5 ms·

Maybe PG and I would agree on this, because I do think things are becoming more "addictive", but I don't believe he's addressed the root cause of the problem.

by kirse 16y ago

Maybe PG and I would agree on this, because I do think things are becoming more "addictive", but I don't believe he's addressed the root cause of the problem. I think with new technological advances, etc, things are becoming better at being "false substitutes" -- i.e. masquerading themselves as the authentic ways in which we should best satisfy the natural human desires and instincts we all have within us. Addiction comes into play when we are consistently using a false substitute instead of the real thing, so addiction is really much farther down the road - at that point your brain has been fully deceived to indulge in these false substitutes... Examples: 1. Processed "Fat Free" garbage food and fad diets instead of healthy eating and normal exercise. 2. Facebook instead of "Face-to-face" social networking 3. HD porn instead of healthy sexual relationships 4. Online dating instead of learning human interaction 5. Books like "The Game" or PUA. Rather than addressing your inner confidence issues, you read this, learn the rules, and treat women like they're another sport 5. Passively watching TV and sucking up the Internet for mental "stimulation", rather than reading books, creating, and building things. 6. Constantly seeking your 15 minutes of fame and attention (which is FAR easier to get these days) rather than real love and affection 7. The list goes on... I know for a fact this list will be controversial, but I think people will agree with me that these are, in fact, substitutes for the best way to satisfy the many human desires we have. Obviously if you're not addicted, then good for you. It's harsh though. Suck it up and desire to do better. I'm certainly guilty of some of them myself.

mechanical_fish 16y ago
Even if we accept your frame, it's not a simple thing. Consider these "false" substitutes: Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing; Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends; HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships; Online dating instead of avoiding social situations because you never meet anyone you actually want to talk to, and when you do they're always seeing someone else; Chess and WoW instead of mortal combat and intertribal warfare; Football fandom instead of burning the fields of rival clans and kidnapping their women and children. Inventiveness taketh away, but it also giveth.
- alextp 16y ago
  But some of the things you mention only look bad when compared to even crappier alternatives. > Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing; Around the baby boomer generation until people 20 or so years younger there was a sweet spot where mass-produced food was available but more expensive than more traditionally-prepared and traditionally-grown food. Also, people spent a lot more time cooking (and less time watching cooking tv shows), which helped create a relationship with food that wouldn't stand today's fast food habits. At least here in Brazil. > Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends; The solution to this existed before the suburbs (which are a post-ww2 phenomenon), and is called living in small cramped places in cities close to where you work and to most people you will meet. Some people still live like this, and enjoy it. Suburbs are soul crushing, but they are by no means necessary. > HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships; Well, not every sexual relationship is unhealthy, and if you ignore the healthy ones this is vacuously good. The truth is, developing healthy sexual habits is a difficult part of growing up, and keeping people in fantasy land is not a solution to this anymore than giving everyone a government allowance is a solution to the problem that it's hard to find fulfilling jobs. The other points are less glaringly false, but have small subtleties that can be teased out.
  - zephyrfalcon 16y ago
    "But some of the things you mention only look bad when compared to even crappier alternatives." I think that was the whole point... mechanicalfish's list contains false dichotomies, in order to illustrate that the same is true of the original list.
  - jacobolus 16y ago
    Which people in Brazil are we talking about, that had such better diets 50-60 years ago? In 1950, the life expectancy from birth in Brazil was 50 years (a big improvement from before 1930 when life expectancy was about 33 years; by 1975 the life expectancy was about 60 years, and today it's about 73 years). Part of this was high infant mortality and poor access to healthcare, but another big part of it was that Brazil, like most of the world, mostly consisted of chronically undernourished people. (These data are eyeballed from http://www.gapminder.org/world/ http://www.gapminder.org/world/)
zephyrfalcon 16y ago
Not just controversial but wrong, for the most part. For example, Facebook is not a substitute for face-to-face social interaction, but complements it. (How am I going to interact face-to-face with someone far away?) The same is true for #3, #4 and the second #5 at least. Of course, if I were to spend 100% of my time on Facebook and therefore completely neglect face-to-face social contacts (<cough>), then that would likely be a problem. The opposite (100% face-to-face contacts and no online ones) would arguably be a problem too, in this day and age.
deleted 16y ago
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rictic 16y ago
There's a word for a substitute that's more compelling than what it copies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli
- billswift 16y ago
  There has been a lot of discussion of superstimuli on Less Wrong, here is an example that ties in fairly well with pg's essay Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_western/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...

by kirse 16y ago

mechanical_fish 16y ago

Even if we accept your frame, it's not a simple thing. Consider these "false" substitutes: Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing; Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends; HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships; Online dating instead of avoiding social situations because you never meet anyone you actually want to talk to, and when you do they're always seeing someone else; Chess and WoW instead of mortal combat and intertribal warfare; Football fandom instead of burning the fields of rival clans and kidnapping their women and children. Inventiveness taketh away, but it also giveth.

alextp 16y ago
But some of the things you mention only look bad when compared to even crappier alternatives. > Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing; Around the baby boomer generation until people 20 or so years younger there was a sweet spot where mass-produced food was available but more expensive than more traditionally-prepared and traditionally-grown food. Also, people spent a lot more time cooking (and less time watching cooking tv shows), which helped create a relationship with food that wouldn't stand today's fast food habits. At least here in Brazil. > Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends; The solution to this existed before the suburbs (which are a post-ww2 phenomenon), and is called living in small cramped places in cities close to where you work and to most people you will meet. Some people still live like this, and enjoy it. Suburbs are soul crushing, but they are by no means necessary. > HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships; Well, not every sexual relationship is unhealthy, and if you ignore the healthy ones this is vacuously good. The truth is, developing healthy sexual habits is a difficult part of growing up, and keeping people in fantasy land is not a solution to this anymore than giving everyone a government allowance is a solution to the problem that it's hard to find fulfilling jobs. The other points are less glaringly false, but have small subtleties that can be teased out.
- zephyrfalcon 16y ago
  "But some of the things you mention only look bad when compared to even crappier alternatives." I think that was the whole point... mechanicalfish's list contains false dichotomies, in order to illustrate that the same is true of the original list.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  Which people in Brazil are we talking about, that had such better diets 50-60 years ago? In 1950, the life expectancy from birth in Brazil was 50 years (a big improvement from before 1930 when life expectancy was about 33 years; by 1975 the life expectancy was about 60 years, and today it's about 73 years). Part of this was high infant mortality and poor access to healthcare, but another big part of it was that Brazil, like most of the world, mostly consisted of chronically undernourished people. (These data are eyeballed from http://www.gapminder.org/world/ http://www.gapminder.org/world/)

zephyrfalcon 16y ago

Not just controversial but wrong, for the most part. For example, Facebook is not a substitute for face-to-face social interaction, but complements it. (How am I going to interact face-to-face with someone far away?) The same is true for #3, #4 and the second #5 at least. Of course, if I were to spend 100% of my time on Facebook and therefore completely neglect face-to-face social contacts (<cough>), then that would likely be a problem. The opposite (100% face-to-face contacts and no online ones) would arguably be a problem too, in this day and age.

deleted 16y ago

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rictic 16y ago

There's a word for a substitute that's more compelling than what it copies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli

billswift 16y ago
There has been a lot of discussion of superstimuli on Less Wrong, here is an example that ties in fairly well with pg's essay Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_western/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...