but then again, Neal had always been a creature of comforts, not just necessity.

           With his left hand, he rubbed the back of his neck. The informant had to think for a moment and figure out where to resume his story. “Right, well…” Neal looked so young with relief and uncertainty on his face. It took a lot of self-control not to just reach out, cup his cheeks, and kiss his forehead with a promise that everything would be okay. He cleared his throat. “At the end of that first week, I realized I couldn’t put it off any further. Nothing was working, and I don’t think I could forgive myself if my stubbornness and my hunger meant I lost control and hurt someone. I found a streetwalker for discretion, and…”

           You put your hand up there. He was clearly uncomfortable with what he had resorted to, and you had already covered his means of sustenance. Neal moved around in his seat to reposition himself.

           “They’re not all willing to be bitten,” Neal said warily. “But someone I talked to knew a friend who charges extra for people who like blood.” You raised your eyebrows. Something told you that the kind of work she charged extra for was different from what Neal was asking, but at least he had found a source. “She was willing, and she’s who you saw last week, too.”’

           “I’m so sorry you were alone,” you told him, reaching out yourself. Neal didn’t pull away from your hand, but he eyed it until you had been touching his arm for a few seconds without moving. “But you were alone. You aren’t now.”

           “I’m used to keeping secrets… keeping to myself… because of my choices.” The artist lifted his head and looked up your arm to your face. He chose his words carefully and spoke haltingly, worrying his bottom lip between phrases. “I’m used to choosing a guarded life... there’s no choice in this.” His eyes looked so deep and so sad. “But I can choose not to bring you down with me.”

           Before you could object that Neal would never “bring you down”, as he put it, or even say that he still had choices he could make to keep his life his own, Neal looked down from you and his shoulders shuddered noticeably while he inhaled an uneven breath. He had to work hard for it, and couldn’t keep it, and had to try again, keeping everything he was feeling held at bay long enough to keep up his strong face and hold a level tone. You wanted to surge forward and wrap your arms around him and hold on until sunrise, and you equally wanted to scold him for acting like a martyr. Before you could choose which to do, he looked up again and his expressive eyes were filled with water that just hadn’t fallen yet. The air was punched out of your sails by that vulnerable, lost look. It was the look of a man who had had everything ripped away from him.

           “I wanted our later,” Neal whispered sadly with a quaver.

           “Later.”

           “I’m going to hold you to that.”

           If Neal thought all it took was one tragically traumatic, life-changing event to rip that away, then he must not realize how serious you had been when you acknowledged his promise and made it your own. You couldn’t fix everything that was broken, but you weren’t leaving him alone. He had made a promise, one he still wanted to keep, and like hell were you going to let him decide for you that the promise needed to be broken.

           His health, safety, security – the two of you were clever, resourceful people. You would find a way. As for his found home, though he thought he was helplessly losing everything, Neal had every right to the life he had earned and he was surrounded by people who cared for him more deeply than he realized.

           You squeezed his arm gently while taking his other hand. Eyes on his, you said solemnly, “I still do,” and forced his hand open so that you could interlock your fingers with his. “And you know what?”

           Neal swallowed and his voice scratched in his throat while he struggled to hold back the tears. “What?”

           You stood up from your chair, took a step to his, and bent down to his level. Neal lifted his head as you moved to follow your actions and when he blinked up at you, his eyes cleared and teardrops swiftly rolled down his cheeks. Ignoring them, you tilted your head to press your forehead tenderly to his. Neal blinked again before shutting his eyes and tightening his grip on your fingers.

           “Later is now,” you told him quietly.

[anthonybialy]

In Your Business

Cheer for a spirited bout. Pro-business differs from pro-business.  Presuming conservatives are aligned with tycoons almost made me drop my monocle into my martini glass.  Buying what you want from who you want is the system goal. Just please buy me an iced cappuccino with the savings.

Do I have to cheer for a team in the Super Bowl, or can I just hope every player has fun? True belief in markets features not taking sides. The tolerant enthusiast is indifferent to how transactions play out.  Sure, an individual may prefer Target to Walmart or think an unhelpful worker is overpaid. But anyone really into trading just wants open negotiations, whether they be between customers and outlets or employers and employees.

Everyone wants the best deal. Anyone who fears getting it reveals a truth about themselves, not the process.  Rely on shopping around to locate bargains in lieu of admitting to lunacy by announcing you think government finds it for you.

It's not that heartless conglomerates don't lust after cornering customers by law. Pinko stooges presume corporations must simply be for open and free commerce, which is as clueless as thinking criminals obey gun laws.  Oh: that happens, too.

The notion that competitors want an open competition is like expecting athletes to call their own fouls. Meanwhile, too many games involve announcing who won before playing. Participants seek unfair fights where they control markets, which is why you don't let them.  Monopolistic dominance is impossible to achieve if everyone is allowed to offer sales. Making allies in government who'll eliminate competition is classified as capitalism by the same gentle dupes who think a law makes tuition cheaper.

The only group that favors every bit of coercion and regulation more than pushy liberals are businesses. Restrictions on products are surely for the customer's benefit except for how they take choice and cost extra. Companies couldn't just sell safe goods on their own.  Aside from the whole not wanting to harm people thing, it might just be possible that dangerous products are bad for business.  But I'm sure consumers will just keep buying exploding lightbulbs.

You'll never guess how big the entities are that didn't suffer from a year of banned interaction. Government shut down commerce for everyone but those independent local craftspeople who deliver every product imaginable nationwide.

The attempt to construct a makeshift virus firewall aided mom and pop enterprises with family names like Walton and Bezos.  Massive enterprises just happened to benefit from lockdowns that closed competitors. Enduring strangled markets means the one good thing from being told what not to do for our sake was a bad example to avoid.

Nothing holds sellers accountable like having to please customers.  One can cynically claim an incentive for avoiding ripping off others is not quite from the goodness of their hearts, and I'd agree with one. Yet the natural process whereby nobody will buy expensive garbage prevails no matter the motivation. The only entity that can get away with forcing shoddy purchases is the government, and they're not known for permitting competition.

Insurance shows how much corporations hate the idea of having to attract customers.  A mandate means guaranteed business if you thought insurers favored Obamacare because they really cared about their customers.  They get compensated at a rate not precisely set by having to compete.

Make health providers dance for your nickels just like every other business. The importance of insurance is precisely why obtaining it should be an open process. The only downside to a choice of contenders is having to endure commercials from appalling spokespeople. Promise to buy from either GEICO or Progressive if they put the Gecko and Flo up for a cage match, respectively.

Contemporary commies bitch on the very internet they claim is controlled by corporations.  The frontier feels uninhibited precisely because the government didn't help by committing arson. If it's dominated by any conglomerates, it's woke dolts who think correct information about the limited quantity of genders is insufficient.

Woke values are how businesses show their opposition to liberty. They've been trying to tell you all along. I really need a seller with a political philosophy, especially since it's invariably to the left of Hoxha. Flaunt alleged tolerance by condemning potential shoppers who've ever known Republicans as bigoted haters. A Black Lives Matter sign in a coffee house with choose your own gender restrooms sure makes me think of greedy capitalists.

The most glaring sign of free enterprise failing is how willing they are to appease woke mobs.  It's too bad shrieking torch mobs who don't seem to buy much can't monetize intimidation, as their ability to interfere with the process impresses the mafia. Sellers should be patient, as markets will actually win out in the end whiles consumers reject indulging maniacal haters incensed at the idea of having to do their jobs.

Conservatives don't want businesses to be conservative. That's unless succeeding by selling stuff counts, which it sort of does. Every shopper should crave a place where everyone who votes in any manner can buy lawn chairs or Dr Pepper. We don't need the ironic brand of tolerance involving excluding anyone who voted in a matter deemed unpleasant by people who think Joe Biden is wise.

What's called capitalism is nothing more than trading. The oh so nefarious system involves using what one has to acquire what one wants. Free dealing is the natural state of affairs anywhere natural rights are recognized. Economic troglodytes don't know what those are. Sophisticated dealers instead set up wholly artificial constructs for product distribution based on the notion that Biden knows what you need to buy with your money better than you do. Commerce requires skill in creation. Note who's frightened by that.

[shg11]

The Google, Apple and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks who worry the race for human attention has created a world of perpetual distraction that could ultimately end in disaster

Justin Rosenstein had tweaked his laptops operating system to block Reddit, banned himself from Snapchat, which he compares to heroin, and imposed limits on his use of Facebook. But even that wasnt enough. In August, the 34-year-old tech executive took a more radical step to restrict his use of social media and other addictive technologies.

Rosenstein purchased a new iPhone and instructed his assistant to set up a parental-control feature to prevent him from downloading any apps.

He was particularly aware of the allure of Facebook likes, which he describes as bright dings of pseudo-pleasure that can be as hollow as they are seductive. And Rosenstein should know: he was the Facebook engineer who created the like button in the first place.

A decade after he stayed up all night coding a prototype of what was then called an awesome button, Rosenstein belongs to a small but growing band of Silicon Valley heretics who complain about the rise of the so-called attention economy: an internet shaped around the demands of an advertising economy.

These refuseniks are rarely founders or chief executives, who have little incentive to deviate from the mantra that their companies are making the world a better place. Instead, they tend to have worked a rung or two down the corporate ladder: designers, engineers and product managers who, like Rosenstein, several years ago put in place the building blocks of a digital world from which they are now trying to disentangle themselves. It is very common, Rosenstein says, for humans to develop things with the best of intentions and for them to have unintended, negative consequences.

Rosenstein, who also helped create Gchat during a stint at Google, and now leads a San Francisco-based company that improves office productivity, appears most concerned about the psychological effects on people who, research shows, touch, swipe or tap their phone 2,617 times a day.

There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is contributing toward so-called continuous partial attention, severely limiting peoples ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ. One recent study showed that the mere presence of smartphones damages cognitive capacity even when the device is turned off. Everyone is distracted, Rosenstein says. All of the time.

But those concerns are trivial compared with the devastating impact upon the political system that some of Rosensteins peers believe can be attributed to the rise of social media and the attention-based market that drives it.

Drawing a straight line between addiction to social media and political earthquakes like Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump, they contend that digital forces have completely upended the political system and, left unchecked, could even render democracy as we know it obsolete.

In 2007, Rosenstein was one of a small group of Facebook employees who decided to create a path of least resistance a single click to send little bits of positivity across the platform. Facebooks like feature was, Rosenstein says, wildly successful: engagement soared as people enjoyed the short-term boost they got from giving or receiving social affirmation, while Facebook harvested valuable data about the preferences of users that could be sold to advertisers. The idea was soon copied by Twitter, with its heart-shaped likes (previously star-shaped favourites), Instagram, and countless other apps and websites.

It was Rosensteins colleague, Leah Pearlman, then a product manager at Facebook and on the team that created the Facebook like, who announced the feature in a 2009 blogpost. Now 35 and an illustrator, Pearlman confirmed via email that she, too, has grown disaffected with Facebook likes and other addictive feedback loops. She has installed a web browser plug-in to eradicate her Facebook news feed, and hired a social media manager to monitor her Facebook page so that she doesnt have to.

Justin Rosenstein, the former Google and Facebook engineer who helped build the like button: Everyone is distracted. All of the time. Photograph: Courtesy of Asana Communications

One reason I think it is particularly important for us to talk about this now is that we may be the last generation that can remember life before, Rosenstein says. It may or may not be relevant that Rosenstein, Pearlman and most of the tech insiders questioning todays attention economy are in their 30s, members of the last generation that can remember a world in which telephones were plugged into walls.

It is revealing that many of these younger technologists are weaning themselves off their own products, sending their children to elite Silicon Valley schools where iPhones, iPads and even laptops are banned. They appear to be abiding by a Biggie Smalls lyric from their own youth about the perils of dealing crack cocaine: never get high on your own supply.

One morning in April this year, designers, programmers and tech entrepreneurs from across the world gathered at a conference centre on the shore of the San Francisco Bay. They had each paid up to $1,700 to learn how to manipulate people into habitual use of their products, on a course curated by conference organiser Nir Eyal.

Eyal, 39, the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, has spent several years consulting for the tech industry, teaching techniques he developed by closely studying how the Silicon Valley giants operate.

The technologies we use have turned into compulsions, if not full-fledged addictions, Eyal writes. Its the impulse to check a message notification. Its the pull to visit YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter for just a few minutes, only to find yourself still tapping and scrolling an hour later. None of this is an accident, he writes. It is all just as their designers intended.

He explains the subtle psychological tricks that can be used to make people develop habits, such as varying the rewards people receive to create a craving, or exploiting negative emotions that can act as triggers. Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion and indecisiveness often instigate a slight pain or irritation and prompt an almost instantaneous and often mindless action to quell the negative sensation, Eyal writes.

Attendees of the 2017 Habit Summit might have been surprised when Eyal walked on stage to announce that this years keynote speech was about something a little different. He wanted to address the growing concern that technological manipulation was somehow harmful or immoral. He told his audience that they should be careful not to abuse persuasive design, and wary of crossing a line into coercion.

But he was defensive of the techniques he teaches, and dismissive of those who compare tech addiction to drugs. Were not freebasing Facebook and injecting Instagram here, he said. He flashed up a slide of a shelf filled with sugary baked goods. Just as we shouldnt blame the baker for making such delicious treats, we cant blame tech makers for making their products so good we want to use them, he said. Of course thats what tech companies will do. And frankly: do we want it any other way?

Without irony, Eyal finished his talk with some personal tips for resisting the lure of technology. He told his audience he uses a Chrome extension, called DF YouTube, which scrubs out a lot of those external triggers he writes about in his book, and recommended an app called Pocket Points that rewards you for staying off your phone when you need to focus.

Finally, Eyal confided the lengths he goes to protect his own family. He has installed in his house an outlet timer connected to a router that cuts off access to the internet at a set time every day. The idea is to remember that we are not powerless, he said. We are in control.

But are we? If the people who built these technologies are taking such radical steps to wean themselves free, can the rest of us reasonably be expected to exercise our free will?

Not according to Tristan Harris, a 33-year-old former Google employee turned vocal critic of the tech industry. All of us are jacked into this system, he says. All of our minds can be hijacked. Our choices are not as free as we think they are.

Harris, who has been branded the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience, insists that billions of people have little choice over whether they use these now ubiquitous technologies, and are largely unaware of the invisible ways in which a small number of people in Silicon Valley are shaping their lives.

A graduate of Stanford University, Harris studied under BJ Fogg, a behavioural psychologist revered in tech circles for mastering the ways technological design can be used to persuade people. Many of his students, including Eyal, have gone on to prosperous careers in Silicon Valley.

Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, is now a critic of the tech industry: Our choices are not as free as we think they are. Photograph: Robert Gumpert for the Guardian

Harris is the student who went rogue; a whistleblower of sorts, he is lifting the curtain on the vast powers accumulated by technology companies and the ways they are using that influence. A handful of people, working at a handful of technology companies, through their choices will steer what a billion people are thinking today, he said at a recent TED talk in Vancouver.

I dont know a more urgent problem than this, Harris says. Its changing our democracy, and its changing our ability to have the conversations and relationships that we want with each other. Harris went public giving talks, writing papers, meeting lawmakers and campaigning for reform after three years struggling to effect change inside Googles Mountain View headquarters.

It all began in 2013, when he was working as a product manager at Google, and circulated a thought-provoking memo, A Call To Minimise Distraction & Respect Users Attention, to 10 close colleagues. It struck a chord, spreading to some 5,000 Google employees, including senior executives who rewarded Harris with an impressive-sounding new job: he was to be Googles in-house design ethicist and product philosopher.

Looking back, Harris sees that he was promoted into a marginal role. I didnt have a social support structure at all, he says. Still, he adds: I got to sit in a corner and think and read and understand.

He explored how LinkedIn exploits a need for social reciprocity to widen its network; how YouTube and Netflix autoplay videos and next episodes, depriving users of a choice about whether or not they want to keep watching; how Snapchat created its addictive Snapstreaks feature, encouraging near-constant communication between its mostly teenage users.

The techniques these companies use are not always generic: they can be algorithmically tailored to each person. An internal Facebook report leaked this year, for example, revealed that the company can identify when teens feel insecure, worthless and need a confidence boost. Such granular information, Harris adds, is a perfect model of what buttons you can push in a particular person.

Tech companies can exploit such vulnerabilities to keep people hooked; manipulating, for example, when people receive likes for their posts, ensuring they arrive when an individual is likely to feel vulnerable, or in need of approval, or maybe just bored. And the very same techniques can be sold to the highest bidder. Theres no ethics, he says. A company paying Facebook to use its levers of persuasion could be a car business targeting tailored advertisements to different types of users who want a new vehicle. Or it could be a Moscow-based troll farm seeking to turn voters in a swing county in Wisconsin.

Harris believes that tech companies never deliberately set out to make their products addictive. They were responding to the incentives of an advertising economy, experimenting with techniques that might capture peoples attention, even stumbling across highly effective design by accident.

A friend at Facebook told Harris that designers initially decided the notification icon, which alerts people to new activity such as friend requests or likes, should be blue. It fit Facebooks style and, the thinking went, would appear subtle and innocuous. But no one used it, Harris says. Then they switched it to red and of course everyone used it.

Facebooks headquarters in Menlo Park, California. The companys famous likes feature has been described by its creator as bright dings of pseudo-pleasure. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

That red icon is now everywhere. When smartphone users glance at their phones, dozens or hundreds of times a day, they are confronted with small red dots beside their apps, pleading to be tapped. Red is a trigger colour, Harris says. Thats why it is used as an alarm signal.

The most seductive design, Harris explains, exploits the same psychological susceptibility that makes gambling so compulsive: variable rewards. When we tap those apps with red icons, we dont know whether well discover an interesting email, an avalanche of likes, or nothing at all. It is the possibility of disappointment that makes it so compulsive.

Its this that explains how the pull-to-refresh mechanism, whereby users swipe down, pause and wait to see what content appears, rapidly became one of the most addictive and ubiquitous design features in modern technology. Each time youre swiping down, its like a slot machine, Harris says. You dont know whats coming next. Sometimes its a beautiful photo. Sometimes its just an ad.

The designer who created the pull-to-refresh mechanism, first used to update Twitter feeds, is Loren Brichter, widely admired in the app-building community for his sleek and intuitive designs.

Now 32, Brichter says he never intended the design to be addictive but would not dispute the slot machine comparison. I agree 100%, he says. I have two kids now and I regret every minute that Im not paying attention to them because my smartphone has sucked me in.

Brichter created the feature in 2009 for Tweetie, his startup, mainly because he could not find anywhere to fit the refresh button on his app. Holding and dragging down the feed to update seemed at the time nothing more than a cute and clever fix. Twitter acquired Tweetie the following year, integrating pull-to-refresh into its own app.

Since then the design has become one of the most widely emulated features in apps; the downward-pull action is, for hundreds of millions of people, as intuitive as scratching an itch.

Brichter says he is puzzled by the longevity of the feature. In an era of push notification technology, apps can automatically update content without being nudged by the user. It could easily retire, he says. Instead it appears to serve a psychological function: after all, slot machines would be far less addictive if gamblers didnt get to pull the lever themselves. Brichter prefers another comparison: that it is like the redundant close door button in some elevators with automatically closing doors. People just like to push it.

All of which has left Brichter, who has put his design work on the backburner while he focuses on building a house in New Jersey, questioning his legacy. Ive spent many hours and weeks and months and years thinking about whether anything Ive done has made a net positive impact on society or humanity at all, he says. He has blocked certain websites, turned off push notifications, restricted his use of the Telegram app to message only with his wife and two close friends, and tried to wean himself off Twitter. I still waste time on it, he confesses, just reading stupid news I already know about. He charges his phone in the kitchen, plugging it in at 7pm and not touching it until the next morning.

Smartphones are useful tools, he says. But theyre addictive. Pull-to-refresh is addictive. Twitter is addictive. These are not good things. When I was working on them, it was not something I was mature enough to think about. Im not saying Im mature now, but Im a little bit more mature, and I regret the downsides.

Not everyone in his field appears racked with guilt. The two inventors listed on Apples patent for managing notification connections and displaying icon badges are Justin Santamaria and Chris Marcellino. Both were in their early 20s when they were hired by Apple to work on the iPhone. As engineers, they worked on the behind-the-scenes plumbing for push-notification technology, introduced in 2009 to enable real-time alerts and updates to hundreds of thousands of third-party app developers. It was a revolutionary change, providing the infrastructure for so many experiences that now form a part of peoples daily lives, from ordering an Uber to making a Skype call to receiving breaking news updates.

Loren Brichter, who in 2009 designed the pull-to-refresh feature now used by many apps, on the site of the home hes building in New Jersey: Smartphones are useful tools, but theyre addictive I regret the downsides. Photograph: Tim Knox for the Guardian

But notification technology also enabled a hundred unsolicited interruptions into millions of lives, accelerating the arms race for peoples attention. Santamaria, 36, who now runs a startup after a stint as the head of mobile at Airbnb, says the technology he developed at Apple was not inherently good or bad. This is a larger discussion for society, he says. Is it OK to shut off my phone when I leave work? Is it OK if I dont get right back to you? Is it OK that Im not liking everything that goes through my Instagram screen?

His then colleague, Marcellino, agrees. Honestly, at no point was I sitting there thinking: lets hook people, he says. It was all about the positives: these apps connect people, they have all these uses ESPN telling you the game has ended, or WhatsApp giving you a message for free from your family member in Iran who doesnt have a message plan.

A few years ago Marcellino, 33, left the Bay Area, and is now in the final stages of retraining to be a neurosurgeon. He stresses he is no expert on addiction, but says he has picked up enough in his medical training to know that technologies can affect the same neurological pathways as gambling and drug use. These are the same circuits that make people seek out food, comfort, heat, sex, he says.

All of it, he says, is reward-based behaviour that activates the brains dopamine pathways. He sometimes finds himself clicking on the red icons beside his apps to make them go away, but is conflicted about the ethics of exploiting peoples psychological vulnerabilities. It is not inherently evil to bring people back to your product, he says. Its capitalism.

That, perhaps, is the problem. Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist who benefited from hugely profitable investments in Google and Facebook, has grown disenchanted with both companies, arguing that their early missions have been distorted by the fortunes they have been able to earn through advertising.

He identifies the advent of the smartphone as a turning point, raising the stakes in an arms race for peoples attention. Facebook and Google assert with merit that they are giving users what they want, McNamee says. The same can be said about tobacco companies and drug dealers.

That would be a remarkable assertion for any early investor in Silicon Valleys most profitable behemoths. But McNamee, 61, is more than an arms-length money man. Once an adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, 10 years ago McNamee introduced the Facebook CEO to his friend, Sheryl Sandberg, then a Google executive who had overseen the companys advertising efforts. Sandberg, of course, became chief operating officer at Facebook, transforming the social network into another advertising heavyweight.

McNamee chooses his words carefully. The people who run Facebook and Google are good people, whose well-intentioned strategies have led to horrific unintended consequences, he says. The problem is that there is nothing the companies can do to address the harm unless they abandon their current advertising models.

Googles headquarters in Silicon Valley. One venture capitalist believes that, despite an appetite for regulation, some tech companies may already be too big to control: The EU recently penalised Google $2.42bn for anti-monopoly violations, and Googles shareholders just shrugged. Photograph: Ramin Talaie for the Guardian

But how can Google and Facebook be forced to abandon the business models that have transformed them into two of the most profitable companies on the planet?

McNamee believes the companies he invested in should be subjected to greater regulation, including new anti-monopoly rules. In Washington, there is growing appetite, on both sides of the political divide, to rein in Silicon Valley. But McNamee worries the behemoths he helped build may already be too big to curtail. The EU recently penalised Google $2.42bn for anti-monopoly violations, and Googles shareholders just shrugged, he says.

Rosenstein, the Facebook like co-creator, believes there may be a case for state regulation of psychologically manipulative advertising, saying the moral impetus is comparable to taking action against fossil fuel or tobacco companies. If we only care about profit maximisation, he says, we will go rapidly into dystopia.

James Williams does not believe talk of dystopia is far-fetched. The ex-Google strategist who built the metrics system for the companys global search advertising business, he has had a front-row view of an industry he describes as the largest, most standardised and most centralised form of attentional control in human history.

Williams, 35, left Google last year, and is on the cusp of completing a PhD at Oxford University exploring the ethics of persuasive design. It is a journey that has led him to question whether democracy can survive the new technological age.

He says his epiphany came a few years ago, when he noticed he was surrounded by technology that was inhibiting him from concentrating on the things he wanted to focus on. It was that kind of individual, existential realisation: whats going on? he says. Isnt technology supposed to be doing the complete opposite of this?

That discomfort was compounded during a moment at work, when he glanced at one of Googles dashboards, a multicoloured display showing how much of peoples attention the company had commandeered for advertisers. I realised: this is literally a million people that weve sort of nudged or persuaded to do this thing that they werent going to otherwise do, he recalls.

He embarked on several years of independent research, much of it conducted while working part-time at Google. About 18 months in, he saw the Google memo circulated by Harris and the pair became allies, struggling to bring about change from within.

Williams and Harris left Google around the same time, and co-founded an advocacy group, Time Well Spent, that seeks to build public momentum for a change in the way big tech companies think about design. Williams finds it hard to comprehend why this issue is not on the front page of every newspaper every day.

Eighty-seven percent of people wake up and go to sleep with their smartphones, he says. The entire world now has a new prism through which to understand politics, and Williams worries the consequences are profound.

The same forces that led tech firms to hook users with design tricks, he says, also encourage those companies to depict the world in a way that makes for compulsive, irresistible viewing. The attention economy incentivises the design of technologies that grab our attention, he says. In so doing, it privileges our impulses over our intentions.

That means privileging what is sensational over what is nuanced, appealing to emotion, anger and outrage. The news media is increasingly working in service to tech companies, Williams adds, and must play by the rules of the attention economy to sensationalise, bait and entertain in order to survive.

Tech and the rise of Trump: as the internet designs itself around holding our attention, politics and the media has become increasingly sensational. Photograph: John Locher/AP

In the wake of Donald Trumps stunning electoral victory, many were quick to question the role of so-called fake news on Facebook, Russian-created Twitter bots or the data-centric targeting efforts that companies such as Cambridge Analytica used to sway voters. But Williams sees those factors as symptoms of a deeper problem.

It is not just shady or bad actors who were exploiting the internet to change public opinion. The attention economy itself is set up to promote a phenomenon like Trump, who is masterly at grabbing and retaining the attention of supporters and critics alike, often by exploiting or creating outrage.

Williams was making this case before the president was elected. In a blog published a month before the US election, Williams sounded the alarm bell on an issue he argued was a far more consequential question than whether Trump reached the White House. The reality TV stars campaign, he said, had heralded a watershed in which the new, digitally supercharged dynamics of the attention economy have finally crossed a threshold and become manifest in the political realm.

Williams saw a similar dynamic unfold months earlier, during the Brexit campaign, when the attention economy appeared to him biased in favour of the emotional, identity-based case for the UK leaving the European Union. He stresses these dynamics are by no means isolated to the political right: they also play a role, he believes, in the unexpected popularity of leftwing politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, and the frequent outbreaks of internet outrage over issues that ignite fury among progressives.

All of which, Williams says, is not only distorting the way we view politics but, over time, may be changing the way we think, making us less rational and more impulsive. Weve habituated ourselves into a perpetual cognitive style of outrage, by internalising the dynamics of the medium, he says.

It is against this political backdrop that Williams argues the fixation in recent years with the surveillance state fictionalised by George Orwell may have been misplaced. It was another English science fiction writer, Aldous Huxley, who provided the more prescient observation when he warned that Orwellian-style coercion was less of a threat to democracy than the more subtle power of psychological manipulation, and mans almost infinite appetite for distractions.

Since the US election, Williams has explored another dimension to todays brave new world. If the attention economy erodes our ability to remember, to reason, to make decisions for ourselves faculties that are essential to self-governance what hope is there for democracy itself?

The dynamics of the attention economy are structurally set up to undermine the human will, he says. If politics is an expression of our human will, on individual and collective levels, then the attention economy is directly undermining the assumptions that democracy rests on. If Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are gradually chipping away at our ability to control our own minds, could there come a point, I ask, at which democracy no longer functions?

Will we be able to recognise it, if and when it happens? Williams replies. And if we cant, then how do we know it hasnt happened already?

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia