What If You Had Infinite Aura?

What if everyone had a number floating over their head… and yours was zero? Every time someone notices you, it goes up. Ignore you, it goes down. Your school, your job, even who's allowed to love you: the number decides. Then one Tuesday morning you look in the mirror and your number is climbing. A thousand. A million. Infinite. Doors open by themselves. The President calls. You can set anyone's number just by looking at them. But aura has to come from somewhere… and the whole world's is running out. Starting with your mum. 0:00 Zero aura 0:36 How the numbers work 1:32 Mum is a 12 2:07 Infinite 2:55 10 million likes for breakfast 3:36 The whole country 3:55 Setting anyone's number 4:36 The sun 5:20 Dev 5:46 World aura left 6:14 Vance 6:55 Where aura really came from 7:34 Every number goes dark 8:06 Is any of this real? The real science: • Likes on your photos light up the brain's reward centre, the same one that responds to chocolate and winning money (Sherman et al., UCLA, Psychological Science, 2016) • People check their phones about 96 times a day (Asurion, 2019) • Being ignored lights up the same brain areas as physical pain (Eisenberger et al., UCLA, Science, 2003) • The spotlight effect: we think about twice as many people notice us as really do (Gilovich et al., Cornell, 2000) If everyone's number disappeared tomorrow, would people treat you better or worse? Tell me in the comments.