I'm really just replying to this so that I can see my karma score go up and I can get a little endorphin hit, really. But in all seriousness, it seems that the

I'm really just replying to this so that I can see my karma score go up and I can get a little endorphin hit, really. But in all seriousness, it seems that the things that are most destructive are those things that have brains have been trained to drip feel-good chemicals - we distill the essence of that thing and make it easy and cheap to reproduce. Your brain likes it when you eat food because it keeps you alive? Well, it looks like a lot of that is coming from sugar/carbs. How about we put an absurd amount of sugar in water and call it "soda," adding a little caffeine for good measure, and sell it for $1/bottle? Your body reacts pleasantly (in the short-term) to fats? Here's a hamburger. Your body will eventually regret it, and overall the outcome will be negative, but the initial spike will be enough that you either never put the two together, or can't resist it. Evolution has trained you to enjoy reproducing? Well really you just enjoy the act of sex. And actually not even sex per se, it looks like we can stimulate you with a few visuals and something touching you... porn becomes one of the biggest industries that exist. Drugs are a much more literal version of that, distilling what makes your brain act certain ways in a literal sense. But in my mind whether or not something is a "drug" isn't binary; it's a continuum. I'd like to see someone try to take Diet Coke away from my cousin and then convince me it's not a drug. So is candy crush an addiction? For some people, absolutely. They've moved themselves along that continuum. The scary thing is if you have a consumer product, trying to make someone become addicted is pretty much the definition of what you do. Cigarettes are good business; would you start a cigarette company? Soda is good business, would you start a soda company? Brownies are good business, would you start a brownie company? It seems to me that our minds haven't yet adapted to the reality that now the entire world of information is in our pockets, not to mention buzzing and sending us notifications. It's certainly no mystery why people are always so buried in their phones. It really concerns me personally, enough that I turn off all notifications and don't even allow myself to download certain apps, because I know I'd use them. My hosts file is full of sites that are addictive. I don't know what the answer is, but it's something I think about a lot as the founder of a consumer product. I would love people to feel like they have to come back and use my site every day. I'm trying to create that feeling. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know.