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As someone who values a liberal society, I hope we’d be exceedingly careful in what we label “addictive” in the same bucket as oxy or nicotine. I also hope the
by twoodfin 7mo ago
As someone who values a liberal society, I hope we’d be exceedingly careful in what we label “addictive” in the same bucket as oxy or nicotine.
I also hope the reasons are obvious.
- anon84873628 7mo agoI don't think the reasons are obvious. Where do you put gambling on the spectrum?
- tqi 7mo agoWhere would you put 24x7 political content?
- toyg 7mo agoThat's more like perversion...
- anon84873628 7mo agoA little further down then social media apps, but mostly the same. After all, it's the main source of outrage bait for those apps. If we're talking about Fox News or CNN there's less specific user targeting and the delivery mechanism is more constrained.
- twoodfin 7mo agoIf something compels behavior vs. behavior remaining a free choice, a liberal society can and should treat it like any other source of compulsion. Personally, I am leery of any technical definition of “addictive” that operates outside the traditional chemical influences on physiology. So I would not describe gambling in that sense. One might have a malady that causes gambling to take on the same physiological vibe for you, but that’s not what it means for gambling itself to be addictive.
- SoftTalker 7mo agoYou seem to be differentiating between physical and psychological addiction, and saying that only physical addiction meets the technical definition of addiction?
- twoodfin 7mo agoI’m saying society should tread extremely carefully in attempting to regulate citizens’ potentially psychologically addictive behaviors.
- SoftTalker 7mo agoAh OK. Yes I agree, there can be a blurry line between something a person does compulsively/addictively and something that he just enjoys doing. And it's different for different people.
- card_zero 7mo agoTo add to the confusion, sometimes I do stupid things just once. Even so, those things should be banned, for harming me.
- danny_codes 7mo agoGood news, social media has been extensively studied and found to be addictive. So we have little need to tread carefully, we already know it’s addictive. Fortunately it also has minimal to no value to society, so even if we overreacted and banned it completely it’d be fine
- Ferret7446 7mo agoGood news, the thing you like had been found to be addictive. Please relinquish your freedom, this is for your own good.
- 7mo ago
- Zigurd 7mo agoDark patterns are real. Deceptive advertising is real. So-called prediction markets amount to unregulated gambling on any proposition. Many online businesses are whale hunts and the whales are often addicts.
- joecool1029 7mo ago> I hope we’d be exceedingly careful in what we label “addictive” in the same bucket as oxy or nicotine. Not careful enough apparently: Nicotine isn't that addictive on its own, tobacco is.
- mrintegrity 7mo agoHow does that work when nicotine products that are every bit as addictive as tobacco exist, maybe you're just not aware of them? Sitting here with non tobacco snus (Swedish nicotine pouch) under my top lip, something I have been utterly unable to quit. I believe "nicotine free" tobacco would be completely non addictive.
- thin_carapace 7mo agotobacco contains MAO inhibiting compounds, which potentiate nicotine and increase addiction potential. that doesnt mean nicotine on its own isnt insanely addictive, i have no idea what the guy youre responding to is talking about. however, MAOIs were withdrawn as antidepressants for a good reason - they have a terrible withdrawal all on their own.
- ien24sdq 7mo agoGwern has a pretty good post on it: https://gwern.net/nicotine https://gwern.net/nicotine Intuitively, why would you chew nicontine gum to stop smoking if it was just as addictive as cigarettes?
- thin_carapace 7mo agothis article isnt as relevant as when it was written. eg regarding price, cigarette taxation has skyrocketed in certain countries. furthermore, the depicted studies were performed prior to the proliferation of disposable vapes - i somehow doubt that the idea of infinite nicotine on tap was accounted for. as to your question, some individuals find cutting down to be easier than cold turkeying. personally i opt for the latter, although this strategy should not be universally applied (eg. alcohol withdrawal may induce seizures). at the end of the day i find smoking (not vaping or gum) to be a net neutral - controlled motivation, treatment of schizophrenia symptoms, and neuroprotectivity are balanced out by addiction potential, shortening of lifespan, and reduced red blood cell count.
- hnlmorg 7mo agoWe already have a distinction because it’s been known for decades already that some things are addictive purely through reinforcement psychology and some things lock people into a chemical dependence. For example see the glossary in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_dependence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_dependence
- LorenPechtel 7mo agoAnd for some reason we only use "addiction" to describe things that are recreational in nature, not drugs that have no recreational use but can be quite dangerous to discontinue abruptly.
- hnlmorg 7mo agoI’m not a doctor but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Substances like caffeine, sugar, and painkillers are definitely still referred to as “addictive”. Whereas substances like sertraline (antidepressant) are referred to as a “dependence” because it’s dangerous to discontinue abruptly (as you said) but there isn’t any psychological addiction involved.
- rimunroe 7mo agoTo elaborate, I think experts usually use these terms as follows: an addiction is something where you have a continuous and difficult to resist drive to keep doing/using something due to it being inherently rewarding. A dependence is something where if you stop regularly doing/using something you’ll experience some sort of withdrawal.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- Sir_Twist 7mo agoI feel like people use the word “addiction” to refer to both chemical addiction and behavioral addiction, and that people understand that the latter is (usually) far less serious than the former.
- cedws 7mo agoI don't think you can put them into buckets like that. All addiction is driven in persuit of a reward. The magnitude of reward can be estimated with brain scans and stuff but to my understanding isn't universal in all humans. Can we definitely say gambling addiction is less serious than alcohol addiction when there's individuals who find the former harder to quit than the latter?
- JKCalhoun 7mo ago"I hope we’d be exceedingly careful in what we label “addictive”…" To be sure. But still an obviously dumb thing for a CEO to say though.
- btmiller 7mo agoThere’s a big distance between libertarian and liberal societies. The libertarian tendencies of corporations are what tend to cause more harm.
- cyanydeez 7mo agoSocial media is addictive the same way anorexia is. If you think Anorexia isn't a form of addiction, then sure, you got your 'safety'.
- nkrisc 7mo agoKeep in mind that this case is about about a minor, not an adult. I don't think it's fair to ask children to resist social media through sheer willpower when there are legions of highly educated adults on the other side trying to increase engagement. It should be no surprise that children can be manipulated by highly intelligent adults.
- Barbing 7mo ago>[There are] legions of highly educated adults [at Meta] trying to increase [child] engagement Why is this not only OK but the best way for Mark to spend every waking moment of his life? Money thing? But often would he think about his bank account versus his products, maybe it’s pure drive?
- randycupertino 7mo agoI just wish for once one of these egomaniacal billionaires would actually put all their efforts and resources into solving climate change or ending world hunger. Even his medical initiative Chan-Zuckerberg biohub is a self-congratulatory shell game. I worked in the same building as them for years, literally all they did was have parties, conferences, networking events and self-congratulatory schmooze things and never prioritized actual lab research or clinical advancements.
- jarjoura 7mo agoI just find it ridiculous that we as a society have allowed CEOs to become that wealthy. It's one thing to make your money from lucky investments, and become a billionaire. It's another to get there by simply running a corporation.
- Nevermark 7mo agoI don't mind them getting uberwealthy. I mind the tolerance of society when some of these billionaires make their money on the back of negative externalities. When "small" conflicts, like unpermissioned surveillance they use to psychological leverage against us, literally paying for content that gets eyeballs without taking any responsibility for the misinformation and hate they are financing to get produced, actively algorithmically pushing attention getting material without taking any responsibly for misinformation or hate material they are actively promoting, when they get paid for ads, but take no responsibility for taking money from scams and promoting them, and all the other seemingly "minor" but pervasive negative externalities that they hyper scale, people get hurt, and all of society gets degraded. As everyone points out: incentives. If you don't take perverse incentives away from billionaires, or continue to give them perverse safe harbors, then those billionaires will relentlessly reinvest and innovate, in more harms, at ever greater scales. Things we still think are minor ethical issues, are not when they are hyper scaled. This isn't some passive, life is rough sometimes situation, that people should be expected to weather. This highly financed, highly managed psychological, social and political harm, for profit. Even if the harm is distributed and seemingly low in any given incident. It adds up to a visibly degraded society. Somehow social media gets treated with all the lack of responsibility of a neutral web site server. But they are highly active in how they operate. They should be responsible for their very active choices.
- yabutlivnWoods 7mo agoMmhmm those are words. Words that are hand wavy pretexts for conservatism rather than liberalism; as a lover of liberal society you hope it acts conservatively! This just comes off as poorly obfuscated self selection. You own a bunch of Meta, Alphabet and other media stocks?
- janalsncm 7mo ago> I also hope the reasons are obvious. Based on the fact that many people here disagree about fundamental things, as well as the fact that “liberal” is a highly overloaded term, I think it should be obvious that it’s not obvious what you mean.
- bsder 7mo ago> As someone who values a liberal society, I hope we’d be exceedingly careful in what we label “addictive” in the same bucket as oxy or nicotine. The problem is that this runs directly into the evidence that is mounting from GLP-1 agonists. A lot more things are tied to the pathways we associate with "addiction" than we thought.
- array_key_first 7mo agoSpecifically when it comes to children, we need to show more restraint in giving them the liberty to partake in potentially addictive substances. It's one thing if an adult smokes and gambles, it's another thing if a child does. It seems to me that stuff you do in youth tends to stick around for life.
- cindyllm 7mo ago[dead]
- recursive 7mo agoProhibition? Despite your hopes I'm not sure I got your intent.
- zombar 7mo agoWhat's obvious to me likely isn't obvious to you or anyone else, therefore nothing is obvious. I wish we'd delete that word from the English language.
- hsuduebc2 7mo agoWhat wording would you use then if the definition fit? You can use minor addiction or severe addiction but it's still an one.
- keybored 7mo agoWhy is it that these philosophical ideas about supposed personal freedom again and again make an appearance when it’s about the freedom of corporations? It’s always that. Either that or with the Free User pushed infront of them like a shield.
- Valakas_ 7mo agoAs someone who values a conservative society, I hope we'd be exceedingly careful before releasing products to consumers before knowing whether they're addictive or not.