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I have a tentative vision of a future where people having access to tools like these breaks the incentive for companies to make people addicts. If drugs free th

by Blahah 3y ago

I have a tentative vision of a future where people having access to tools like these breaks the incentive for companies to make people addicts. If drugs free them from the tyranny of companies exploiting biological weaknesses to make people addicted to what they sell, people regain agency in so many aspects of their lives. Food, drink, drugs, media consumption, consumerism. There's a glimpse of a power structure being dismantled, and humanity being able to take a collective deep breath and think about what we actually want.

zpeti 3y ago
What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? Everything we do, even artistic expression etc is about gaining status, which is ultimately about reproductive success. If we take away the addictive parts of life, which are actually designed for our survival, maybe all our motivation is gone to do anything? I don’t have any answers, but I feel these types of interventions might have huge unforeseen circumstances. I’m still not sure we’ve processed as a species how to handle contraception. We might be heading to massive population collapse because of it. This might be good or bad, I’m not judging, but it’s a massive change in our fundamental workings as a species.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  > What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? All the billboards say no. So I guess not.
avgcorrection 3y ago
Maybe you should be mindful of the needle in your own eye? From atop your high horse. There are human weaknesses to be sure, but the power structure is money, armies, governments, corporation, not “hacking human weaknesses”—that we are helpless to stop the hacking of our “weakness” is just that propaganda itself toned down by one degree. That all it takes is for someone to inject some extra fat and salt into something and then we are powerless to resist. It IS the case that they are doing this. But they are successful because of the sheer, massive scale of it all. Not because there are pleasure-buttons that they can just boop at will. The perennial myth is this Skinner Box idea. But people don't just fall into that mold if you just give them a cheeseburger. They fall into it when the forces against them are overwhelming. Which is the case for the power structure. (People self-regulate just fine in a healthy environment. They don't have to frickin' throw away all earthly temptation—people naturally have the ability to “delay gratification”. But the environment must be healthy. Thus it is wrong to say that people have “biological weaknesses”—people manifest biological weaknesses in unhealthy environments.) The problem IS the power-structure itself. And as long as they exist they will just morph into something else to exploit us. But technologists are often believers in these one-weird-tricks. But no drug will pull the wool from people's eyes—always “people” by the way, something other—in the sense that the power structure will just disappear with the disinfectant of illumination. Of course these technologists/scientists are often better-off with the usual things that correlate with economic means (not education) like being more healthy. And thus it serves their self-aggrandizement to believe that poorer people can be manipulated by just promising them a slice of pizza—helpless to resist their “biological weakness”.

by Blahah 3y ago

zpeti 3y ago

What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? Everything we do, even artistic expression etc is about gaining status, which is ultimately about reproductive success. If we take away the addictive parts of life, which are actually designed for our survival, maybe all our motivation is gone to do anything? I don’t have any answers, but I feel these types of interventions might have huge unforeseen circumstances. I’m still not sure we’ve processed as a species how to handle contraception. We might be heading to massive population collapse because of it. This might be good or bad, I’m not judging, but it’s a massive change in our fundamental workings as a species.

avgcorrection 3y ago
> What do we actually want? I’m just playing devils advocate, but do we actually want anything beyond satisfying our urges to eat and reproduce? All the billboards say no. So I guess not.

avgcorrection 3y ago

Maybe you should be mindful of the needle in your own eye? From atop your high horse. There are human weaknesses to be sure, but the power structure is money, armies, governments, corporation, not “hacking human weaknesses”—that we are helpless to stop the hacking of our “weakness” is just that propaganda itself toned down by one degree. That all it takes is for someone to inject some extra fat and salt into something and then we are powerless to resist. It IS the case that they are doing this. But they are successful because of the sheer, massive scale of it all. Not because there are pleasure-buttons that they can just boop at will. The perennial myth is this Skinner Box idea. But people don't just fall into that mold if you just give them a cheeseburger. They fall into it when the forces against them are overwhelming. Which is the case for the power structure. (People self-regulate just fine in a healthy environment. They don't have to frickin' throw away all earthly temptation—people naturally have the ability to “delay gratification”. But the environment must be healthy. Thus it is wrong to say that people have “biological weaknesses”—people manifest biological weaknesses in unhealthy environments.) The problem IS the power-structure itself. And as long as they exist they will just morph into something else to exploit us. But technologists are often believers in these one-weird-tricks. But no drug will pull the wool from people's eyes—always “people” by the way, something other—in the sense that the power structure will just disappear with the disinfectant of illumination. Of course these technologists/scientists are often better-off with the usual things that correlate with economic means (not education) like being more healthy. And thus it serves their self-aggrandizement to believe that poorer people can be manipulated by just promising them a slice of pizza—helpless to resist their “biological weakness”.