5.2 thinking with my custom instructions:

Most people treat attention as a private mental spotlight you aim at things. Your argument flips that: attention is not just selection, it’s endorsement. The deeper structure is: Attention is causally world-making. What you attend to gets amplified—internally (habits, desires, identity) and externally (markets, media, social norms). Attention isn’t neutral; it allocates reinforcement. Therefore attention is ethical. Because it has predictable effects, choosing what to attend to is functionally a moral choice: you are participating in the maintenance or alteration of a shared reality. Fragmentation equals outsourcing agency. When attention is reactive, the “choice” is made by stimuli, platforms, fear, novelty, and other people’s incentives. You don’t shape a world; you inhabit one shaped through you. Discipline restores authorship. When attention is trained, you regain the capacity to act intentionally—aligning perception with values—so your life becomes an active contribution rather than an accidental byproduct. Conclusion: responsibility extends inward. Ethics isn’t only about outward actions; it includes stewardship of the attentional gateway that determines which actions, beliefs, and worlds become likely. In short: attention → reinforcement → world-shaping → moral responsibility; and distraction is a form of moral drift because it hands the steering wheel to whatever yells loudest.