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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#11

Post by MobileVet »

jiveturkey wrote: post #7

Been going on long before Silicon Valley was even a thing. Sugar industry for example. > What might actually work This section is idealistic. I guess the author was too damaged by his own experience to actually study the wave of twitter replacements. I would love to see an analysis of those. "Different Funding Methods" is clearly required but perhaps not sufficient.

For sure… but digital distribution and deep understanding of the mental processes behind addiction make it even more accessible for new products / games today.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#12

Post by globular-toast »

jiveturkey wrote: post #7

Been going on long before Silicon Valley was even a thing. Sugar industry for example. > What might actually work This section is idealistic. I guess the author was too damaged by his own experience to actually study the wave of twitter replacements. I would love to see an analysis of those. "Different Funding Methods" is clearly required but perhaps not sufficient.

Indeed. The first thing I think of when I read "engineered addictions" is fast food like McDonalds and Subway. People work very hard to make sure the taste and smell is addictive but that the food is not satiating.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#13

Post by kurthr »

Narciss wrote: post #10

My hope, and it may be a naïve hope, is that with the rise of AI will see more and more people be able to build the kind of digital experience that they envision, including social media experiences, because of the democratization of software engineering. That being said, what does it take to build a social media app using AI and also perhaps just as important to market it worldwide?

It feels like this is the optimism of early internet where "information wants to be free".

We got a solid 5 maybe 10 years of that (up through 2k)?

Re: Engineered Addictions

#14

Post by andrei_says_ »

api wrote: post #5
scottgg wrote: post #2

I enjoyed this. It feels obvious doesn’t it ? But - it’s so hard to see anything grassroots changing here for exactly the same reason the apps become attention-gamified - how can some small organically-grown thing compete with the money ?

The right question is: how can some small organically grown thing compete for attention? If everyone is engaged with addiction machines nobody will use it. Engineered addiction is mind control. It is abuse. Hacking the human brain is violence — a term that has been robbed of its impact through overuse for things that are not violence, but this is. Engineering of addiction in any form should not be legal for the same…

It’s interesting that the examples you provided - kidnapping and forced labor - are somewhat legal in the U.S. in the context of the treatment of people of color by law enforcement and incarceration industry.

Similarly, suppression of wages, taking away healthcare, food, employee protections (at-will employment), legally required vacation days and maternity leave, and any meaningful safety nets for employees, pushes the social contract for workers toward violent nonconsensual extraction.

Maximizing extraction inevitably requires violence and cruelty.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#15

Post by ambicapter »

scottgg wrote: post #2

I enjoyed this. It feels obvious doesn’t it ? But - it’s so hard to see anything grassroots changing here for exactly the same reason the apps become attention-gamified - how can some small organically-grown thing compete with the money ?

By...not competing? As long as you're profitable (read: your expenses are lower than your incomes), what does competing to be "the best" (whatever that even means) provide you?

Re: Engineered Addictions

#16

Post by cornholio »

Narciss wrote: post #10

My hope, and it may be a naïve hope, is that with the rise of AI will see more and more people be able to build the kind of digital experience that they envision, including social media experiences, because of the democratization of software engineering. That being said, what does it take to build a social media app using AI and also perhaps just as important to market it worldwide?

If you can't build it with a bunch of junior coders, then AI won't help you.

Social media is all about network effects and first mover advantage, one network turned textbook fascist and it's still going strong.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#17

Post by zbentley »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #14
api wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right question is: how can some small organically grown thing compete for attention? If everyone is engaged with addiction machines nobody will use it. Engineered addiction is mind control. It is abuse. Hacking the human brain is violence — a term that has been robbed of its impact through overuse for things that are not violence, but this is. Engineering of addiction in any form should not be legal for the same…

It’s interesting that the examples you provided - kidnapping and forced labor - are somewhat legal in the U.S. in the context of the treatment of people of color by law enforcement and incarceration industry. Similarly, suppression of wages, taking away healthcare, food, employee protections (at-will employment), legally required vacation days and maternity leave, and any meaningful safety nets for employees, pushes…

Yes. Given that, how can we do what GP suggested and move the perception and legal treatment of these behaviors towards “ethically repugnant” rather than “conditionally (and, as you pointed out, very unequally) socially permitted”?

Re: Engineered Addictions

#18

Post by ngriffiths »

scottgg wrote: post #2

I enjoyed this. It feels obvious doesn’t it ? But - it’s so hard to see anything grassroots changing here for exactly the same reason the apps become attention-gamified - how can some small organically-grown thing compete with the money ?

I agree. I see this becoming a bigger and bigger problem unless someone steps in with significant regulation or major changes like the article says.

The other challenge is the regulation part is much easier when the product is, say, heroin. Algorithms are technically complex (hard for policymakers to grasp), flexible (can be tweaked to work around guidelines?), and operating in the digital world (harder to monitor/block).

Maybe a major factor here is social acceptance vs stigma. In the future will it be considered extremely weird and antisocial to be on your phone nonstop?

Re: Engineered Addictions

#19

Post by almost_usual »

jiveturkey wrote: post #7

Been going on long before Silicon Valley was even a thing. Sugar industry for example. > What might actually work This section is idealistic. I guess the author was too damaged by his own experience to actually study the wave of twitter replacements. I would love to see an analysis of those. "Different Funding Methods" is clearly required but perhaps not sufficient.

Alcohol, nicotine / cigarettes, sugar packed junk food. The digital realm of addiction is a new face of the same pattern.

Cheap hits to increase pleasure centers in the brain that overall have a detrimental cost to humanity with entire industries to deal with the health consequences.

This is the mining of wealth from health reducing the overall productivity of humanity for the sake of near term profits. Optimizing short term gains for long term progress.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#20

Post by klik99 »

> Then it raised venture capital, hit scale, and needed to hit growth numbers and meet quarterly metric goals. The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.”

Having spent a few years in the VC world I have been increasingly convinced outside investment is the biggest reason why companies lose their morals. The legal obligation to represent shareholders erodes morality. When the people running these companies feel they’re beholden to shareholders and can’t act on their own agency of course they will turn to addiction research not as a warning but as a guidebook. It’s Stanford Prison Experiment stuff.

I hate being reductionist, and I am posting this on a historically YC forum so of course there’s nuance, but there’s a pretty huge throughline of outside investment and addiction engineering. It sucks we’re seeing less grants and less security net to encourage risks under current administration, because it leaves investment as the quickest path to starting or scaling a company. Donate to open source, IMO

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