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From my favorite Paul Graham essay, The Acceleration of Addictiveness http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html " Socie
by FrojoS 14y ago
From my favorite Paul Graham essay,
The Acceleration of Addictiveness
http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
"
Societies eventually develop antibodies to addictive new things. I've seen that happen with cigarettes. When cigarettes first appeared, they spread the way an infectious disease spreads through a previously isolated population. Smoking rapidly became a (statistically) normal thing. [...]
As knowledge spread about the dangers of smoking, customs changed."
So yes, porn has always existed. So has smoking. But, industrial cigarettes and broadband porn streaming are "more concentrated forms of less addictive predecessors." and hence they are more dangerous.
PS: Just to clarify, Pg did not mention porn addiction in his essay. He does mention Internet addiction, though.
- pekk 14y agoCharacterizing porn as "more concentrated" does not in any way demonstrate that it is dangerous.
- veidr 14y agoI don't think that anybody is saying "it is dangerous", just "the ubiquitous and instant availability of virtually any kind of high-definition porn is a relatively new thing, and its effects might be different than the wood block prints and paper magazines enjoyed by previous generations".
- philwelch 14y agoIt certainly increases the risk of addiction, which is a danger of sorts.
- rimantas 14y agoSpeaking of internet addictions, posts worth reading: http://mindhacks.com/2007/08/20/why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-internet-addiction/ http://mindhacks.com/2007/08/20/why-there-is-no-such-thing-a... http://mindhacks.com/2008/03/19/internet-addiction-nonsense-hits-the-ajp/ http://mindhacks.com/2008/03/19/internet-addiction-nonsense-...
- SilasX 14y agoInteresting! The same themes have appeared on Lesswrong.com under different names: the "memetic immune system": http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorder/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/18b/reason_as_memetic_immune_disorde... and "super-stimulus": http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_western/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...