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The Acceleration of Addictiveness

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#271

Post by starkfist »

xiaoma wrote: post #268
tremendo wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Paleolithic diet is one of the dumbest ideas I've encountered in my entire life. Its followers tend to discount vast piles of medical research in favor of tiny experiments that suggest what they hope to be true. This kind of behavior is common for adherents of any fringe diet, but paleo goes a step further While there is indeed a paleo re-enactment fringe that tries to live as they understand our ancient ancest…

I find that there's actually a good bit of research-based and evidence-based thinking going over these "vast piles of medical research" you mention and finding that they don't really support the current accepted dogma of nutritional recommendations, and that indeed this research is pretty flimsy itself, if you were to believe Taubes, Lustig, Cordain, Eades, others, and tellingly now there is an alarming increase in o…

I'm no paleo advocate, but your statistics are totally wrong.

Denmark is the world leader in per-capita meat consumption, followed by New Zealand and Luxembourg. The USA is number 4. Canada is in the top 10, but the UK and Mexico are not. Mexico isn't even in the top 30.

Likewise, consider two of the main diet-influenced lifestyle diseases: heart disease and diabetes. Countries in Eastern Europe are all ahead of the US in heart disease incidence and deaths per capita, as are Germany, Norway, Ireland, the UK, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. There is a higher incidence of diabetes per capita in Germany, Argentina, South Korea, Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico vs. the US.

If you don't adjust per-capita, the countries with the most heart disease and diabetes are China, India and Russia.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#272

Post by astartup1 »

Life is Addiction.

It is because same instinct that keeps us alive works when we get addicted.

Addiction is fun some time but painful at times. Just like life. We are rarely happy still everyone wants to live. Then everyone is in same boat, we all are addicted.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#273

Post by Psyonic »

fmora wrote: post #116
gort wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've now completely changed your argument. Originally it was "mild drugs lead to strong drugs". I noted that alcohol is a mild drug. Now your argument is "mild crime leads to strong crime". If I can summon a good argument against that, will you just come up with a third argument for what you're already committed to believing? Mild crime does not lead to strong crime. Like many people, in my teenage days I downloade…

I have not changed my original stance. I've just provided more arguments to this mild debate. I know, we've all downloaded illegal music and yes many of us believe this is no big deal even though objectively speaking it is wrong. Somebody worked really hard for those songs. OK. So lets agree that doing Marijuana may not 100% of the time lead to cocaine use. That doesn't mean that it doens't increases the likelyhood o…

I don't have kids, but I have friends who have smoked marijuana with their parents, bought marijuana for their parents, received a bong from their parents as a gift, etc. It's not that uncommon.

The amount who try marijuana that move on to cocaine isn't even close to 100%. Even if I was to grant you that marijuana was a stepping stone, statistics put the number less than 50%. Most polls put the amount of American adults who've tried marijuana close to 42%. Only around 16% have tried cocaine. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1821697,00.ht...

Also, most marijuana dealers only deal enough to smoke for free plus a little extra. They certainly aren't getting rich off it. And many of them don't have connections to other drugs.

That said, there is some truth to what you are saying... In school we are taught that ALL drugs are bad, that they will kill you, ruin your life, etc. Then people try marijuana, and realize it actually isn't a big deal. So that can lead some people to incorrectly conclude that all they learned was lies, not just the part about marijuana, and so they recklessly continue trying other drugs. I'll grant you this happens occasionally. But the fault there not within marijuana, but within the current education policy of treating all drugs equally. Give kids the truth and a little respect, and they just might surprise you.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#274

Post by byw »

greendestiny wrote: post #136
robryan wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This depends, if you flat refuse all alcohol I can see how this would come across strange at social events. People that are drinking want everyone else in their presence to be loosened up a little as well. I would imagine the reaction would be different between I don't drink and I'm only having a couple. What is more interesting would be if your not drinking but are still relaxed and are lively with other people pres…

I think you're onto to something there. People probably have good reasons to try and avoid mismatches in levels of drinking at an event. Drinking breaks down social barriers but in doing so it makes people vulnerable. Maybe if you can sufficiently signal your commitment to the social situation without drinking you'd do better - ie make a bit of a fool of yourself to show your uninhibited state. As an experiment perha…

I can see how it could put the drinker in a vulnerable position. Though what's interesting is when I am around drunk people, my own inhibition naturally drops even without drinking.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#276

Post by blasdel »

pg wrote: post #179
patio11 wrote: post #119

I worry about the acceleration of addiction in particular subgroups of the population. WoW (or Farmville), for example, is not crystal meth... but that flippant observation is a response to a core truth that some people just have a lot of trouble saying no. Maybe they're poorly educated, maybe they're genetically predisposed to addiction, maybe they're clinically depressed, for whatever the reason they've got a weake…

In practice I would draw the line at things that are mostly consumed by addicts. So I'd have no problem being a vintner, but I wouldn't want to be a heroin manufacturer, even if it were legal. There are various edge cases you'd have to treat individually-- e.g. if the median user wasn't an addict but all your revenues came from the addicts. In that case, again, I probably wouldn't want to do it.

Mark Pilgrim kindly requests that you get your own word: http://twitter.com/diveintomark/statuses/19715440495

This one is taken: http://addictionis.org/

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#277

Post by blasdel »

eru wrote: post #227
philwelch wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tough career move, but I think you'd be morally obligated to destroy the thing you created instead of just passively abandoning it. Or at least fix it. Adding automatic crop harvesters/replanters to Farmville would do a lot to heal Zynga's soul. WoW though, you just might have to turn off.

Just add perma-death to WoW (and some incentives for not just grinding, but risking your virtual life). But that won't suit the bottom-line of Blizzard.

I don't know about that, nethack is habit-forming in its own ways.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#278

Post by eru »

blasdel wrote: post #277
eru wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just add perma-death to WoW (and some incentives for not just grinding, but risking your virtual life). But that won't suit the bottom-line of Blizzard.

I don't know about that, nethack is habit-forming in its own ways.

I know that all too well. But it gives you geek-cred.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#279

Post by jiganti »

Psyonic wrote: post #273
fmora wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not changed my original stance. I've just provided more arguments to this mild debate. I know, we've all downloaded illegal music and yes many of us believe this is no big deal even though objectively speaking it is wrong. Somebody worked really hard for those songs. OK. So lets agree that doing Marijuana may not 100% of the time lead to cocaine use. That doesn't mean that it doens't increases the likelyhood o…

I don't have kids, but I have friends who have smoked marijuana with their parents, bought marijuana for their parents, received a bong from their parents as a gift, etc. It's not that uncommon. The amount who try marijuana that move on to cocaine isn't even close to 100%. Even if I was to grant you that marijuana was a stepping stone, statistics put the number less than 50%. Most polls put the amount of American adu…

One thing I've noticed is that when people first become open minded and try marijuana, despite everything they've been told by authority figures, they don't necessarily try anything more dangerous because their peers know it's bad. Since it tends to be an inherently social activity (in most cases you are convinced by peers to try it), you will inevitably discuss further experimentation. When enough people mention the risks of hard drugs, you'll tend to stay away from them.
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