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The Acceleration of Addictiveness

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#281

Post by xiaoma »

starkfist wrote: post #271
xiaoma wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Looking at meat along (as opposed to animal products), Mexico doesn't make it to the top, but it is still far above Asian levels (even China). The US is cited as being at the top in many places, though it's possible Denmark is ignored due to having a smaller population than some US cities.

United States Leads World Meat Stampede http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626

It's also worth pointing out that S. Koreans have a longer life expectancy than people in either the US or Denmark, despite being less economically developed and have a much smaller social system. Note that the countries topping the life expectancy rankings, Japan and HK are both big rice eaters, and that #3, Iceland gets most its meat as fish.

That said, after reading your post and once again researching the statistics, I'm absolutely shocked how quickly rich countries other than the US have been increasing their meat consumption. I couldn't find lists that looked at total consumption of animal products, but the rankings in terms of meat itself have changed a lot. I'm still 100% sure that eating rice at breakfast, lunch and dinner is part of the traditional Japanese diet, and that they out-live the heavy meat/cheese/butter eaters in other rich countries.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#282

Post by confuzatron »

blasdel wrote: post #276
pg wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Handbags at dawn.

Is Mark Pilgrim a big shot in the 'addiction' community or something? I am probably stumbling ignorantly into something by asking that question.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#283

Post by wazoox »

The delay to switch from "everybody's smoking" and "only losers smoke" seems much shorter to me. Simply see any 80's movie (Terminator, for instance): everybody's smoking (cops, thieves, etc). 15 years later smoking in San Francisco was enough to get angry looks.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#284

Post by flatulent1 »

drewcrawford wrote: post #48

Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Why is this "new" addiction wrong ? What does it mean to say it is bad ? pg is taking great pains to distance himself from real addiction, like crystal meth. Yet he never explicitly explains anywhere why the new "addiction" is actually bad , other than trying to loosely associate it with alcohol. I don't think that the "addictiveness" of a thing alone is enough to call it ba…

Aside from direct damage which varies from negligible to substantial, the indirect costs should be taken into account. They're not always easy to guage.

Something that takes a lot of time certainly has an opportunity cost. The time it takes could have been spent doing something else. Someone addicted to a game may spend less time getting exercise, learning what it takes to get a ham license, learning to program, working on real personal relationships.... the list goes on and on.

Generally things that give instant gratification tend to be addictive. Has our society suffered from not living within its means? Have we fostered an environment that actually encourages addiction to spending?

Look at the nature of what's on commercial tv, and the ads. The programs are designed to keep us hooked. (they don't sell programs to us, they sell us to advertisers) And look at the nature of the ads and what we consume. To some, our purpose in life is to CONSUME. Just who is that good for?

Next time you play a game or pick something to watch, ask yourself what you're gaining, what it costs, and will you better of later or be a better person as a result?

Maybe the skills learned in those games aren't useful enough to be worth the price.

Of course if we measure lifetimes in man-hours and look at the numbers a different way can get some disturbing stats.

It's probably a leap to equate the cumulative hours lost to gaming to death. Perhaps it would be easier to accept if we measured the hours spent with updates and fighting malware? (That would make a catchy story... measure the lives lost due to Windows bugs LOL)

We don't have to be productive all the time, but shouldn't we find pleasure in ways that help our minds and bodies?

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#285

Post by lsc »

DenisM wrote: post #158
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…

And what do you do if you're a startup founder at the next Zynga and discover... It depends on what your goals were. :) If you were in it for the money you plow right ahead. If you waned to make the world a better place (and get paid for that) you dump it on your investors and move on to the next thing. Another option is to see if you can put what you learned about compulsive behaviors to better uses - I think the wo…

>Another option is to see if you can put what you learned about compulsive behaviors to better uses - I think the world would be better off if people were compulsive about maintaining good finances

I've said before that I think many resource-building games have similar reward mechanisms to running a business[1]

Look at, for example, eve online. I know at least one very smart guy who put more effort into accounting within that game than I put into accounting at my business.

If you could figure out how to exploit this; you know, to make doing the accounting for my business as rewarding to this guy as doing accounting in eve online, hot damn, you could make a lot of money.

[1]http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/5/15/5477/35240

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#286

Post by memetichazard »

alextp wrote: post #110
portman wrote: post #97

I remember, many years ago (mid-to-late 90s), being afraid that I had grown addicted to computer games. Between Command & Conquer (over peer-to-peer dial-up!), Quake Team Fortress, Civilization II, and a few others, I was playing 30-40 hours of PC games per week. I eventually grew out of the habit, and now don't find PC or console games appealing anymore. The fact that I naturally gave it up without any intervention…

You have a point, but I don't think it's that simple. With things like hard liquor, heroin, cocaine, and other generally accepted to be addictive things, a lot more people go through "phases" of the stuff than actually waste their entire lives on it. We've all seen slightly depressed people binging self-destructively on alcohol, and some of my more outgoing friends have done the same with cocaine when they were young…

Dieting - becoming vegetarian, vegan, etc.

Job aspirations - granted, this is usually children and teenagers.

Religious or Political ideologies. For instance, as a highschooler I was convinced that Socialism was the best system - so long as you could do it Right. I have since become more cynical.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#287

Post by alextp »

memetichazard wrote: post #286
alextp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a point, but I don't think it's that simple. With things like hard liquor, heroin, cocaine, and other generally accepted to be addictive things, a lot more people go through "phases" of the stuff than actually waste their entire lives on it. We've all seen slightly depressed people binging self-destructively on alcohol, and some of my more outgoing friends have done the same with cocaine when they were young…

Dieting - becoming vegetarian, vegan, etc. Job aspirations - granted, this is usually children and teenagers. Religious or Political ideologies. For instance, as a highschooler I was convinced that Socialism was the best system - so long as you could do it Right. I have since become more cynical.

It is arguable that some people develop addictive relationships with their religious and/or political views, seeking reinforcement like an addict seeks a drug.

But, yeah, the other examples qualify as phases without being as toxic as drugs.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#288

Post by alextp »

memetichazard wrote: post #286
alextp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a point, but I don't think it's that simple. With things like hard liquor, heroin, cocaine, and other generally accepted to be addictive things, a lot more people go through "phases" of the stuff than actually waste their entire lives on it. We've all seen slightly depressed people binging self-destructively on alcohol, and some of my more outgoing friends have done the same with cocaine when they were young…

Dieting - becoming vegetarian, vegan, etc. Job aspirations - granted, this is usually children and teenagers. Religious or Political ideologies. For instance, as a highschooler I was convinced that Socialism was the best system - so long as you could do it Right. I have since become more cynical.

It is arguable that some people develop addictive relationships with their religious and/or political views, seeking reinforcement like an addict seeks a drug.

But, yeah, the other examples qualify as phases without being as toxic as drugs.

Re: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

#289

Post by Psyonic »

jiganti wrote: post #279
Psyonic wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is a lot of truth to this, peers are a strong influence. I do think, however, that things would improve further if the schools were honest as well. At the very least, it'd be one less thing that erodes trust in the government as an authority.
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