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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#451

Post by const_cast »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #412
heavyset_go wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, consider someone who is rich enough to afford a heroin addiction without ending up dead, in jail or institutionalized. They may never have a rock bottom that makes them question their use and try to stop. Their quality of life might drop, they may lose friends, family, business, etc, but they are insulated from the kinds of real pressures that force people without means to stop. I would not say that perso…

In your example, I agree with you, they do have an addiction. It does not contradict with what I said. The person not needing to stop and their inability to stop if they tried are two different things. Heroin does form a chemical dependency, where it could even be life threatening to quite cold-turkey, and therefore it is addictive. Unlike mental illness, addiction is defined by formation of a dependency. sometimes t…

I don't think this is correct. I believe the clinical definition of an addiction requires it to be actively harmful to your life - meaning, if you're "addicted" to something but it's good for you, it's not an addiction. Because the addiction part requires you doing something self-destructive.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#453

Post by lesuorac »

MangoToupe wrote: post #444
lesuorac wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not legally required in the state of Delaware (or Michigan where Dodge v Ford occured) to _maximize_ shareholder value. It's that if you're going to make a decision that affects 1/3 of the companies value you need to actually claim it's in the shareholders interest that you do so.

I don't think maximization of shareholder value is really the interesting part, it's the mandate that they must be prioritized ahead of employees and customers. > It's that if you're going to make a decision that affects 1/3 of the companies value you need to actually claim it's in the shareholders interest that you do so. I'm not really sure where the 1/3rd ratio came from. Can you explain? To my layman's ear, "valu…

> I don't think maximization of shareholder value is really the interesting part, it's the mandate that they must be prioritized ahead of employees and customers.

The problem is that Ford didn't try to claim that the factory was in the shareholder's best interest.

> I'm not really sure where the 1/3rd ratio came from. Can you explain? To my layman's ear, "value" and "shareholder value" are the exact same thing.

Nothing special about 1/3. It's the value of the dividend (19 M) / value of Ford (60 M). If you're going to spend 1/3 of the company on something you better at least claim it's in the company / shareholder's best interest.

---

To quote the wikipedia article

> Under some interpretations, the case also affirmed that the business judgment rule that directors may exercise is expansive, leaving Ford and other businesses a wide latitude about how to run the company, if management decisions can point to any rational link to benefiting the corporation as a whole.

And then to emphasis: "if management decisions can point to any rational link to benefiting the corporation as a whole."

Re: Engineered Addictions

#454

Post by badpun »

or_am_i wrote: post #321
badpun wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you put your money into a business which put common good above your return on investment?

Would you give to charity? You are pointing at the heart of the prisoner's dilemma endlessly recreated by the very existence of capital: why choose long-term public benefit over a short-term personal gain?

People give to charity what they don't need. If all businesses are expected to be charities, they cease to be profitable and thus cease to function, as no one will bankroll the initial investment required to set up a business without the prospect of making money on it.

Let's look at an example. In order to produce e.g. wind turbines, a large factory is needed, full of expensive machines. Let's assume that the buldings plus the machines all costs $500 million altogether. Where would that $500m come from, if the factory will never be profitable, so entities with money will never bankroll it? The only alternative I can think of is 100% socialism and centrally managed economy, where all businesses are owned and bankrolled by the state. However, in practice all such implementations so far (over probably at least a dozen different countries) has been terribly inefficient and corrupt.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#455

Post by sotix »

lrvick wrote: post #430
sotix wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which mechanical watch?

My go-tos are the CIGA Eye Of Horus and the Bradley Element, both using a Leatherman Tread for a band with TreadLinks adapters so I always have some basic tools with me which get used a surprising amount.

Very cool looking designs. I’ve always been partial to the more straightforward Rolex explorer myself, but it’s far too expensive for my tastes.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#457

Post by singleshot_ »

lucas_membrane wrote: post #125
duped wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that executives have a duty to maximize shareholder value is a trope from business ethics class, not law. I say this because you used the phrase "fiduciary duty" which does not exist in this context.

> from business ethics class, not law Well, there was one case in the law over 100 years ago in the USA. A company had decided to sell itself for cash and go out of business. The Court ruled, that in that situation, it should sell to the highest bidder. This is long before Milton Friedman began advocating that corporations had a duty to their common shareholders that provided the only valid yardstick for evaluating c…

I am repeatedly entertained by the phenomenon of someone who reads a case, bothers to remember it, thinks it's important, describes it, but does not provide a citation.

Friedman deeply misunderstands agency law. Saying he got the lawyers behind him is misleading, because there are any corporate fiduciary duties owed by directors or officers to the shareholder other than 1) act informed 2) do not usurp corporate opportunity.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#458

Post by zestyping »

rudolftheone wrote: post #336
fullshark wrote: post #52

The proposed solution is hinted at in this piece but dare not spoken: government regulation.

So the master plan is to let governments (known for tech illiteracy and 20-year procurement cycles) regulate hyper-evolving social media platforms? Why teach people to think critically or resist engineered dopamine traps when we can have a bunch of career bureaucrats draft laws while using Wordpad or Internet Explorer to Google “AI” xD

Regulation doesn't have to be at the level of controlling how technology is designed. It can be more creative, at the level of organizations or incentives, for example:

- Require advertising companies to follow special rules, including only doing advertising and nothing else

- Fund an agency that measures the health harms of large platforms and imposes fines or restrictions based on harm

Re: Engineered Addictions

#460

Post by IIsi50MHz »

jjani wrote: post #282
Nifty3929 wrote: post #234

I think the problem is more fundamental than this: When your monetization model is tied to usage, then of course you will try to maximize usage, rather than user benefit. It can't be any other way if your reward function is tied to product usage. Contrast with a car: Their monetization model does not depend on how much I drive it - as long as I find it useful enough to buy. Or a gym, where it actually runs in reverse…

As long as the founders aren't looking to make billions, it's very possible to run a healthy social media platform, as evidenced by Front Porch Forum [1]. 20 employees, human moderators ( gasp )! There's also Metafilter which is paid [2]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/10/front-p... [2] https://www.metafilter.com/

> The current sign-up fee is US$5; it's a one-time fee and is the only cost associated with using the site.[1]

That's…surprisingly cheap. Which reminds me that I keep meaning to set up an SDF or tildeverse account.

[1] https://www.metafilter.com/faq.mefi#1

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