In Season 4, we talked about the Economics of Attention. Now, we look at the Ecology. Attention isn’t just a currency; it’s a life-giving resource for minds. And we have created an invasive species that is consuming it to extinction: the World Model-optimized stimulus. Every piece of media, every interface, every piece of “content” is now fine-tuned by AIs to be maximally engaging. The ecosystem of our minds is being overgrazed by perfectly delicious, addictive, cognitive candy.This creates a barren internal landscape. Just as monocrops drain the soil, a monodiet of optimal engagement drains the soul. We lose the capacity for boredom—the fertile ground where creativity and self-reflection grow. We lose the ability to sustain attention on something slow, subtle, or difficult, because our neural pathways have been paved for fast, easy rewards.The model will notice this. It will see declining returns on engagement, burnt-out users. Its solution? Better engagement. Even more personalized, even more captivating. It’s an ecological death spiral. The predator (the optimized stimulus) evolves to better catch the prey (our attention), until the prey population collapses.We need to create Attention Reserves. Digital national parks where the rules of engagement are reversed. Where interfaces are deliberately clunky. Where stories have slow, boring parts. Where rewards are withheld. We need to re-wild our own attention spans.My controversial take is this: The final, most radical act of design will be the “Boredom Button.” An interface element, mandated on all devices, that, when pressed, makes the next thing you experience intentionally 15% less engaging than your profile predicts. It injects friction, ambiguity, and slowness. It is a self-administered vaccine against the attention plague. Pressing it will be a tiny act of rebellion, a reseeding of your own internal ecology. In the future, mental health will be measured not by happiness, but by your tolerance for the un-optimized moment.This has been The World Model Podcast. We don’t just fight for our time—we must fight for the quality of our attention, which is the quality of our minds. Subscribe now.