I liked your post, and agree with it. Instead of arguing about whether ethical statements are meaningful given the lack of an explicitly chosen ethical system,

I liked your post, and agree with it. Instead of arguing about whether ethical statements are meaningful given the lack of an explicitly chosen ethical system, we could just try to think about what systems are compatible with the claims you made. Utilitarianism seems to back up your argument just fine, since you suggest that you don't object to using powerful addiction techniques in principle, which suggests you're not being deontological -- you care mainly about real-world results. Presumably you'd be much more accepting of Zynga-style gamification when used to encourage things like Wikipedia editing, or to motivate successful weight loss. You suggest that what actually matters is the consequences on someone's life and time of using these techniques, which is a consequentialist argument. So, while you haven't committed to using a utilitarian framework, I think that users posting here who want to talk about moral framework assumptions could start by assuming utilitarianism and asking whether your conclusion makes sense. Seems like it does to me; it's not easy to imagine Farmville (or anything with similarly cynical intent) as a net positive on the world.