The Age of Addiction
We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are hooking our kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously and deliberately rewire our brains? Nothing, David Courtwright says, unless we understand the history and character of the global enterprises that create and cater to our bad habits. The Age of Addiction chronicles the triumph of what Courtwright calls "limbic capitalism," the growing network of competitive businesses targeting the brain pathways responsible for feeling, motivation, and long-term memory. We see its success in Purdue Pharma's pain pills, in McDonald's engineered burgers, and in Tencent video games from China. All capitalize on the ancient quest to discover, cultivate, and refine new and habituating pleasures. The business of satisfying desire assumed a more sinister aspect with the rise of long-distance trade, plantation slavery, anonymous cities, large corporations, and sophisticated marketing. Multinational industries, often with the help of complicit governments and criminal organizations, have multiplied and cheapened seductive forms of brain reward, from junk food to pornography. The internet has brought new addictions: in 2018, the World Health Organization added "gaming disorder" to its International Classification of Diseases.
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- I wrote a couple pieces about how to take back control of your brain:
https://open.substack.com/pub/vonnik/p/how-to-take-your-brai...
Yes, the addictions are engineered in the service of shareholder value. There are many ways to fight it!
Fwiw, this dynamic goes way beyond VC and tech.
Douglas Courtwright writes about this in Age of Addiction:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Age-of-Addiction-audiobook/dp/B07...
- You might like the book "The Age of Addiction, How Bad Habits Became Big Business" by David T. Courtwright.
It talks about substitutability of pleasures, among other things. The most interesting idea that I took from it was the idea of "blending" and "intensifying" of pleasures over time.
For example, with alcohol. Initially humans had fermented fruits, then beer and wine, then distilled alcohol. The pleasurable substance was refined over time and the pleasure was intensified. In parallel, humans blended together multiple pleasures at once, for example combining alcohol with milkshakes or making sugary cocktails.
The book makes a strong case that this process of refining, intensifying, trading, and blending pleasures has been a constant force throughout civilization, and it applies the same argument to the internet and social media.
- > Prohibition doesn’t work.
Actually, it did work [1]:
> Courtwright’s The Age of Addiction has the statistics: “Per capita consumption initially fell to 30 percent of pre-Prohibition levels, before gradually increasing to 60 or 70 percent by 1933.” That suggests a 30 percent reduction, at a minimum, in consumption — although that was less than the initial effect, as people figured some ways around the law.
> We should allow people the freedom to participate in vice.
There is literally no individual upside to gambling and don't say "winning". For sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, you get banned or your bet sizes severelyl restricted if you consistently win [2]. Why? Because it discourages the marks if they don't win occasionally.
Suicide rate is highest among gambling addicts than any other form of addiction [3]. Gambling measurably increases credit score drops, debts and bankruptcies [4]. The entire business is predatory.
At least back in the day when you had to go to a casino there was some barrier to gambling. Now? Just pull out your phone.
[1]: https://archive.ph/l8m4E#selection-885.0-889.319
[2]: https://www.elitepickz.com/blog/do-sportsbooks-ban-winners-a...
[3]: https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-gambl...
[4]: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/online-sports-gamb...
- The prohibition movement is the usual example provided to support that theory, but historians and experts in the domain do acknowledge there was still an overall decrease in consumption of alcohol during prohibition.
'Courtwright’s The Age of Addiction has the statistics: “Per capita consumption initially fell to 30 percent of pre-Prohibition levels, before gradually increasing to 60 or 70 percent by 1933.” That suggests a 30 percent reduction, at a minimum, in consumption — although that was less than the initial effect, as people figured some ways around the law.'
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit...
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