I agree with the statement "Just because people choose to do X does not mean that X is good for those people." I am guilty of generalization, again. Nyan c

I agree with the statement "Just because people choose to do X does not mean that X is good for those people." I am guilty of generalization, again. Nyan cat, Farmville, smoking are all examples where the benefit to society is very well hidden. I would say smoking is a perfect example. Smoking kills, makes people sick & those around them, it is a great burden on the health system, etc. Yet millions of people smoke how can this be good for our society. In my humble opinion: It isn't. Smoking, just like gambling hacks the reward system in the brain and makes the hazardous habit rewarding (in the short term). I was tempted to argue that smoking has it's positive sites like higher productivity and so fort. This would have the equivalent to arguing that the WWII was good for the world, crazy. Yes a few innovations came from this catastrophe, but imagine what the 50 million people who died due to it, would have invented. The world would be much better off without this war. Look at the pace of innovation in the past 60 years with few international conflicts for the 1st world countries, war is almost always destructive. Just because people choose to do it, does not mean it is good for them. Agreed! Lets say you take all decisions of people in their life and at the very end of it added it up. Smoking, drinking, the second mortgage on the house to go on holiday, brushing your teeth every morning, buying a newer car, everything. One can only guess what we would find, but my guess is: on average the people tend to do what is good for them. In hindsight it is always easy to say, that was a bad decision, this one was good. But it is impossible to say that Zynga is predominantly bad. It might have saved a few people from social authenticity & suicide, it might have been a complete waste of resources 20 million working people wasted on it. I don't dare to judge. I argue, by looking at the big picture, on average, over decades, people tend to make the decisions that are good for them