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There's no such thing as an addiction to a normal stimuli. Addiction is a medical word that should be reserved for people dealing with the problems associated w
by superkuh 5y ago
There's no such thing as an addiction to a normal stimuli. Addiction is a medical word that should be reserved for people dealing with the problems associated with taking chemicals that directly alter wanting/desire in the brain. Even "gambling addiction" is just a relic from an uninstrumented past and really should be removed from DSM-6 at this point.
Saying that internet addiction exists (something you won't read about in credible professional journal) is done by for-profit institutes that want you to pay them to talk about and handle "internet addiction". Or by useful ignorants with unrelated incentives.
I get that this guy is just joking around about "addiction" and his approach to dealing with his own motivations seems realistic and useful. But when people start calling something "addiction" and meaning it it inevitably leads to the use of violent force by governments and restriction of freedoms. The "internet" is not addictive and even pretending it is only emboldens the ignorant and malicious.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
- foxhop 5y agoTech & advertising is a supernormal stimulus. https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/#page-1 https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/#pa...
- foxhop 5y agoalisonkisk: "what is the "proper" term for unhealthy urges that are extemely difficult to control?" Addiction.
- vehemenz 5y ago> There's no such thing as an addiction to a normal stimuli. Addiction is a medical word that should be reserved for people dealing with the problems associated with taking chemicals that directly alter wanting/desire in the brain. You're mixing and matching metaphysical claims with prescriptions about how language should be used. When you say "there's no such thing" or "exists" with respect to types of addiction, what exactly are you saying?
- superkuh 5y agoI'm saying that the neurological substrates of addiction are not being manipulated by normal stimuli so it's not addiction. It is not a dissociated wanting divorced for liking caused by direct activation of the substrates that encode wanting. It's just enjoyment of a normal stimuli and people prioritizing what they enjoy. Medicalizing that, pretending there's no personal agency like with dopaminergic drugs, will cause more damage than letting people do what they enjoy. Calling things addictions inevitably justifies and leads to legislation that brings in the use of force and coercion to control people's behavior.
- vehemenz 5y agoThank you for the clarification. I am not a neuroscientist, but might normal stimuli produce similar responses in the brain to chemical ingestion? If that were the case, we would still have a pathology that needs treatment. Despite what we call things, I am confident the addiction model for treatment would still work in many cases. If the addiction model works to treat certain phenomena called "addictions" under that paradigm, then I am not optimistic that the meaning will ever change. You have your interests, and medicine has theirs. Natural language is littered with layman's terms that are inconsistent with reality. Some, like "gender" and "race," have meanings that are so incoherent that any real discussion requires 1,000 words of linguistic stage setting. I think with "addiction" the toothpaste is already out of the tube.