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

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#71

Post by PeterStuer » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

homonculus1 wrote: post #50

convolvatron wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in this world how does the government decide whats the best choice is? one of the reasons we ended up with 'people should decide for themselves unless it harms someone else' is that we dont have any other basis to evaluate options. the church, the monarchy, and the market have been 3 other go-to deciders. maybe a 1970s style AI with flashing lights?

You've hit on the center of the sheer arrogance of these tech bros and authoritarians. Freedom isn't a failure because people make suboptimal decisions. Freedom was NEVER SUPPOSED to lead to people making their best decisions. It's a safeguard against something inevitably far worse, which is having to obey the type of people all up and down this thread who want to impose their ideas about how much sugar I should eat…

Unfortunately your reality impacts mine. I am not trying to be benevolent, just trying to limit the devastating impacts your supposed freedom has on my planet.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#72

Post by PeterStuer » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

CyanBird wrote: post #11

manfredo wrote: post #8

How do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Most people wouldn't look down on someone who stays up till 3 AM reading a gripping book, but many would if we swap the book with a video game. Definitely people who can't hold down jobs or education due to addition to video games or social media is a problem, but I suspect that a lot of the concern is due to an…

>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…

Are you really optimising for pleasure, or just for engagement?

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#73

Post by EdgarVerona » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:38 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…

This is certainly a difficult problem, and I think that as we learn more on this subject people are going to be increasingly uncomfortable with the answers available to us and what it means for the products we create.

What I feel is that, regardless of regulation on a societal level, it is up to us as individuals to decide what we feel comfortable with in regards to the products we create and the risk of harming others that we are willing to take on. We should be able to acknowledge the fact that - regardless of whether or not addiction is a personal failing or an inescapable biological flaw - intentionally leveraging and profiting off of it is an unethical action. It is exploitation regardless of the nature of the flaw being exploited.

It's complicated, because I think there are many types of products that can't avoid the potential for addictive use. In those situations, we have to ask ourselves whether we're targeting that addictive use, or whether it's an undesired side effect that a user may come across - and in that latter situation, to find ways to mitigate those harmful outcomes. If we want to provide outcomes that help our customers and provide them value, we need to be willing to accept that we may have to create awkward-feeling and profit-limiting mitigations.

Flawed as it is, education and the promotion of people developing self-awareness about their addictions is a strong tool we have for mitigation as long as it isn't something buried where users won't easily find it. Setting limits or ceilings on spending (spending of both time and money) is another mitigation. Avoiding monetization models such as gambling mechanics that inherently exploit addiction is another. Promoting and sticking to direct sales of products for discrete costs is another. But there is still so much we need to learn, and many potential pitfalls.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#74

Post by bittercynic » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #43

bittercynic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. I didn't read that in GP. Currently we seem to be very reluctant to admit that we're all vulnerable to being manipulated, and it might actually increase the total amount of agency available to individuals if we could restrict the ways we're allowed to manipulate each other.

The problem is the line between preventing manipulation, and imposing on people's private thoughts. Poorly-conducted industry-funded research? That's pretty straightforward; and in some sense it is not that different from other forms of fraud. I'm okay with punishing people for acting with intent to knowingly mislead. On the other hand, you look at lending, and it becomes a little bit difficult. There are illegal int…

I didn't intend to deny the existence of agency, only to point out that it's often unclear exactly how much agency we have in different situations, and it could be useful to acknowledge that this is a thorny subject.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#75

Post by iSnow » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 7:47 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?

I will not lie, one of the important factors are that I hail from Europe, so getting treatment and seeking therapy was never a financial problem. ADHD, anxiety, and depression are frequent co-morbidities since ADHD sufferers have to face "you are smart, but you are wasting your potential" all their lives and are helpless to change it.

Exercise helps, if I am able to do it regularly and frequently (which is currently not the case due to family and health). I tried medication but Ritalin would make me anxious and various SSRI/SNRI would nuke my sexuality. I am rather strict in not using my smartphone in bed, as that wrecks my sleep patterns.

Apart from that, not much, I am afraid. I tried various systems to organise my work, from having a to-do list buddy (I would regularly tell them what I have to do and report back) to pomodoro, but in the end, my discipline is too lacking, and I get distracted too fast.

I stopped working self-employed and am now working for one of the top 100 biggest companies. That helped a lot since I can sweep procrastination episodes under the carpet (the expected intensity of work is rather low), but is insanely frustrating because I have low leverage to improve our way of work.

ADHD has the upside for many that they will absolutely rip into information and devour it as long as it is interesting. In my case, that means I am the "go-to" person in our department because I know more about software development, tools, languages than most, even if I am probably not the most productive coder. Currently trying to develop into some kind of internal consultant for digital transformation/disruptive business ideas - I seemingly have the right ideas, now hoping for someone higher up to notice them.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#76

Post by crdoconnor » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #62

crdoconnor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's that it is extremely difficult to figure out when someone is fit to take over someone else's decision power "It's difficult" doesn't mean it's a task that should be completely abandoned because of some ideological notion.

But it's not just a hard problem we can solve once, it's a wildly difficult problem that we haven't been able to solve for thousands of years. I brought up the Defense in Depth angle because I think it's kind of the same category of problem. Why do we need multiple layers of security on our devices -- why shouldn't Apple just validate the code on everything that gets submitted to the store? Why shouldn't developers j…

It's really not wildly difficult to discourage smoking by, e.g. putting a tax on it.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#77

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #27

coldtea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Understand there's a difference between 'greed' and 'self-interest'. One in consuming; the other, enlightened.

Destroying others for one's own gain is fully compatible with self-interest -- there's nothing enlightened about it.

Altruism, yes, is enlightened.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#78

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #34

coldtea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Well, self-interest is not unavoidable. There were societies where doing what's honorable or good for the many, was more celebrated than self-interest.

By taking it as inevitable, why make self-interest not just an acceptable, but a celebrated even trait.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#79

Post by mruts » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

namanyayg wrote: post #33

mruts wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I was reading some papers about the detrimental the effect of weed on working memory. So I decided to stop smoking a week after that.

Surprisingly, my cognitive performance declined severely for a period of a couple weeks, as measured by dual n-back performance against my on weed baseline. After those two weeks, it started getting better. About a month later, I was at my on weed baseline. Two months after that, I have exceeding my weed baseline by a significant margin. I took an IQ test and realized about a 10 IQ point gain from my baseline IQ, which I was pretty happy with.

In regards to accomplishing it, I dunno, I guess I just stopped all at once. I'm not the type of person who can handle moderation of anything really, so just quitting all at once worked really well. I had previously quit heroin a long time ago in my youth, so quitting weed wasn't really a big deal compared to that.

It's been maybe 6 months since I last smoked at this point, and I don't really feel any different, besides my cognitive improvements I suppose.

Re: ‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

#80

Post by GuiA » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

CyanBird wrote: post #66

GuiA wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China’s Great Leap Forward: 50 million deaths Stalin’s regime: 10 million deaths Khmer Rouge: 2 million deaths (25% of Cambodia’s population) East Germany “denazification efforts”: tens of thousands of deaths, possible as high as a hundred thousand I don’t entirely disagree with the nuance you’re trying to make, but it’s worth keeping in mind that some things are very measurable when it comes to these communist/total…

I'm sorry, but this is such a cheapo propaganda like comment to what the other guy said Throwing numbers around as if the decentralized killing or the fami es within non-totalitarian systems weren't comparable is just silly The guy is t advocating for anything of the sort, and the article doesn't mention governments themselves, but decentralized profit driven enterprises....

One does not exclude the other. You can bring up the numbers for other governments if you wish, they’re interesting to discuss as well.

Regarding your accusations, it’s hard to settle anything now that the author deleted their comment. However, I stand firm by my statement that one cannot make claims to the effect of “life wasn’t so bad in $past_totalitarian_regime” without keeping numbers of direct human deaths - from executions, interment camps, famines - at the forefront of our minds.