‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#31

Post by otabdeveloper1 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

CyanBird wrote: post #18

lordnacho wrote: post #15

I've been thinking about this a lot. In terms of political economy, there's a lot of reliance on the ideas of information, free will and rationality. To cut a long story short, if people have information about the market, they can use their knowledge of their own desires to act, which creates some sort of efficiency. Glossing over a load of stuff here because it's a large subject, but that's sort of the spiel you get…

Our entire idea of "agency", "individuality" and even "freedom" needs to be re-thinked. Basically all of what we have built resides in one way or another on the idea that individuals bar exceptions such as with physical drugs have some sort of inalienable agency to them. That entire rockbed is simply not really true, and more like highly idealized thoughts from thinkers of the 1800's Policy makers and politicians hav…

[flagged]

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#32

Post by njepa » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #25

njepa wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Behaviour, especially widespread behaviour, is rarely irrational. Despite its reputation Sweden has become surprisingly unpragmatic in recent years. It is very easy to end up in a situation where you can't continue your studies, but you can't also enter the job market effectively. I absolutely think things like loot boxes, sugar and gasoline should be regulated or taxed to decrease their potential to do damage. But a…

> Behaviour, especially widespread behaviour, is rarely irrational. Despite its reputation Sweden has become surprisingly unpragmatic in recent years. Err, don't the two statements contradict each other? (1) especially widespread behaviour, is rarely irrational (2) Sweden has become surprisingly unpragmatic in recent years

I think systems have become increasingly unpragmatic, but not necessarily people's behaviour. In 2010, which the article refers to, youth unemployment in Sweden was ~25%, the housing market had become a mess already and various rules for student loans and unemployment had changed. So it isn't like they had a fantastic future just waiting for them.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#33

Post by namanyayg » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #24

CyanBird wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does indeed mention them both >The nature of addiction has implications—more precisely, temptations—for businesses that sell habituating products. One is to encourage early and frequent consumption. Treat the lads, the saloonkeepers used to say, and you’ll have their money in the till when they’re adults. And the more they drink, the greater the profits. To this day, 80 percent of alcohol sales go to the…

This isn't actually true. Those who have more income spend much more money on drugs. I used to smoke weed all day everyday for 10 years, and knew a ton of others that did so. None of us were poor, all had good jobs and made good income. Moreover, people that only smoke rarely and have never smoked get the wrong impression about what smoking all day does to you. I would hardly call it being 'stoned', more like being s…

What led to quitting and how did you accomplish it?

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#34

Post by tomhoward » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #26

gtt wrote: post #23

I think usage of Capitalism here is a misnomer, because replacing 'capitalism' with 'human greed' or 'human fallibility' changes nothing. The problem is not caused by markets or property rights. If anything, competition actually makes games least toxic. Look how pay2win games being replaced by vanity items selling games.

Yes, but capitalism is the system that says "human greed is good" and that basing everything self-interest turns out for "the best". From Adam Smith: "“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." To Gordon Gecko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_Is_Good_(disambiguation) Via countless others...

> Yes, but capitalism is the system that says "human greed is good" and that basing everything self-interest turns out for "the best".

> From Adam Smith: "“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest."

Smith wasn't saying greed is "good". He was saying that self-interest is unavoidable, so the economic system must accept that inevitability.

I don't think you'll find anything in the work of Smith, celebrating greed the way that Gordon Gecko quote does, or that Ayn Rand and her acolytes did.

Smith talks just as much about the near-universal human need to be both "loved" and "lovely"; i.e., to be thought well of both by one's self and by others:

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blameworthiness; or to be that thing which, though, it should be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame. [1]

There doesn't seem to be anything consistent with "greed is good" in that, or in anything I've seen attributed to Smith.

[1] http://motivatedmastery.com/adam-smith-on-human-nature-and-o...

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#35

Post by paulryanrogers » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

iSnow wrote: post #20

lordnacho wrote: post #15

I've been thinking about this a lot. In terms of political economy, there's a lot of reliance on the ideas of information, free will and rationality. To cut a long story short, if people have information about the market, they can use their knowledge of their own desires to act, which creates some sort of efficiency. Glossing over a load of stuff here because it's a large subject, but that's sort of the spiel you get…

>if it turns out people can know what WoW does to your studies, and they still end up doing this, how should we think about this? Easy answer is that their real desire is to play WoW all day, but that doesn't seem very satisfying. It's also wrong, as it makes people unhappy. The whole idea of a real free will breaks down if we are looking at substance abuse at the latest. The underlying machinery of our brains limits…

What resources or tools have helped in your journey?

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#36

Post by leetcrew » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #13

CyanBird wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ow do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Just like we have always done, if something constantly disturbs day to day activities, then it is an addictive behaviour >That is, the addictive behavior “spills over” into several dimensions of one’s daily life https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210595/ _______ >What I do think is a problem is the fac…

> Having worked in GameDev, one of the most flooring things I have faced is people asking me for me to introduce said addictive inducing systems and mechanisms.... They want the enjoyment, they want to be "addicted", they want a game "so good" that they can't put it down. This is what I'm talking about though. Back when games were bought on a disk or cartridge and didn't feature any sort of micro-transactions there w…

> Back when games were bought on a disk or cartridge and didn't feature any sort of micro-transactions there was no point in making a game addictive.

is this really true? when I was a kid (long enough ago that there were no skins or loot boxes), the most effective way to make me want a game was to see my friends playing it and having fun. there were probably tons of short single-player games that I was never aware of because people would just finish them quickly and not play while friends were over. but I still have vivid memories of watching people play smash and desperately wanting my own N64.

maybe the industry wasn't so ruthlessly capitalistic back then, but there had to be some execs that realized how much free marketing you get out of addictive console games.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#37

Post by microcolonel » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #15

I've been thinking about this a lot. In terms of political economy, there's a lot of reliance on the ideas of information, free will and rationality. To cut a long story short, if people have information about the market, they can use their knowledge of their own desires to act, which creates some sort of efficiency. Glossing over a load of stuff here because it's a large subject, but that's sort of the spiel you get…

The problem is that when people stop believing in agency and will, everything gets worse. They're not a perfect model of things, but imposing on society a single attractive view on some pet issue of yours is almost always worse than letting people get it wrong.

Private society is actually getting better at avoiding misuse of food, drugs, and communication platforms; my young sister is well aware of a lot of the pitfalls, and monitors her use of social media rather carefully, she watches her food intake carefully and asks interesting questions about the effects of certain foods. In general, I have high hopes for the next generation, I think they will figure this stuff out fast enough.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#38

Post by microcolonel » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

CyanBird wrote: post #18

lordnacho wrote: post #15

I've been thinking about this a lot. In terms of political economy, there's a lot of reliance on the ideas of information, free will and rationality. To cut a long story short, if people have information about the market, they can use their knowledge of their own desires to act, which creates some sort of efficiency. Glossing over a load of stuff here because it's a large subject, but that's sort of the spiel you get…

Our entire idea of "agency", "individuality" and even "freedom" needs to be re-thinked. Basically all of what we have built resides in one way or another on the idea that individuals bar exceptions such as with physical drugs have some sort of inalienable agency to them. That entire rockbed is simply not really true, and more like highly idealized thoughts from thinkers of the 1800's Policy makers and politicians hav…

Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them.

Agency is the only option. It's not like the concept of agency was thought up in a society with no dumb people.

If you want to live in a society where the state doesn't believe in agency, and where your difficult decisions will be made by people who are (on average) more intelligent than you, go ahead and move to the PRC, they're right up your alley!

People are actively opting out of advertising, which is why major advertising businesses are pulling out all the stops (see Google's recent announcement that they will restrict advertisement and tracking blockers); these businesses will suffer with the new generation of "consumers".

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#39

Post by LifeLiverTransp » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

The individual, is basically legacy hardware, and we refined hacking this legacy hardware over the past 20 years. The combined interest in hacking this hardware will always be more effective and cheaper then all defense, bugfixes and updates the individual and his peers can muster.

We should criminalize the act of hacking individuals, as the hardware can not be changed and applying security updates and bugfixes has proven ineffective or impossible. It should be viewed not as a weakness of the person but a vile act on a vurnerable creature. Similar in nature to the human rights, in which we grant us one another - animals as we are - inmuteable dignity. This dignity is violated, if one is hacked/manipulated against his/her own interest to serve the interests of another individual, cooperation, nation-state or a idea.

This sort of behaviour is not new. There have been precedences, where gurus, churches and whole nations, have overriden the individuals possibility to think or act different.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#40

Post by Zach_the_Lizard » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #35

iSnow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if it turns out people can know what WoW does to your studies, and they still end up doing this, how should we think about this? Easy answer is that their real desire is to play WoW all day, but that doesn't seem very satisfying. It's also wrong, as it makes people unhappy. The whole idea of a real free will breaks down if we are looking at substance abuse at the latest. The underlying machinery of our brains limits…

What resources or tools have helped in your journey?

Not OP, but for me Vyvanse and exercise really helped get things more under control. Environment also matters. Open plan offices are my kryptonite. My current office is open, densely packed, and loud, so I'm 100x as productive at home.

Also, it helps to realize that high stress, crunch time situations are where I thrive. Major outage bringing the company to its knees? I got this. I'm calm, even. Tight, almost impossible deadline? I work extremely quickly and deliver high quality results.

Simple bug that's super easy to fix with no pressure? I'll need three weeks to do it. 1 minute to fix it, the rest of the time for unit tests. I get distracted more easily during these times.

On the plus side, my tangents sometimes pay off. I get curious, add instrumentation, discover relationships between various metrics, and use that to save millions of dollars, sometimes tens of millions.

On the other hand, ADHD also has some emotional side effects and I thus have a higher chance of pissing people off without meaning too. I also score higher on various autism tests, so that could be a factor (though I've never been diagnosed). So my (sometimes) good work is balanced by a weaker ability to collaborate.