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Maybe I am too tired tonight, but I don't see how this reply addresses the question--why is addiction (perhaps specifically "internet addiction" or whatever you

Maybe I am too tired tonight, but I don't see how this reply addresses the question--why is addiction (perhaps specifically "internet addiction" or whatever you want to call it)--bad enough to warrant "hip flask" and other equivalences with alcohol? My comment about the oxygen was trying to derail the equivalence of addictiveness with badness by a "proof by counterexample". The proof goes like this: If oxygen is addictive, and if it is not bad, then not all addictive things are bad. I am having trouble parsing your reply, but it seems that the premise of the proof that you are attacking is not the goodness/badness of oxygen, which you do not dispute, but you do not think it qualifies as actually addictive because at some point it will be cured, just as the "dependence" on "[not] flying across the atlantic" was cured. Again, it is late, and I am probably misreading you, but we will probably at some point find a cure for all sorts of addictions, but this does not make them any less real or potent right now. It might console you, as you suffocate, that someday people will no longer die this way. But it cannot help you. The need for oxygen is still substantial.

andreyf 16y ago
Here's an example: this back-and-forth between you and Paul was fascinating enough that I read every word, but now that I spent 5 minutes doing it, I realize I'd rather have been working on my startup idea. I didn't realize this as I was reading it, but now that I spent a somewhat significant amount of time reading (and now, also, answering), I wish I hadn't. Part of me wants to finish writing this comment and go write code, and another part wants to open github and start playing with implementations of ideas that have been building up over the past two weeks. In general, something you (1) do often, (2) enjoy while you're doing it (immediate gratification), but (3) don't enjoy having done it in hindsight (gratifying recollection?), can be classified as the bad kind of addictive. That said, a simple change of framing could make this activity non-addictive. If I think of this comment as engaging in a community of philosophical study of sorts, of "partaking in the hive mind", as they say on reddit, of "swimming in a River", as Yegge once called it, the memory of this comment suddenly has meaning and the recollection is suddenly gratifying.
pg 16y ago
We may be talking past one another. Perhaps it would help if you picked out a sentence or passage from the essay that seems false.
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vahakota 16y ago
I'd say "bad enough" is usually judged individually case by case. If somebody decides that their biggest goal in life is to sell as many condoms as possible as a traveling nightclub salesman in order to add to the total amount pleasures felt by mankind, they might consider a habit of getting drawn into reading HN in nightclubs much worse than a habit of getting drawn into grabbing a drink from a hip flask. Basically anything that yields pleasure (or suffering) can affect the way you perceive and evaluate things and make immediate choices in your life. I think this is the basic mechanism of mental addiction. The results of this mechanism can be either good, bad or somewhat of both. I think it's only matter of semantics whether you wish to call things like wanting to take care of your children an "addiction" although they are usually personally and culturally perceived as mainly "good" behavior. I think we culturally attach a nuance of negativeness in the word "addiction" but I don't think Paul's essay really depends on that cultural assumption. I think he is looking at the issue more from the side of the perceiving individual and you are trying more to define some objective measures and semantics for addiction. These are both valid points of view but in my opinion very, very different.
JesseAldridge 16y ago
Addiction limits our ability to choose our actions. If faced with a choice between being addicted and not-addicted to something, a rational person will prefer not being addicted. Therefore addiction is bad. Oxygen is not inherently bad. Dependence on oxygen is bad.

andreyf 16y ago

Here's an example: this back-and-forth between you and Paul was fascinating enough that I read every word, but now that I spent 5 minutes doing it, I realize I'd rather have been working on my startup idea. I didn't realize this as I was reading it, but now that I spent a somewhat significant amount of time reading (and now, also, answering), I wish I hadn't. Part of me wants to finish writing this comment and go write code, and another part wants to open github and start playing with implementations of ideas that have been building up over the past two weeks. In general, something you (1) do often, (2) enjoy while you're doing it (immediate gratification), but (3) don't enjoy having done it in hindsight (gratifying recollection?), can be classified as the bad kind of addictive. That said, a simple change of framing could make this activity non-addictive. If I think of this comment as engaging in a community of philosophical study of sorts, of "partaking in the hive mind", as they say on reddit, of "swimming in a River", as Yegge once called it, the memory of this comment suddenly has meaning and the recollection is suddenly gratifying.

pg 16y ago

We may be talking past one another. Perhaps it would help if you picked out a sentence or passage from the essay that seems false.

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vahakota 16y ago

I'd say "bad enough" is usually judged individually case by case. If somebody decides that their biggest goal in life is to sell as many condoms as possible as a traveling nightclub salesman in order to add to the total amount pleasures felt by mankind, they might consider a habit of getting drawn into reading HN in nightclubs much worse than a habit of getting drawn into grabbing a drink from a hip flask. Basically anything that yields pleasure (or suffering) can affect the way you perceive and evaluate things and make immediate choices in your life. I think this is the basic mechanism of mental addiction. The results of this mechanism can be either good, bad or somewhat of both. I think it's only matter of semantics whether you wish to call things like wanting to take care of your children an "addiction" although they are usually personally and culturally perceived as mainly "good" behavior. I think we culturally attach a nuance of negativeness in the word "addiction" but I don't think Paul's essay really depends on that cultural assumption. I think he is looking at the issue more from the side of the perceiving individual and you are trying more to define some objective measures and semantics for addiction. These are both valid points of view but in my opinion very, very different.

JesseAldridge 16y ago

Addiction limits our ability to choose our actions. If faced with a choice between being addicted and not-addicted to something, a rational person will prefer not being addicted. Therefore addiction is bad. Oxygen is not inherently bad. Dependence on oxygen is bad.