The Acceleration of Addictiveness(paulgraham.com)
paulgraham.com
The Acceleration of Addictiveness
http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html
287 comments
Alcohol is a dangerous drug, but I'd rather live in a world with wine than one without.
I don't believe PG has properly thought this statement through. It's extremely, unbelievably selfish. I like wine myself, but alcohol brings so much misery to the world! If I were offered a reliable method to make our Earth a world without alcohol (say, by tweaking the machinery of the human brain ever-so-subtly so that alcohol no longer works), but it entailed killing a random person in the street, I'd do it without a second thought.
I don't believe PG has properly thought this statement through. It's extremely, unbelievably selfish. I like wine myself, but alcohol brings so much misery to the world! If I were offered a reliable method to make our Earth a world without alcohol (say, by tweaking the machinery of the human brain ever-so-subtly so that alcohol no longer works), but it entailed killing a random person in the street, I'd do it without a second thought.
> It's extremely, unbelievably selfish. I like wine myself, but alcohol brings so much misery to the world!
And so much happiness! I'm more of a beer man myself, but drinking alcohol in good company is something millions (billions?) of people get pleasure out of. Only a small proportion of alcohol users harm themselves or others through it.
And so much happiness! I'm more of a beer man myself, but drinking alcohol in good company is something millions (billions?) of people get pleasure out of. Only a small proportion of alcohol users harm themselves or others through it.
Oh, I'm completely on board with the happiness! Sometime ago I quoted "loud music, alcohol and girls" as the closest thing to "eternal values" or "meaning of life" that I have :-) But I live in Russia and can see the misery of others, because I'm not blind. Alcoholism is a huge problem here.
Who are you to decide what others cannot do? If I want to drink wine occasionally (which I do) or take drugs (which I don't) and I don't cause any harm to others, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to.
By the conditions of PG's dilemma, I'm offered the power to choose between two possible worlds, nothing more, nothing less. If I could remove alcoholism without removing casual wine consumption, of course that would be preferable, but this choice isn't on the menu of the thought experiment.
Any world I choose will make some people better off and other people worse off (that's inevitable), but not in equal degrees (fallacy of gray - thinking that all gray is the same color). While making the choice, I don't have a strict deontological prohibition that freedom of any single person must never decrease, all else be damned. If saving one person from extreme harm requires reducing the consumer options of two other persons, I go for it. It's a matter of balance, you have to weigh all the consequences, not just the ones that affect you.
To disagree with my original comment you'd have to believe that a world with alcohol is truly better than a world without. I don't think you believe that. To determine your real opinion, imagine you're given the option of introducing another new addictive substance to the Earth's population. You know in advance that it will spread worldwide, such-and-such percentage of humans will be affected, and such-and-such percentage will lose everything they had and die miserable deaths as a result. To counterbalance that, some other people will have fun using the substance casually. Would you introduce the substance? How is this different from introducing alcohol to a world without it? And how is that different from choosing one possible world over the other?
Any world I choose will make some people better off and other people worse off (that's inevitable), but not in equal degrees (fallacy of gray - thinking that all gray is the same color). While making the choice, I don't have a strict deontological prohibition that freedom of any single person must never decrease, all else be damned. If saving one person from extreme harm requires reducing the consumer options of two other persons, I go for it. It's a matter of balance, you have to weigh all the consequences, not just the ones that affect you.
To disagree with my original comment you'd have to believe that a world with alcohol is truly better than a world without. I don't think you believe that. To determine your real opinion, imagine you're given the option of introducing another new addictive substance to the Earth's population. You know in advance that it will spread worldwide, such-and-such percentage of humans will be affected, and such-and-such percentage will lose everything they had and die miserable deaths as a result. To counterbalance that, some other people will have fun using the substance casually. Would you introduce the substance? How is this different from introducing alcohol to a world without it? And how is that different from choosing one possible world over the other?
I do believe that a world where people have the right to choose whether to consume alcohol (or consume drugs) is better than a world where these decisions are made for them.
You're not talking about the whole world, only one aspect of it. Maybe you meant to say "all else equal", but all else is not equal: people are suffering because of alcohol that wouldn't have suffered without it. Are you saying that's unimportant compared with people's freedom to consume wine? Are you unwilling to trade freedom for happiness on principle, no matter how many units of happiness people get for relinquishing one unit of freedom? Or is there a calculation behind your reasoning?
"Are you unwilling to trade freedom for happiness"
For the claim of happiness promised by authoritarian control - I would certainly not be happy to make such a choice.
For the claim of happiness promised by authoritarian control - I would certainly not be happy to make such a choice.
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You'd kill a random person in the street for a world without alcohol, and you think PG statement is "extremely, unbelievably selfish". Why the idea of sacrifying yourself instead didn't come first ?
Yep, I'd sacrifice myself if that was what was asked instead. The reason I mentioned "killing a random person on the street" is that it's more informative - it sets a higher bar for the required world improvement. My morals say that killing someone else without reason is strictly worse than killing myself, so there exist possible world improvements for which I'd agree to kill myself, but refuse to kill a random person.
Your decision is not fully weighted as you don't know if in the world without wine people won't invent another much more dangerous thing that will ruin the lives of even more people and which will be even more harder to consume casually.
Internet use seems to be my "ground state", what I fall into when I'm done with the stuff I have to do. But recently I've realized that, even though it's addictive, I don't really find it all that relaxing. So I've been trying to reclaim my old ground state of reading books. The internet for me is like the concentrated form of reading a book: you don't have to stay with any one topic longer than it holds your interest. You can move from interesting factoid to personal anecdote to hilarious cat macro without "wasting" any time on background or depth.
I think the counter-addiction technology will have to be psychological. Perhaps research could determine if certain practices make people more resistant to addictive things, and it could become customary to have such a practice. Meditation, self-hypnosis, ritual, counseling, introspection. Maybe just doing things that are hard. I suppose there is a danger that any of those could become addictive. Maybe the best you can hope for is to have a choice of what you're addicted to.
I think the counter-addiction technology will have to be psychological. Perhaps research could determine if certain practices make people more resistant to addictive things, and it could become customary to have such a practice. Meditation, self-hypnosis, ritual, counseling, introspection. Maybe just doing things that are hard. I suppose there is a danger that any of those could become addictive. Maybe the best you can hope for is to have a choice of what you're addicted to.
Y'know, yesterday I declared it "internet-free Sunday" and just turned my internet connection off. I was amazed by how many hours there were in the day. I did some exercise, read some books, went shopping, read some more books, fixed some things around the house I'd been meaning to fix, did some writing, and watched a movie I'd been meaning to watch. I was sad when it came around to Monday and I had to sit in front of a computer again.
Internet usage is a crappy ground state. You can easily do six things at once, all borderline-interesting, none useful. I think I'll make internet-free Sunday a weekly event.
Internet usage is a crappy ground state. You can easily do six things at once, all borderline-interesting, none useful. I think I'll make internet-free Sunday a weekly event.
Very interesting essay. Internet addiction is in my opinion spreading like wildfire, spreading well beyond procrastination as Paul Graham said and actually impacting workspace and home environments extremely negatively - the analogy to alcohol is spot on. You aren't procrastinating, you are the equivalent of drunk.
Introspectively, the problem with my addiction lies in the acceleration of production as well as distribution. There are more movies being produced, more novels being written, and more content in general to consume. Technology has been making producing these mediums easier and easier. Musicians used to have to write down lyrics and notes on paper - now there are programs which can practically generate a whole song for them. News can be written by your friends who just got the latest scoop at a major conference. Producing content has never been easier.
At the same time on the distribution side, the internet has made all this content available at your finger tips instantly. As bandwidth increased, it became almost too easy to spend 10 minutes watching news or entertaining on YouTube or a myriad of other free media streaming sites.
These processes will only get more efficient and more effective. As a corollary, the media which seems highly targeted and interesting to you will become increasingly prevalent.
There are no easy answers, and I for one am taking the issue relatively seriously. Getting away for extended periods of time without internet is vital - which is also why I don't own a smart phone.
Introspectively, the problem with my addiction lies in the acceleration of production as well as distribution. There are more movies being produced, more novels being written, and more content in general to consume. Technology has been making producing these mediums easier and easier. Musicians used to have to write down lyrics and notes on paper - now there are programs which can practically generate a whole song for them. News can be written by your friends who just got the latest scoop at a major conference. Producing content has never been easier.
At the same time on the distribution side, the internet has made all this content available at your finger tips instantly. As bandwidth increased, it became almost too easy to spend 10 minutes watching news or entertaining on YouTube or a myriad of other free media streaming sites.
These processes will only get more efficient and more effective. As a corollary, the media which seems highly targeted and interesting to you will become increasingly prevalent.
There are no easy answers, and I for one am taking the issue relatively seriously. Getting away for extended periods of time without internet is vital - which is also why I don't own a smart phone.
I wish I were kidding when I say that I had sworn off HN for a few weeks to make sure i sufficiently devoted myself to a project. I lasted 2 days and the first thing I see back is this essay at the top of the front page.
There is a broader underlying cause for these addictions. We can't adapt our culture fast enough to address technological change. What applies to these new addictions equally applies to our laws and other social customs. And through other parts of science. Cloning, Stem cells, privacy laws, DRM etc. In the broader context these are all unsettled ideas for our civilization. Example of settled areas from an ethics standpoint - slaves, civil rights, women's right, property ownership, etc.
I remember a philosophy professor discussing this a decade ago. And as time has gone by what she said has made more and more sense. Maybe because technology continues to accelerate while relatively speaking our social customs stay (nearly) the same.
EDIT: added to it. Clarified.
I remember a philosophy professor discussing this a decade ago. And as time has gone by what she said has made more and more sense. Maybe because technology continues to accelerate while relatively speaking our social customs stay (nearly) the same.
EDIT: added to it. Clarified.
Letting others be the canaries in the coalmine is a great strategy. This is what the Amish have been doing.
150 years ago, they were not that different from the surrounding culture. They became distinct as the pace of innovation took off.
As new innovations come, they allow a whole generation to consume it on the outside, then consider adopting it only after it's been out for decades.
They seem kinda weird to us, but its a very wise strategy. Just because its shiny doesn't mean its helpful for human living.
150 years ago, they were not that different from the surrounding culture. They became distinct as the pace of innovation took off.
As new innovations come, they allow a whole generation to consume it on the outside, then consider adopting it only after it's been out for decades.
They seem kinda weird to us, but its a very wise strategy. Just because its shiny doesn't mean its helpful for human living.
You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly.
This is a great line. Never seen it articulated quite as well.
This is a great line. Never seen it articulated quite as well.
Most of the time we don't see surfing as pure procrastination that's why after spending too many hours we don't feel guilty. We are expecting the indirect returns of reading this or that, in the back of our minds.
Actually, iPhone is really useful location & time specific information gathering device. If you dont put your tweet,rss or any push notification apps (facebook included), than it realy enhance the way of life. I found it several times useful when i am looking for a book at bookstore and get very quick facts about the book.
The real dangerous device is iPad. From the day i have, i could not put it away. Its really content consuming device. My nights in my bed are no longer have the serenity of reading books but frenzy of consuming content channels.
Sometimes Gladwell's words keep coming to me: clearing big spaces of time. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6058607n
Actually, iPhone is really useful location & time specific information gathering device. If you dont put your tweet,rss or any push notification apps (facebook included), than it realy enhance the way of life. I found it several times useful when i am looking for a book at bookstore and get very quick facts about the book.
The real dangerous device is iPad. From the day i have, i could not put it away. Its really content consuming device. My nights in my bed are no longer have the serenity of reading books but frenzy of consuming content channels.
Sometimes Gladwell's words keep coming to me: clearing big spaces of time. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6058607n
As a possible weakening of the addiction classification, I'd hazard that what may seem as Addiction is actually just Fashion.
Both Addiction and Fashion can be harmful... anorexia(addiction) and size-zero(fashion), but they are different.
Fashions may be all consuming for a long period, but then they change, often swiftly and brutally. A shift in customs (large,lengthy) is not required for a shift in Fashion.
Fashion and addiction can co-exist, and I'll offer an anecdote. The Dance Music scene in 1999.
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Here there was some people with a bona-fide addiction to dance party drugs (real addicts) co-existing with those who indulged in light drug taking in the fashion for dance parties. Dance parties grew to quite an peak and the associated drug intake too. But when the dance music scene burnt out in favour of rock... the fashion drug element receded with it.
Both Addiction and Fashion can be harmful... anorexia(addiction) and size-zero(fashion), but they are different.
Fashions may be all consuming for a long period, but then they change, often swiftly and brutally. A shift in customs (large,lengthy) is not required for a shift in Fashion.
Fashion and addiction can co-exist, and I'll offer an anecdote. The Dance Music scene in 1999.
.
Here there was some people with a bona-fide addiction to dance party drugs (real addicts) co-existing with those who indulged in light drug taking in the fashion for dance parties. Dance parties grew to quite an peak and the associated drug intake too. But when the dance music scene burnt out in favour of rock... the fashion drug element receded with it.
PG, would you say your long hikes are something like extended versions of the shower thinking of "The Top Idea in Your Mind", or are they more directed thinking--as in, "I want to think hard about this particular problem, so I'll go on a hike to accomplish that."
This is what happens when our technology outpaces our culture and becomes a danger to us.
I'm reminded of the atomic bomb: we had the technology to destroy ourselves before (we feared) we had the emotional and cultural institutions to show restraint.
In this case, what's become dangerous is the technology of satisfying human desire.
We see this in pretty much every designed human experience, to varying degrees. Yes, it's in World of Warcraft and Twitter on your iPhone and crystal meth. But it's also in game mechanics in your hybrid car's display, airline loyalty programs, and summer camp rituals that keep campers coming back every year.
All the things in your life that know how to push the happy button.
Very thought-provoking essay.
I'm reminded of the atomic bomb: we had the technology to destroy ourselves before (we feared) we had the emotional and cultural institutions to show restraint.
In this case, what's become dangerous is the technology of satisfying human desire.
We see this in pretty much every designed human experience, to varying degrees. Yes, it's in World of Warcraft and Twitter on your iPhone and crystal meth. But it's also in game mechanics in your hybrid car's display, airline loyalty programs, and summer camp rituals that keep campers coming back every year.
All the things in your life that know how to push the happy button.
Very thought-provoking essay.
"You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly."
Based on available statistics, middle schoolers and high schoolers spend 4-5 hours a day watching TV. But in middle school and high school, I heard my classmates discussing television fairly infrequently, presumably because TV is not a very cool subject to discuss. So the guy who didn't watch any TV (me) didn't seem weird--for that reason, at least.
Based on available statistics, middle schoolers and high schoolers spend 4-5 hours a day watching TV. But in middle school and high school, I heard my classmates discussing television fairly infrequently, presumably because TV is not a very cool subject to discuss. So the guy who didn't watch any TV (me) didn't seem weird--for that reason, at least.
Mobile phones have always scared me, these are no doubt addictive and possibly very bad for ones health. In the sense that one is putting a transmitter which is outputting up to half a watt right up to your head. As a electrical engineer this was instinctively insane to me. We have long since forgotten the alarm bells which some sounded about this process, I only hope that we don't see a major backlash, like we did with asbestos etc etc.
> I suspect the recent resurgence of evangelical Christianity in the US is partly a reaction to drugs.
I think it's wider than that: religious fundamentalism is a response to the future shock Alvin Toffler wrote about. Christian (and Muslim) fundamentalists find the world a scary place and want to retreat into a mythical past that has more certainty in it.
I think it's wider than that: religious fundamentalism is a response to the future shock Alvin Toffler wrote about. Christian (and Muslim) fundamentalists find the world a scary place and want to retreat into a mythical past that has more certainty in it.
I'm glad Paul Graham doesn't write new essays very often. Constantly checking his website for new ones is a bad enough addiction as it is. Reading and discussing a new one every day would keep me from getting much work done. So far, though, it's been a very helpful "addiction". Keep the essays coming (but not too quickly)!
It's funny; I have always had what I considered an addictive personality.
Yet, neither cigarettes nor hard liquor have managed to snare me, and I gave both quite a fair shot. Nor has WoW wrapped me in it's tendrils.
The ironic thing is I definitely have fixations and addictions, but they are to stupid things you never would have thought you could be addicted to.
Yet, neither cigarettes nor hard liquor have managed to snare me, and I gave both quite a fair shot. Nor has WoW wrapped me in it's tendrils.
The ironic thing is I definitely have fixations and addictions, but they are to stupid things you never would have thought you could be addicted to.
Using the word 'addiction' to refer to things that are not physically addictive is one of my pet peeves. He addresses this point somewhat and I realize that it is a very common colloquial use, but it shouldn't be. It strongly conflates the two problems when in reality they are orthogonal concepts that interact.
[deleted]
The delay to switch from "everybody's smoking" and "only losers smoke" seems much shorter to me. Simply see any 80's movie (Terminator, for instance): everybody's smoking (cops, thieves, etc). 15 years later smoking in San Francisco was enough to get angry looks.
Life is Addiction.
It is because same instinct that keeps us alive works when we get addicted.
Addiction is fun some time but painful at times. Just like life. We are rarely happy still everyone wants to live. Then everyone is in same boat, we all are addicted.
It is because same instinct that keeps us alive works when we get addicted.
Addiction is fun some time but painful at times. Just like life. We are rarely happy still everyone wants to live. Then everyone is in same boat, we all are addicted.
Coincidentally I just came back from camping. No tv, no phone etc. No matter what else I have tried it just won't give me the perspective I have now. I'm outside looking in - Freedom but also total control actually.
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I get more dopamine from HN than from any other substance yet discovered.
another golden essay. i love the concise writing style.
I'm glad I got a new fix of PG essays. I was starting to experience withdrawal symptoms. ;)
Perhaps the only thing saving us from enslavement to superstimulus is the hedonic treadmill.
And vice-versa.
And vice-versa.
Of course, the Amish are way ahead of everyone there. Choosing for slowness, and especially, thinking about what they're willing to take on or not, and where and how (eg computer at the office but not at home). It probably helps to have a community around you, both to support the 'privations' and, to lessen the need for addictants.
Amish Hackers: How the Amish actually use and build their own tech (kk.org)
86 points by whatusername 196 days ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1046378
86 points by whatusername 196 days ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1046378
The link to the Paleolithic diet made me think that one strategy against increasing addition is to normalize for evolutionary time. Still requires a lot of learned, subjective insight. But basically, anything that has proved itself via evolution is more sturdy and is worth congregating around (these include immediate things that affect the body, but also the evolution of societies, etc.).
Bravo on another great essay though. This made me smile:
You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly.
Bravo on another great essay though. This made me smile:
You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly.
"(these include immediate things that affect the body, but also the evolution of societies, etc.)"
This is really much of the appeal of Christianity, and other forms of culture that have survived some test of time. I say this in response to pg's foot note:
"Unless we mass produce social customs. I suspect the recent resurgence of evangelical Christianity in the US is partly a reaction to drugs."
Not just drugs, but all the different things pg cites as addictive. Plugging in to older value systems is one way of putting a brake on those impulses. This, of course, is true of many other religious and cultural systems that have stood the test of time, not just Christianity.
I am also struck by how successful families and subcultures often have strong mechanisms in place to stigmatize these addictive impulses. Modelling self control and discipline has a lot to do with how success and prosperity is transferred across generations. By itself, accumulated cash will dissipate very quickly if the necessary character traits are not transferred along with it.
This is really much of the appeal of Christianity, and other forms of culture that have survived some test of time. I say this in response to pg's foot note:
"Unless we mass produce social customs. I suspect the recent resurgence of evangelical Christianity in the US is partly a reaction to drugs."
Not just drugs, but all the different things pg cites as addictive. Plugging in to older value systems is one way of putting a brake on those impulses. This, of course, is true of many other religious and cultural systems that have stood the test of time, not just Christianity.
I am also struck by how successful families and subcultures often have strong mechanisms in place to stigmatize these addictive impulses. Modelling self control and discipline has a lot to do with how success and prosperity is transferred across generations. By itself, accumulated cash will dissipate very quickly if the necessary character traits are not transferred along with it.
Modern evangelical Christianity is very much a mass-market phenomenon. It doesn't exist without Glenn Beck and his ilk, who are very much artifacts of the Internet echo chamber (though they perhaps owe more to Fox News, cable news being a bit of a prototype for the Internet's monotonous assault on reason.)
It's very fashionable in the hacker community to treat Christianity as an anti-science establishment, but that's really a brash generalization that isn't even supported by facts. You'll even find a lot of evangelical Christians who are stauch proponents of the theory of evolution.
It's a rather tired meme that Evangelicals are engaging in an all-out assault on the scientific establishment, when that simply isn't true. There is a large, vocal evangelical contingent that espouses creationism, but 'evangelicals' are a much more complex and noisy bunch than one might expect.
To put it simply: I've been to quite a few churches that were direct examples of the overload culture that PG is writing about. Some of them were evangelical, most of them had congregations whose political beliefs are in no way uniform. And again, evangelical is in no way a synonym for right-wing. PG is overreaching here. But, it was a footnote, so I've already gone on more than is justified.
It's very fashionable in the hacker community to treat Christianity as an anti-science establishment, but that's really a brash generalization that isn't even supported by facts. You'll even find a lot of evangelical Christians who are stauch proponents of the theory of evolution.
It's a rather tired meme that Evangelicals are engaging in an all-out assault on the scientific establishment, when that simply isn't true. There is a large, vocal evangelical contingent that espouses creationism, but 'evangelicals' are a much more complex and noisy bunch than one might expect.
To put it simply: I've been to quite a few churches that were direct examples of the overload culture that PG is writing about. Some of them were evangelical, most of them had congregations whose political beliefs are in no way uniform. And again, evangelical is in no way a synonym for right-wing. PG is overreaching here. But, it was a footnote, so I've already gone on more than is justified.
I really wish I didn't down-vote this. I got derailed by what I thought was going to be a short-sighted rant about Christians and Glenn Beck. In short, however, I think you're right on the money.
Many Christians I know refer to modern evangelical Christianity as "evangelicalism." It connotes a social construction that has its roots in church life, but its purpose is a far cry from a biblical understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. IMO, this accounts for the rise of Beck, Limbaugh, and other talking heads. They preach a message that isn't watered down. They sound impassioned and convictional, unlike the guy standing in front of them on Sunday morning.
Many Christians I know refer to modern evangelical Christianity as "evangelicalism." It connotes a social construction that has its roots in church life, but its purpose is a far cry from a biblical understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. IMO, this accounts for the rise of Beck, Limbaugh, and other talking heads. They preach a message that isn't watered down. They sound impassioned and convictional, unlike the guy standing in front of them on Sunday morning.
Possibly related: Apparently, India is somewhat perplexed by a resurgence of spirituality among the highly educated. No real effect in rural areas, but the heavy earners are becoming uncharacteristically religious.
> Not just drugs, but all the different things pg cites as addictive. Plugging in to older value systems is one way of putting a brake on those impulses. This, of course, is true of many other religious and cultural systems that have stood the test of time, not just Christianity.
I hope I was not the only one who instantly thought of Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_ and its phyles (especially the Victorians).
I hope I was not the only one who instantly thought of Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_ and its phyles (especially the Victorians).
I thought exactly of that, too!
Just didn't get around to working it into my comment. :)
I remember reading that, wondering who is today's equivalent of the Victorians. (The Victorians, of course, were the historical equivalent of the Victorians.)
Just didn't get around to working it into my comment. :)
I remember reading that, wondering who is today's equivalent of the Victorians. (The Victorians, of course, were the historical equivalent of the Victorians.)
> I remember reading that, wondering who is today's equivalent of the Victorians.
Inside the US? I'd go with the Amish first, inasmuch as they pretty much are from the Victorian era. (Technically they were much earlier, but I figure they've drifted that far forward.)
Outside of small or weird groups, I would guess the Asian-Americans (Japan/China/South Korea, to be exact) are the closest in their high valuation of education, thrift, repressed social mores, and reputation.
Inside the US? I'd go with the Amish first, inasmuch as they pretty much are from the Victorian era. (Technically they were much earlier, but I figure they've drifted that far forward.)
Outside of small or weird groups, I would guess the Asian-Americans (Japan/China/South Korea, to be exact) are the closest in their high valuation of education, thrift, repressed social mores, and reputation.
The Paleolithic diet is one of the dumbest ideas I've encountered in my entire life. Its followers tend to discount vast piles of medical research in favor of tiny experiments that suggest what they hope to be true. This kind of behavior is common for adherents of any fringe diet, but paleo goes a step further.
Even its concept is flawed. Some things it discards, such as wheat are barely changed from what our ancestors were eating long before agriculture or town settlements. One reason wheat was adopted so widely so early is that it didn't need to change much to be domesticated (see Guns Germs and Steel). Strawberries on the other hand, weren't domesticated until medieval times, and the same is true of many nuts, most notably almonds. Cattle has also undergone a far larger genetic transformation than many of our primary grain crops. Most damning to the idea of a paleo diet is that we have, too.
Human evolution has clearly accelerated with population growth. According to some anthropologists, modern humans differ more from those 5,000 years ago than those humans differed from Neanderthal.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1043228620071210
In short, the paleo diet rests on flawed assumptions about evolution, the history of agriculture and ignores the main body of nutritional research and is rightfully considered a fad diet by the NHS and similar organizations.
Edit: It's also horribly unsustainable. A hummer-driving vegan doesn't have anywhere near the ecological footprint of a bicycle-riding "paleo" dieter.
Even its concept is flawed. Some things it discards, such as wheat are barely changed from what our ancestors were eating long before agriculture or town settlements. One reason wheat was adopted so widely so early is that it didn't need to change much to be domesticated (see Guns Germs and Steel). Strawberries on the other hand, weren't domesticated until medieval times, and the same is true of many nuts, most notably almonds. Cattle has also undergone a far larger genetic transformation than many of our primary grain crops. Most damning to the idea of a paleo diet is that we have, too.
Human evolution has clearly accelerated with population growth. According to some anthropologists, modern humans differ more from those 5,000 years ago than those humans differed from Neanderthal.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1043228620071210
In short, the paleo diet rests on flawed assumptions about evolution, the history of agriculture and ignores the main body of nutritional research and is rightfully considered a fad diet by the NHS and similar organizations.
Edit: It's also horribly unsustainable. A hummer-driving vegan doesn't have anywhere near the ecological footprint of a bicycle-riding "paleo" dieter.
> The Paleolithic diet is one of the dumbest ideas I've encountered in my entire life. Its followers tend to discount vast piles of medical research in favor of tiny experiments that suggest what they hope to be true. This kind of behavior is common for adherents of any fringe diet, but paleo goes a step further
While there is indeed a paleo re-enactment fringe that tries to live as they understand our ancient ancestors would, not just nutrition-wise, I find that there's actually a good bit of research-based and evidence-based thinking going over these "vast piles of medical research" you mention and finding that they don't really support the current accepted dogma of nutritional recommendations, and that indeed this research is pretty flimsy itself, if you were to believe Taubes, Lustig, Cordain, Eades, others, and tellingly now there is an alarming increase in obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases as an apparently direct result of the public by-and-large complying with common-wisdom "healthy" recommendations.
> Even its concept is flawed. Some things it discards, such as wheat are barely changed from what our ancestors were eating long before agriculture or town settlements
Oh? Wheat requires several months from cultivation to being ready for consumption. Perhaps it was consumed "long before agriculture or town settlements" but then it seems quite implausible that it would amount to anything significant in terms of nutrition, not to mention that it still requires quite a bit of processing before it can be eaten so it isn't exactly readily available nutrients.
But lets for a moment assume that yes, there have been many changes and genetic transformations to fruits, nuts, the meats we consume and ourselves. How is it unreasonable, given the catastrophic results of following current nutritional dogma, to look into our over 2 Million- year evolutionary history for clues on what we may be doing wrong, and noting that we've had agriculture for only 0.5% of that time. Even if after agriculture our rate of change multiplied 10-fold, we would still have a nutritional heritage of over 95% of our history where we most likely did not consume, in general, 60-80% of our nutrients from grains and certainly not from sugar, or refined vegetable oils.
That sounds like a pretty good clue to me.
> is rightfully considered a fad diet by the NHS and similar organizations
And then people all over are giving these ideas a go, and lo! they're feeling better, losing their excess weight, reversing chronic diseases, feeling energetic, not having hunger ups-and-downs, not feeling bloated, etc. (granted, this is all anecdotal evidence) And yet this is one of the dumbest ideas you've encountered in your entire life? You must be pretty lucky having a life of plentiful great ideas.
> It's also horribly unsustainable. A hummer-driving vegan...
There was the shadow of a reasonable argument there. It is entirely possible that given our current population of over 6 billion people, not all of us could follow the exact same diet, then again, there's no reason why anyone would suggest that. A good 1/5th of earth's population does not eat cattle for cultural reasons, cattle is not the only meat, and it can be raised sustainably (while being more nutritious), and there are other good sources of the necessary nutrients from the paleo perpective, and the needs of a male vary from those of a female, from a baby, from a child, from youth to middle age to old age, from summer to winter, from health to injury to fertility vs infertility, from athletes to sages, etc. There's plenty of wiggle room for me to believe that it is indeed sustainable.
Sorry for the long post.
While there is indeed a paleo re-enactment fringe that tries to live as they understand our ancient ancestors would, not just nutrition-wise, I find that there's actually a good bit of research-based and evidence-based thinking going over these "vast piles of medical research" you mention and finding that they don't really support the current accepted dogma of nutritional recommendations, and that indeed this research is pretty flimsy itself, if you were to believe Taubes, Lustig, Cordain, Eades, others, and tellingly now there is an alarming increase in obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases as an apparently direct result of the public by-and-large complying with common-wisdom "healthy" recommendations.
> Even its concept is flawed. Some things it discards, such as wheat are barely changed from what our ancestors were eating long before agriculture or town settlements
Oh? Wheat requires several months from cultivation to being ready for consumption. Perhaps it was consumed "long before agriculture or town settlements" but then it seems quite implausible that it would amount to anything significant in terms of nutrition, not to mention that it still requires quite a bit of processing before it can be eaten so it isn't exactly readily available nutrients.
But lets for a moment assume that yes, there have been many changes and genetic transformations to fruits, nuts, the meats we consume and ourselves. How is it unreasonable, given the catastrophic results of following current nutritional dogma, to look into our over 2 Million- year evolutionary history for clues on what we may be doing wrong, and noting that we've had agriculture for only 0.5% of that time. Even if after agriculture our rate of change multiplied 10-fold, we would still have a nutritional heritage of over 95% of our history where we most likely did not consume, in general, 60-80% of our nutrients from grains and certainly not from sugar, or refined vegetable oils.
That sounds like a pretty good clue to me.
> is rightfully considered a fad diet by the NHS and similar organizations
And then people all over are giving these ideas a go, and lo! they're feeling better, losing their excess weight, reversing chronic diseases, feeling energetic, not having hunger ups-and-downs, not feeling bloated, etc. (granted, this is all anecdotal evidence) And yet this is one of the dumbest ideas you've encountered in your entire life? You must be pretty lucky having a life of plentiful great ideas.
> It's also horribly unsustainable. A hummer-driving vegan...
There was the shadow of a reasonable argument there. It is entirely possible that given our current population of over 6 billion people, not all of us could follow the exact same diet, then again, there's no reason why anyone would suggest that. A good 1/5th of earth's population does not eat cattle for cultural reasons, cattle is not the only meat, and it can be raised sustainably (while being more nutritious), and there are other good sources of the necessary nutrients from the paleo perpective, and the needs of a male vary from those of a female, from a baby, from a child, from youth to middle age to old age, from summer to winter, from health to injury to fertility vs infertility, from athletes to sages, etc. There's plenty of wiggle room for me to believe that it is indeed sustainable.
Sorry for the long post.
I find that there's actually a good bit of research-based and evidence-based thinking going over these "vast piles of medical research" you mention and finding that they don't really support the current accepted dogma of nutritional recommendations, and that indeed this research is pretty flimsy itself, if you were to believe Taubes, Lustig, Cordain, Eades, others, and tellingly now there is an alarming increase in obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases as an apparently direct result of the public by-and-large complying with common-wisdom "healthy" recommendations.
I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say "current nutritional dogma". What I was talking about was the fact that the longest lived people in the world eat rice as a primary nutritional staple, or a combination of rice and wheat. All of the countries with the worst obesity and life-style disease epidemics are countries which consume far more protein than necessary and a great deal of meat in general. Not only that, but the proportion is linear-- the US and Mexico consume the most animal products and have the worst rates of lifestyle diseases, with Canada and the UK slightly behind that, and so on all the way to the leanest and least "paleo" countries in eastern Asia.
Even in the healthiest of countries, i.e. Japan, S. Korea, etc, those people who have adopted higher-protein western style diets are the same people starting to manifest some of the same lifestyle diseases westerners have had for decades. Those eating more traditional, mostly plant-based diets are not.
As someone who has lived in Asia for the most of my life it sickens me to see fat people who eat too much meat grasp and Atkins, paleo and other fad diets that involve eating even more of what made them sick in the first place. I know a lot of people who eat rice or noodles every single meal and not a single one are as fat as the average person I see when I go back to visit the US.
The avoidance of highly processed food is sound, but the overall diet is anything but.
I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say "current nutritional dogma". What I was talking about was the fact that the longest lived people in the world eat rice as a primary nutritional staple, or a combination of rice and wheat. All of the countries with the worst obesity and life-style disease epidemics are countries which consume far more protein than necessary and a great deal of meat in general. Not only that, but the proportion is linear-- the US and Mexico consume the most animal products and have the worst rates of lifestyle diseases, with Canada and the UK slightly behind that, and so on all the way to the leanest and least "paleo" countries in eastern Asia.
Even in the healthiest of countries, i.e. Japan, S. Korea, etc, those people who have adopted higher-protein western style diets are the same people starting to manifest some of the same lifestyle diseases westerners have had for decades. Those eating more traditional, mostly plant-based diets are not.
As someone who has lived in Asia for the most of my life it sickens me to see fat people who eat too much meat grasp and Atkins, paleo and other fad diets that involve eating even more of what made them sick in the first place. I know a lot of people who eat rice or noodles every single meal and not a single one are as fat as the average person I see when I go back to visit the US.
The avoidance of highly processed food is sound, but the overall diet is anything but.
I'm no paleo advocate, but your statistics are totally wrong.
Denmark is the world leader in per-capita meat consumption, followed by New Zealand and Luxembourg. The USA is number 4. Canada is in the top 10, but the UK and Mexico are not. Mexico isn't even in the top 30.
Likewise, consider two of the main diet-influenced lifestyle diseases: heart disease and diabetes. Countries in Eastern Europe are all ahead of the US in heart disease incidence and deaths per capita, as are Germany, Norway, Ireland, the UK, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. There is a higher incidence of diabetes per capita in Germany, Argentina, South Korea, Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico vs. the US.
If you don't adjust per-capita, the countries with the most heart disease and diabetes are China, India and Russia.
Denmark is the world leader in per-capita meat consumption, followed by New Zealand and Luxembourg. The USA is number 4. Canada is in the top 10, but the UK and Mexico are not. Mexico isn't even in the top 30.
Likewise, consider two of the main diet-influenced lifestyle diseases: heart disease and diabetes. Countries in Eastern Europe are all ahead of the US in heart disease incidence and deaths per capita, as are Germany, Norway, Ireland, the UK, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. There is a higher incidence of diabetes per capita in Germany, Argentina, South Korea, Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico vs. the US.
If you don't adjust per-capita, the countries with the most heart disease and diabetes are China, India and Russia.
Looking at meat along (as opposed to animal products), Mexico doesn't make it to the top, but it is still far above Asian levels (even China). The US is cited as being at the top in many places, though it's possible Denmark is ignored due to having a smaller population than some US cities.
United States Leads World Meat Stampede http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626
It's also worth pointing out that S. Koreans have a longer life expectancy than people in either the US or Denmark, despite being less economically developed and have a much smaller social system. Note that the countries topping the life expectancy rankings, Japan and HK are both big rice eaters, and that #3, Iceland gets most its meat as fish.
That said, after reading your post and once again researching the statistics, I'm absolutely shocked how quickly rich countries other than the US have been increasing their meat consumption. I couldn't find lists that looked at total consumption of animal products, but the rankings in terms of meat itself have changed a lot. I'm still 100% sure that eating rice at breakfast, lunch and dinner is part of the traditional Japanese diet, and that they out-live the heavy meat/cheese/butter eaters in other rich countries.
United States Leads World Meat Stampede http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1626
It's also worth pointing out that S. Koreans have a longer life expectancy than people in either the US or Denmark, despite being less economically developed and have a much smaller social system. Note that the countries topping the life expectancy rankings, Japan and HK are both big rice eaters, and that #3, Iceland gets most its meat as fish.
That said, after reading your post and once again researching the statistics, I'm absolutely shocked how quickly rich countries other than the US have been increasing their meat consumption. I couldn't find lists that looked at total consumption of animal products, but the rankings in terms of meat itself have changed a lot. I'm still 100% sure that eating rice at breakfast, lunch and dinner is part of the traditional Japanese diet, and that they out-live the heavy meat/cheese/butter eaters in other rich countries.
Re: wheat being the same as it ever was:
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/in-search-of-wheat...
> What we call wheat today is quite different from the wheat of Biblical times. Emmer and einkorn wheat were the original grains harvested from wild growths, then cultivated. Triticum aestivum, the natural hybrid of emmer and goatgrass, also entered the picture, gradually replacing emmer and einkorn.
> The 25,000+ wheat strains now populating the farmlands of the world are considerably different from the bread wheat of Egyptians, different in gluten content, different in gluten structure, different in dozens of other non-gluten proteins, different in carbohydrate content. Modern wheat has been hybridized, introgressed, and back-bred to increase yield, make a shorter stalk in order to hold up to greater seed yield, along with many other characteristics. Much of the genetic work to create modern wheat strains are well-intended to feed the world, as well as to provide patent-protected seeds for agribusiness.
He goes on to try einkorn bread, and doesn't get the same reactions and BG rise that he does with regular bread. Search for 'einkorn' on that blog if you're curious.
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/in-search-of-wheat...
> What we call wheat today is quite different from the wheat of Biblical times. Emmer and einkorn wheat were the original grains harvested from wild growths, then cultivated. Triticum aestivum, the natural hybrid of emmer and goatgrass, also entered the picture, gradually replacing emmer and einkorn.
> The 25,000+ wheat strains now populating the farmlands of the world are considerably different from the bread wheat of Egyptians, different in gluten content, different in gluten structure, different in dozens of other non-gluten proteins, different in carbohydrate content. Modern wheat has been hybridized, introgressed, and back-bred to increase yield, make a shorter stalk in order to hold up to greater seed yield, along with many other characteristics. Much of the genetic work to create modern wheat strains are well-intended to feed the world, as well as to provide patent-protected seeds for agribusiness.
He goes on to try einkorn bread, and doesn't get the same reactions and BG rise that he does with regular bread. Search for 'einkorn' on that blog if you're curious.
I can't read blogspot from here in China, and I'm not generally interested in bloggers when it comes to highly controversial issues such as nutrition.
but I do realize wheat has changed in some ways, primarily in that it sprouts every season now. Try subjecting popular "paleo" foods to the same scrutiny you just subjected wheat to-- most currently popular fruits weren't eaten at all until the past few hundred years, walnut trees had to be grafted in order to be cultivated and most almonds killed people who ate them! Similarly, big game on each continent was hunted to extinction, especially in Australia and the Americas. Domesticated animals have been bred to be far different than anything our ancestors encountered.
Wheat has changed little by comparison.
but I do realize wheat has changed in some ways, primarily in that it sprouts every season now. Try subjecting popular "paleo" foods to the same scrutiny you just subjected wheat to-- most currently popular fruits weren't eaten at all until the past few hundred years, walnut trees had to be grafted in order to be cultivated and most almonds killed people who ate them! Similarly, big game on each continent was hunted to extinction, especially in Australia and the Americas. Domesticated animals have been bred to be far different than anything our ancestors encountered.
Wheat has changed little by comparison.
I'd like to respond and not leave your assertions unchallenged, but I think your post is a bit too charged and absolutistic to engage with..pretty clear there is little room for debate.
I'll just say that since switching to a diet that contains whole foods consisting of meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, I've never felt better or been in better shape. I've seen the same results in many friends. If I have a big meal of grains I'll feel sick and almost hungover as a result.
Your mileage may vary, but have you tried it and seen what happens to your body? I've experimented with many types of diets, including strict veganism for about 3 months. So far a "paleo" diet has worked the best, for me.
I'll just say that since switching to a diet that contains whole foods consisting of meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, I've never felt better or been in better shape. I've seen the same results in many friends. If I have a big meal of grains I'll feel sick and almost hungover as a result.
Your mileage may vary, but have you tried it and seen what happens to your body? I've experimented with many types of diets, including strict veganism for about 3 months. So far a "paleo" diet has worked the best, for me.
Have you considered the possibility that the paleo diet may be one of those rare things that is horribly flawed in theory but works just fine in practice?
You're correct that there's no good nutritional reason to only eat "paleo" foods (though certainly, almost all the foods that you should definitely avoid, like chocolate, chips and cheesecake, are non-paleo). You're also correct that a modern "paleo" diet doesn't have all that much in common with a hunter-gatherer's diet anyway.
But as a useful heuristic for coming up with a healthy diet for weight loss in the modern world, it's not too bad. If you're trying to lose weight only three things really matter:
a) Are you maintaining a calorie deficit?
b) Are you getting enough nutrients?
c) Is the diet easy to stick to, or does it make you hungry/give you cravings?
The paleo diet seems to work fairly well by all of these metrics. It's really just a standard low-GI diet with a few other things unnecessarily banned (beans, dairy). The restrictive nature of the diet means you eat a diet rich in meats and vegetables, which are nutrient rich and fill you up with relatively few calories. The low-GI nature of the diet stabilizes your blood sugar and stops you getting the hunger pangs you'd get on a more carb-rich calorie-restictive diet. And it seems to be relatively easy to stick to with only a moderate amount of willpower -- I've been on it for nearly three weeks now and the idea of eating a brownie just gives me a headache.
I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone trying to maintain weight, since I think it would be difficult and expensive to consume enough calories for a healthy lifestyle without eating modest amounts of grains. And the prohibition on beans and dairy is probably unnecessary. But as a workable heuristic for weight loss, "eat paleo foods" isn't half bad.
You're correct that there's no good nutritional reason to only eat "paleo" foods (though certainly, almost all the foods that you should definitely avoid, like chocolate, chips and cheesecake, are non-paleo). You're also correct that a modern "paleo" diet doesn't have all that much in common with a hunter-gatherer's diet anyway.
But as a useful heuristic for coming up with a healthy diet for weight loss in the modern world, it's not too bad. If you're trying to lose weight only three things really matter:
a) Are you maintaining a calorie deficit?
b) Are you getting enough nutrients?
c) Is the diet easy to stick to, or does it make you hungry/give you cravings?
The paleo diet seems to work fairly well by all of these metrics. It's really just a standard low-GI diet with a few other things unnecessarily banned (beans, dairy). The restrictive nature of the diet means you eat a diet rich in meats and vegetables, which are nutrient rich and fill you up with relatively few calories. The low-GI nature of the diet stabilizes your blood sugar and stops you getting the hunger pangs you'd get on a more carb-rich calorie-restictive diet. And it seems to be relatively easy to stick to with only a moderate amount of willpower -- I've been on it for nearly three weeks now and the idea of eating a brownie just gives me a headache.
I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone trying to maintain weight, since I think it would be difficult and expensive to consume enough calories for a healthy lifestyle without eating modest amounts of grains. And the prohibition on beans and dairy is probably unnecessary. But as a workable heuristic for weight loss, "eat paleo foods" isn't half bad.
It's strange to me that you use Guns, Germs, and Steel as an example of the virtues of wheat, when Jared Diamond called agriculture "the worst mistake in the history of the human race." (The article itself supports the basic idea that hunter-gathers were individually healthier than farmers: http://www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/m...)
I worry we may be heading for a future in which only a few people plot their own itinerary through no-land, while everyone else books a package tour.
That's been the case for the majority of human history. It's mostly the case now. Most non-religious, progressive thinking people, don't actually think through most issues for themselves. They believe in institutions - academia, NPR, etc. Most people believe what they do about nutrition for instance, not from reading studies themselves, but through accredited officials (PHD's) as interpreted by the NYTimes.
That's been the case for the majority of human history. It's mostly the case now. Most non-religious, progressive thinking people, don't actually think through most issues for themselves. They believe in institutions - academia, NPR, etc. Most people believe what they do about nutrition for instance, not from reading studies themselves, but through accredited officials (PHD's) as interpreted by the NYTimes.
I'm not sure whether you're particularly referring to media bias and dumbed-down science journalism, which is certainly an issue, but the general practice of 'trusting an expert' seems sound to me - the effort required to become an expert yourself in every field that affects you would be incredible, whilst trusting someone else who has that expert knowledge to translate into layman's terms for you is more efficient.
This is essentially just society optimizing itself through specification - just have 1 person become the nutrition expert and do all the tests and experimentation, and then they can share that knowledge with the rest. Whilst the nutritionist is busy, that leaves others free to invent fusion power and quantum computing.
This is essentially just society optimizing itself through specification - just have 1 person become the nutrition expert and do all the tests and experimentation, and then they can share that knowledge with the rest. Whilst the nutritionist is busy, that leaves others free to invent fusion power and quantum computing.
This phenomenon, also called "rational ignorance" by economists, is a problem for democracies. Not every person has the time to become an expert on everything, but they still vote on it.
I wonder how many people would be happy to "delegate their vote" if there was some officially supported way of doing it.
This would be an interesting way of reimagining representative democracy in the digital age. Why should we bother limiting ourselves to a fixed number of representatives? Let everyone vote on everything _but_ let people choose to assign their vote to someone else.
Rather than electing representatives, I'd choose someone whose intellect and experience I trust, and delegate my voting rights to them. They'd become my representative. When someone accumulated enough other people's votes, they'd reach the political stature of people like senators.
This would be an interesting way of reimagining representative democracy in the digital age. Why should we bother limiting ourselves to a fixed number of representatives? Let everyone vote on everything _but_ let people choose to assign their vote to someone else.
Rather than electing representatives, I'd choose someone whose intellect and experience I trust, and delegate my voting rights to them. They'd become my representative. When someone accumulated enough other people's votes, they'd reach the political stature of people like senators.
I would like to be able to delegate my vote on particular subjects to particular people. That way I don't have to worry if an economist I respect has a restrictive idea of gay rights or something like that, I can just pick a trustworthy delegate for each topic. A computer can ask me to break conflicts where it appears that a particular law should go to two different delegates.
But that is how it works. I delegate my vote to my MP, and they vote on my behalf in Parliament.
Only if the candidate you voted for won. If they didn't they're still the representative of your constituency, but not in any politically meaningful sense your representative.
Something closer to moultano's proposal would be a running referendum on everything, where you can choose to revocably delegate your vote (revocable as in you can remove the delegation, not reverse the vote).
Something closer to moultano's proposal would be a running referendum on everything, where you can choose to revocably delegate your vote (revocable as in you can remove the delegation, not reverse the vote).
But even an MP I didn't vote for, I can still write to, or show up at their constituents meeting or whatever. They're still going to pay attention, a) they don't know how I voted anyway and b) they want my vote next time!
And when someone accumulates over 50% of other people's votes, they'd become dictator.
The obvious solution is to abolish democracy and set up a specialized class of governors.
Nearly all institutions are run primarily for their own benefit. We often forget this when we receive their products/information/services. Sometimes, we're lucky enough to receive correct information or things that don't harm us. Trusting an expert is a good idea as you say, but trusting an expert whose opinion has been normalized by an institution is quite dangerous. It's less dangerous if you fully understand the motives of the institution, but with today's treacherous institutions, even most people in the institution are unaware of the motives and their consequences.
I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying it's the case now.
One of the issues with nutrition is that there is so much conflicting advice to wade through. Even if you do get down to the science it can still be unclear what you should follow.
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Didn't quite get the Paleo diet reference: are you viewing it as a new (and thus suspicious) fad or as an old, safe and proven way of eating?
This confused me as well, seeing how it's both at the same time. :)
With regards to the diet itself though: works for me, so I'm happy with it.
With regards to the diet itself though: works for me, so I'm happy with it.
I happen to follow a rather different, mostly vegan, diet: Fuhrman. It also works very well for me.
But I would like to educate myself about paleo, especially since it provides some compelling arguments while sounding yummy.
But I would like to educate myself about paleo, especially since it provides some compelling arguments while sounding yummy.
I started eating primal/paleo/low carb (I prefer the latter) after reading 'good calories, bad calories' by Gary Taubes. I've been linking people to these notes for a while now: http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba... you miss some nuances, explainations and a boatload of references from the book, but it's a nice intro.
As far as being vegan goes, check out 'the vegetarian myth' by Leirre Keith, I've been reading parts of it and it's both entertaining and it really gets under your skin.
As far as being vegan goes, check out 'the vegetarian myth' by Leirre Keith, I've been reading parts of it and it's both entertaining and it really gets under your skin.
To me it makes sense in the context:
> we'll have to figure out for ourselves what to avoid and how
At its most basic Paleo Nutrition is mostly about avoiding or minimizing so-called neolithic agents of disease: refined carbohydrates, grains, processed oils.
> It will actually become a reasonable strategy… to suspect everything new
It may be that thinking of it as a "modern" approach to nutrition (ironic in that it's supposed to be the "ancestral" way of eating, but the linked Wikipedia article does call it modern) can help the adoption of the Paleo diet, because "it's new" and because it's new, "addictive".
> we'll have to figure out for ourselves what to avoid and how
At its most basic Paleo Nutrition is mostly about avoiding or minimizing so-called neolithic agents of disease: refined carbohydrates, grains, processed oils.
> It will actually become a reasonable strategy… to suspect everything new
It may be that thinking of it as a "modern" approach to nutrition (ironic in that it's supposed to be the "ancestral" way of eating, but the linked Wikipedia article does call it modern) can help the adoption of the Paleo diet, because "it's new" and because it's new, "addictive".
Agreed. I've been trying to go towards a more whole food approach to eating and avoiding processed foods.
But what is PG's opinion here?
But what is PG's opinion here?
IMO, it is obvious that he views it as new and suspicious.
I noticed the internet becoming especially addicting to me with the addition of HULU to the internet.
Before HULU it was very easy to keep myself from wasting the US average of 4.5hrs of TV watching a day. I just gave away my TV. During that period I had a lot more time to work, enjoy books, friends, the outdoors or other more enjoyable but less addicting activities.
Now however TV is a part of the internet and I have difficulty blocking it. I've tried editing hosts files, rescuetime, and even made my own app (8aweek YC W08). But I'm on a losing battle with this addiction so far.
Before HULU it was very easy to keep myself from wasting the US average of 4.5hrs of TV watching a day. I just gave away my TV. During that period I had a lot more time to work, enjoy books, friends, the outdoors or other more enjoyable but less addicting activities.
Now however TV is a part of the internet and I have difficulty blocking it. I've tried editing hosts files, rescuetime, and even made my own app (8aweek YC W08). But I'm on a losing battle with this addiction so far.
Thanks for this excellent essay. In my case, it describes a painfully current issue.
I am looking for strategies on how to deal with this addiction. How to start? Where to get help? Where to find the force to escape? How to convince myself that I want to change and WHY?
I am looking for strategies on how to deal with this addiction. How to start? Where to get help? Where to find the force to escape? How to convince myself that I want to change and WHY?
I answered here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1549691 and here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1549734
"heroin, and crack have in common is that they're all more concentrated forms of less addictive predecessors."
Heroin and crack aren't more concentrated, they just get absorbed faster into the brain. For whatever reason the faster a substance gets absorbed the more likely you are to get addicted to it. For any given drug smoking it is the most likely to lead to addiction, followed by injection, snorting, sublingual, and eating in that order. Obviously this doesn't change your point at all, but I only mention it because it stands to reason that the addictiveness of other things works the same way. (For example, you might be able to keep HN equally useful but make it less addictive if there were a way to slow down the rate of gratification.)
Heroin and crack aren't more concentrated, they just get absorbed faster into the brain. For whatever reason the faster a substance gets absorbed the more likely you are to get addicted to it. For any given drug smoking it is the most likely to lead to addiction, followed by injection, snorting, sublingual, and eating in that order. Obviously this doesn't change your point at all, but I only mention it because it stands to reason that the addictiveness of other things works the same way. (For example, you might be able to keep HN equally useful but make it less addictive if there were a way to slow down the rate of gratification.)
While we're nitpicking, I'm not convinced that hard alcohol is actually more addictive than beer or wine.
Just like PG's last article, there is an inherent irony in finding this on Hacker News.
PG is right though, the internet is addictive. The question of what to do about it is still left open, though. For now, I'm going to disconnect for a few hours. Hopefully when I get back on I'll have something productive to show for it.
PG is right though, the internet is addictive. The question of what to do about it is still left open, though. For now, I'm going to disconnect for a few hours. Hopefully when I get back on I'll have something productive to show for it.
For the HN audience there's a starker message: You can be either addicted or a purveyor of addictions, Eloi or Morlock. Choose.
I agree with the main thrust of this essay, but there are nuances & counter-examples that make me more optimistic:
For example, a nuance: More people are giving up television, magazines & newspapers than ever before - perhaps we (as humans) have a finite need of/tolerance for distractions, and are satisfying this need/reaching this tolerance more efficiently via the internet now?
A counter-example (on the increase in 'hardness' of society's addictions): The Finns (and others) originally did not have practical access to alcohol, so they took locally available hallucinogens (and saw santa!). Then vodka, and later beer became affordable, so they now largely drink these instead - ie. the move is not inevitably one-way (see also various temperance movements). Also Hogarth chronicled Britain's descent into gin excess, but although this seemed overwhelming and permanent at the time, it was relatively brief.
In short: humans have always adapted better than predicted to change - so far.
In short: humans have always adapted better than predicted to change - so far.
"More people are giving up television, magazines & newspapers than ever before"
In many of the discussions about people giving up "TV," it turned out that many just turned off their cable and consumed video through Hulu, Netflix and other online sources.
So, put another way, do you think even people who have given up TV, etc. have, on average, actually reduced their total amount of time consuming content of one form or another, when Facebook and everything else on the Internet is included?
In many of the discussions about people giving up "TV," it turned out that many just turned off their cable and consumed video through Hulu, Netflix and other online sources.
So, put another way, do you think even people who have given up TV, etc. have, on average, actually reduced their total amount of time consuming content of one form or another, when Facebook and everything else on the Internet is included?
Well, in going from cable to Netflix, I probably reduced my time spent watching moving pictures by 75% (not that it was very high to begin with). In addition to the rationing involved (at least at the beginning, before the proliferation of Instant Watch), there was perhaps the decreased sense of "must get my money's worth." Paying $60/month for cable to watch two hours a week feels more wasteful than paying $10/month for the same.
On one hand, TiVo, Hulu, and Netflix have replaced casual channel-surfing (which can consume unlimited time) with purposeful TV watching where you only watch the shows that you want to watch. OTOH, the amount of TV available these days is enormous (cable now has four-digit channel numbers) and there are recommendation engines that can always find more for you to watch.
I think that people tend to watch more TV with less enjoyment when it's just a cable stream into your house. I think that people don't end up tending to things like channel-surfing. It's hard to plop down on the couch and watch whatever happens to be the 'best thing on' when the video is on-demand and you have a choice in the matter. This is the same reason that so many people felt liberated by things like TiVo. It allowed them to just tell TiVo what they liked to watch, and they didn't have to worry about gathering around the TV set at a time specified by a channel's scheduling selections.
Just another day it dawned on me that an important part of the overwhelming success of television (specially cable television) is that it's another unpredictable-rewards skinner box. There are the good shows you know and expect (and their fixed schedule induces lots of tradeoffs, like "why get up now if X is in half an hour") and the possibility of finding something nice zapping is akin to a slot machine.
Video on demand makes it easier to watch a specific content, but harder to just zone out in front of the tv, which is the most addictive and destructive activity.
Video on demand makes it easier to watch a specific content, but harder to just zone out in front of the tv, which is the most addictive and destructive activity.
In answer to your question, possibly not, but it boils down to a shift from passively absorbing a primetime broadcast & actively consuming either:
i) The same thing, but at a time of your own choosing, or:
ii) Only niche programmes of interest to you.
Or some combination of the two. Either way, mediocre programmes are less likely to occupy your time.
i) The same thing, but at a time of your own choosing, or:
ii) Only niche programmes of interest to you.
Or some combination of the two. Either way, mediocre programmes are less likely to occupy your time.
>In many of the discussions about people giving up "TV," it turned out that many just turned off their cable and consumed video through Hulu, Netflix and other online sources.
So you mean they've been superseded by more addictive technologies? :)
So you mean they've been superseded by more addictive technologies? :)
The easiest thing I've found to get over the internet addiction is to have a critical amount of shit that is more mentally engaging around. I have a bunch of MIT lectures on my iPhone, and I have several highly interesting books around. I know those are usually more valuable to me than the blog du jour, so if I feel that I've spent too much time on reddit or whatever I just pick up the book, or go back to watching an algorithms course for awhile. Eventually the mind gets quieter and its easier to focus more on the task at hand. Also, use the internet for actions, rather than consumption. If you haven't produced at least one blog post or comment for every ten you've read, go comment somewhere or write a blog post. Produce based on what you consume, otherwise you're just piling up mental debt.
If one has to abstain from society's norms to live appropriately, then I imagine it'll be increasingly difficult to make a living for one that abstains, at least in any area based on technological change. E.g., Paul would have a harder time conducting an effective business (or even perhaps being as well informed as an investor) involved with iPhone Apps. Not to say one must make a living on the technological fringes (that become the societal norms), however, such a course is limiting for the abstainer, for better or worse.
You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly.
i've been surprised by just how true this statement is. i resolved to make some lifestyle changes this year to be healthier (without being overly zealous) and it's been amazing how reactions have made me feel like i'm behaving strangely. especially regarding alcohol at social events.
i've been surprised by just how true this statement is. i resolved to make some lifestyle changes this year to be healthier (without being overly zealous) and it's been amazing how reactions have made me feel like i'm behaving strangely. especially regarding alcohol at social events.
This depends, if you flat refuse all alcohol I can see how this would come across strange at social events. People that are drinking want everyone else in their presence to be loosened up a little as well. I would imagine the reaction would be different between I don't drink and I'm only having a couple.
What is more interesting would be if your not drinking but are still relaxed and are lively with other people present, whether you seem strange because your not drinking or whether it's got to do with your interactions due to not drinking.
I personally don't see anything wrong with not drinking unless your acting condescending to those that have had a few.
What is more interesting would be if your not drinking but are still relaxed and are lively with other people present, whether you seem strange because your not drinking or whether it's got to do with your interactions due to not drinking.
I personally don't see anything wrong with not drinking unless your acting condescending to those that have had a few.
I think you're onto to something there. People probably have good reasons to try and avoid mismatches in levels of drinking at an event. Drinking breaks down social barriers but in doing so it makes people vulnerable. Maybe if you can sufficiently signal your commitment to the social situation without drinking you'd do better - ie make a bit of a fool of yourself to show your uninhibited state. As an experiment perhaps next party the grandparent commenter goes to he can wear a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt or something.
I can see how it could put the drinker in a vulnerable position. Though what's interesting is when I am around drunk people, my own inhibition naturally drops even without drinking.
I don't drink but have no problem singing along with drunk friends.
Maybe it was those improv classes...
It probably helps that said friends are mature adults who don't use drunkenness as an excuse for antisocial stupidity.
Maybe it was those improv classes...
It probably helps that said friends are mature adults who don't use drunkenness as an excuse for antisocial stupidity.
They probably think you are weird because consciously or sub-consciously you are acting smug.
Why do you think that explanation is particularly probable out of all of the other possibilities? It seems more likely that society would consider actions strange if the actions have justifications that most people don't understand or agree with, and they don't succeed in masking their judgement.
I think this because there are plenty of vegetarians and non-smokers, and non-drinkers around that people overall don't really find it weird. I myself do eat meat and drink alcohol but it is so little overall in a year that you could almost count me as a vegetarian and as a non-alcohol drinker. I do not smoke at all. Also, I've noticed that people that claim to be vegetarians do it in such a way that they come off smug.
> I've noticed that people that claim to be vegetarians do it in such a way that they come off smug.
Unfortunately the act of unapologetically refusing to participate in something that most other people do is often considered smug. This is rather similar to the way atheists are considered smug by many religious people where as agnostics are not.
Unfortunately the act of unapologetically refusing to participate in something that most other people do is often considered smug. This is rather similar to the way atheists are considered smug by many religious people where as agnostics are not.
Yup... (not that there aren't plenty of smug people to go around....)
I quit drinking for quite a long time - and in some situations it was impossible for me NOT to be rude. I very politely said "Nope, just a diet coke thanks!" when first asked for a drink.... then they'd keep pushing and pushing...... I'd drop a polite "Sorry man, I don't drink...".... no smug at all. It's after that that I might pull some attitude, when you just can't leave it alone and won't respect me enough and KEEP ASKING ME TO DRINK. If you're not a friend, and not a colleague, then i'll just ignore you likely. If you are a friend or colleague, you are showing a distinct and inappropriate lack of respect for my decision not to drink. Now - if you are already wasted, I'll grant you a grain of salt or two... I want you to have fun (I'm having fun) - but if you KEEP pushing me, I'm going to KEEP flatly refusing, and at some point, when I'm not having fun anymore, I'm going to leave - and I refuse to be the bad guy in that situation.
I quit drinking for quite a long time - and in some situations it was impossible for me NOT to be rude. I very politely said "Nope, just a diet coke thanks!" when first asked for a drink.... then they'd keep pushing and pushing...... I'd drop a polite "Sorry man, I don't drink...".... no smug at all. It's after that that I might pull some attitude, when you just can't leave it alone and won't respect me enough and KEEP ASKING ME TO DRINK. If you're not a friend, and not a colleague, then i'll just ignore you likely. If you are a friend or colleague, you are showing a distinct and inappropriate lack of respect for my decision not to drink. Now - if you are already wasted, I'll grant you a grain of salt or two... I want you to have fun (I'm having fun) - but if you KEEP pushing me, I'm going to KEEP flatly refusing, and at some point, when I'm not having fun anymore, I'm going to leave - and I refuse to be the bad guy in that situation.
On the other hand, a lot of those people really are smug. I'm sure you've met the people this is a spoof of:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mention...
http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mention...
I don't think religious people consider atheists smug. If nothing else they think they are going to hell. The thing is that many people come out and say "I'm a vegetarian" as if it were the second coming of Jesus. Honestly who gives a crap whether you are a vegetarian or not. No need to announce it to the world.
Do they just walk up and introduce themselves like: "Hi, I'm Bob. Oh, and I'm a vegetarian." ? Or is it more like: "No thanks, I don't eat meat. I'm a vegetarian."
The second version doesn't really come off as smug, unless you're just someone that is easily offended. Interpreting that as anything more than an explanation of why the person doesn't want to accept your offer of meat (or something with meat) is spending too much time reading into it.
Some people get offended at conversations like this:
The second version doesn't really come off as smug, unless you're just someone that is easily offended. Interpreting that as anything more than an explanation of why the person doesn't want to accept your offer of meat (or something with meat) is spending too much time reading into it.
Some people get offended at conversations like this:
smoker: You got a smoke?
non-smoker: Sorry, I don't smoke.
Yup... (not that there aren't plenty of smug people to go around....)
I quit drinking for quite a long time - and in some situations it was impossible for me NOT to be rude. I very politely said "Nope, just a diet coke thanks!" when first asked for a drink.... then they'd keep pushing and pushing...... I'd drop a polite "Sorry man, I don't drink...".... no smug at all. It's after that that I might pull some attitude, when you just can't leave it alone and won't respect me enough and KEEP ASKING ME TO DRINK. If you're not a friend, and not a colleague, then i'll just ignore you likely. If you are a friend or colleague, you are showing a distinct and inappropriate lack of respect for my decision not to drink. Now - if you are already wasted, I'll grant you a grain of salt or two... I want you to have fun (I'm having fun) - but if you KEEP pushing me, I'm going to KEEP flatly refusing, and at some point, when I'm not having fun anymore, I'm going to leave - and I refuse to be the bad guy in that situation.
I quit drinking for quite a long time - and in some situations it was impossible for me NOT to be rude. I very politely said "Nope, just a diet coke thanks!" when first asked for a drink.... then they'd keep pushing and pushing...... I'd drop a polite "Sorry man, I don't drink...".... no smug at all. It's after that that I might pull some attitude, when you just can't leave it alone and won't respect me enough and KEEP ASKING ME TO DRINK. If you're not a friend, and not a colleague, then i'll just ignore you likely. If you are a friend or colleague, you are showing a distinct and inappropriate lack of respect for my decision not to drink. Now - if you are already wasted, I'll grant you a grain of salt or two... I want you to have fun (I'm having fun) - but if you KEEP pushing me, I'm going to KEEP flatly refusing, and at some point, when I'm not having fun anymore, I'm going to leave - and I refuse to be the bad guy in that situation.
I believe you're pretty much right on this, though I'd label it as a form of social signaling rather than outright smugness. It's the sort of group-identification we like, and depending on the group, want to signal "I made a better choice than you, you should be in my group too."
The whole "I'm a vegan!" is similar to "I'm a Christian", "I'm an environmentalist!", "I'm an Objectivist!", "I'm an Atheist!", "I'm gay!" phrases I often hear or read, and that social signaling can easily come off as smug/arrogant/annoying/pushy, and in general just make us not like the person. More action-oriented phrasings like "I don't smoke", "I don't eat meat", "I don't believe in any deity" seem more reasonable and I think they produce better conversation.
The whole "I'm a vegan!" is similar to "I'm a Christian", "I'm an environmentalist!", "I'm an Objectivist!", "I'm an Atheist!", "I'm gay!" phrases I often hear or read, and that social signaling can easily come off as smug/arrogant/annoying/pushy, and in general just make us not like the person. More action-oriented phrasings like "I don't smoke", "I don't eat meat", "I don't believe in any deity" seem more reasonable and I think they produce better conversation.
Ive been thinking about the addictiveness of information a fair bunch lately. I would be interested in hearing from people about the following few questions
a) Is this just a geek thing ? Many applications we work on utilise existing data, our tools are changing constantly, there are sage geeks sharing their hard earned wisdom. To keep up with all the above we consume a lot of information on a daily basis. A conversation with my dentist and a few doctor friends were mostly replied with - "How do you get time to read on the internet on a daily basis?". My dentist also pointed out that in his field developments are few and far between so once hes out of the office at 5, its no books or reading for him.
b) I would also be interested in hearing from some people who were born post 1995, or from a time when internet connectivity was already pervasive. Do they look at the internet with the same eyes of enchanted addictiveness or do they take it for granted ?
Being addicted to cigarrettes is one thing. They are bad but not as bad as drugs like Marijuana (Maybe, don't know, I don't smoke). It seems that for a lot of people that do Marijuana it eventually becomes too mild for them. Also, once they are using drugs, using more potent ones doesn't seem like a big deal.
This is only an anecdote: I had a friend who started using Marijuana. He said he only used it once in a while and it was no big deal. That it wasn't that bad really because he didn't use any of the more potent stuff like cocaine as other guys did. In his mind I supposed he was convincing himself that the really bad guys are using cocaine. According to him using Marijuana is no big deal. Two years latter I had a conversation with him and he tells me he was arrested for using cocaine while driving. He tells me it is no big deal because he only uses it every once in a while and that he is not like other guys that use more potent drugs. No big deal really.
It seems to me that starting with a mild drug can lead to using more dangerous drugs. And yet every once in a while I read somebody saying that you should use Marijuana or that Marijuana is no big deal.
No point really, just ranting a little. I guess I would like to tell you Marijuana users that if you like it don't try to convince the rest of us into thinking it is no big deal. Go ahead and use your crap if you want but don't advertise it to the rest of us as if it is no big deal.
This is only an anecdote: I had a friend who started using Marijuana. He said he only used it once in a while and it was no big deal. That it wasn't that bad really because he didn't use any of the more potent stuff like cocaine as other guys did. In his mind I supposed he was convincing himself that the really bad guys are using cocaine. According to him using Marijuana is no big deal. Two years latter I had a conversation with him and he tells me he was arrested for using cocaine while driving. He tells me it is no big deal because he only uses it every once in a while and that he is not like other guys that use more potent drugs. No big deal really.
It seems to me that starting with a mild drug can lead to using more dangerous drugs. And yet every once in a while I read somebody saying that you should use Marijuana or that Marijuana is no big deal.
No point really, just ranting a little. I guess I would like to tell you Marijuana users that if you like it don't try to convince the rest of us into thinking it is no big deal. Go ahead and use your crap if you want but don't advertise it to the rest of us as if it is no big deal.
You have a problem with logical reasoning.
First, there are at least two possible explanations for the the even you witnessed - one that marijuana was a gateway drug for your friend, and the other is that your friend was simply fucked up to start with and found his solace in drugs. You have dismissed one of the options and then concluded the truthfulness of the other (which is a serious defect of cognition).
Your second problem is that you are treating an anecdote as data. It ain't.
First, there are at least two possible explanations for the the even you witnessed - one that marijuana was a gateway drug for your friend, and the other is that your friend was simply fucked up to start with and found his solace in drugs. You have dismissed one of the options and then concluded the truthfulness of the other (which is a serious defect of cognition).
Your second problem is that you are treating an anecdote as data. It ain't.
That is why I called it an anecdote to begin with. It is a serious defect in cognition that you did not realize that this is why I spelled it out as such. I knew him during high school. From what I know about him I think he just gave in to peer pressure as many do.
Wouldn't it be peculiar if the sort of person who was going to use cocaine didn't first try marijuana, or, for that matter, alcohol or cigarettes? Who jumps in at the deep end?
So basically you are saying that people that will do cocaine will simply do cocaine regardless? Those people are pre-destine do do it so who cares?
You have this theory that marijuana (lets be consistent and say alcohol too) cause cocaine use.
You take the fact that cocaine users have almost invariably first used such substances as evidence supporting your theory, without recognising that this pattern is what we would expect to observe in any event. The idea of a cocaine user who has never touched alcohol is a bizarre one.
(By the way, why the focus on marijuana? Can you formulate a version of your argument that doesn't apply just as well to alcohol? I'll grant you that cigarettes have only a mild effect, but the effects of alcohol and cannabis are broadly similar; if anything, alcohol has a stronger effect.)
You take the fact that cocaine users have almost invariably first used such substances as evidence supporting your theory, without recognising that this pattern is what we would expect to observe in any event. The idea of a cocaine user who has never touched alcohol is a bizarre one.
(By the way, why the focus on marijuana? Can you formulate a version of your argument that doesn't apply just as well to alcohol? I'll grant you that cigarettes have only a mild effect, but the effects of alcohol and cannabis are broadly similar; if anything, alcohol has a stronger effect.)
You start with an illegal substance. You are already breaking the law so what is the big deal with using an even stronger substance. That seems to be the rationale used by a lot of people. I guess I should have made that clear in my original example. Believe it or not your moral values start to decrease once you start breaking them. I'll take it to another extreme: Once a criminal has become used to breaking the law, doing one more crime doesn't seem like a big deal to them.
Many people will not switch from cigarettes to Marijuana because their moral values does not allow them to. i.e. They see using an illegal substance as immoral. However, if somehow you convince them to use Marijuana and break their moral value what many of them will do is to rationalize that using Marijuana is no big deal. Especially if a lot of peers are re-inforcing that notion (as many are trying to do here in Hacker News. Or to put it another way, a rotten apple will rotten all the others). That moral value is lost. Since there is no longer a moral value stopping them from using illegal substances using Cocaine is really no big deal anymore.
I hypothesize that this is how criminals are created in general. The first time the commit a crime they may be really nervous, eventually they get used to it and many may go on to commit worse crimes. I guess this is why it is so important to teach kids strong moral values. Also to keep them away from bad influences. They are the most vulnerable in their teenage years from breaking their moral values. If they have not broken their moral values after their mid twenties they are probably not going to anymore.
Many people will not switch from cigarettes to Marijuana because their moral values does not allow them to. i.e. They see using an illegal substance as immoral. However, if somehow you convince them to use Marijuana and break their moral value what many of them will do is to rationalize that using Marijuana is no big deal. Especially if a lot of peers are re-inforcing that notion (as many are trying to do here in Hacker News. Or to put it another way, a rotten apple will rotten all the others). That moral value is lost. Since there is no longer a moral value stopping them from using illegal substances using Cocaine is really no big deal anymore.
I hypothesize that this is how criminals are created in general. The first time the commit a crime they may be really nervous, eventually they get used to it and many may go on to commit worse crimes. I guess this is why it is so important to teach kids strong moral values. Also to keep them away from bad influences. They are the most vulnerable in their teenage years from breaking their moral values. If they have not broken their moral values after their mid twenties they are probably not going to anymore.
You've now completely changed your argument. Originally it was "mild drugs lead to strong drugs". I noted that alcohol is a mild drug. Now your argument is "mild crime leads to strong crime". If I can summon a good argument against that, will you just come up with a third argument for what you're already committed to believing?
Mild crime does not lead to strong crime. Like many people, in my teenage days I downloaded some music illegally. Most of us didn't become burglars. But I guarantee you almost all burglars (of the correct age group and technical skills) have downloaded music illegally.
Mild crime does not lead to strong crime. Like many people, in my teenage days I downloaded some music illegally. Most of us didn't become burglars. But I guarantee you almost all burglars (of the correct age group and technical skills) have downloaded music illegally.
I have not changed my original stance. I've just provided more arguments to this mild debate. I know, we've all downloaded illegal music and yes many of us believe this is no big deal even though objectively speaking it is wrong. Somebody worked really hard for those songs.
OK. So lets agree that doing Marijuana may not 100% of the time lead to cocaine use. That doesn't mean that it doens't increases the likelyhood of using it because you've already broken multiple moral values that go beyond just drinking or smoking.
Another example: Does smoking mean that you are going to get cancer? No. But it has been proven in plenty of studies that it does increases your chances of getting cancer. And I think we can agree that using Marijuana is a step closer to using cocaine than just drinking alcohol. For once, if you are using Marijuana that means that you already have a person providing you an illegal substance. That same person can probably get you cocaine and anything else you want. If you only drink alcohol you would still have to find this illegal substance distributor.
Finally, are you making the claim that there is nothing wrong with smoking Marijuana. If so does that mean that you would be OK if your kids smoke Marijuana? Now please be honest.
OK. So lets agree that doing Marijuana may not 100% of the time lead to cocaine use. That doesn't mean that it doens't increases the likelyhood of using it because you've already broken multiple moral values that go beyond just drinking or smoking.
Another example: Does smoking mean that you are going to get cancer? No. But it has been proven in plenty of studies that it does increases your chances of getting cancer. And I think we can agree that using Marijuana is a step closer to using cocaine than just drinking alcohol. For once, if you are using Marijuana that means that you already have a person providing you an illegal substance. That same person can probably get you cocaine and anything else you want. If you only drink alcohol you would still have to find this illegal substance distributor.
Finally, are you making the claim that there is nothing wrong with smoking Marijuana. If so does that mean that you would be OK if your kids smoke Marijuana? Now please be honest.
I don't have kids, but I have friends who have smoked marijuana with their parents, bought marijuana for their parents, received a bong from their parents as a gift, etc. It's not that uncommon.
The amount who try marijuana that move on to cocaine isn't even close to 100%. Even if I was to grant you that marijuana was a stepping stone, statistics put the number less than 50%. Most polls put the amount of American adults who've tried marijuana close to 42%. Only around 16% have tried cocaine. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1821697,00.ht...
Also, most marijuana dealers only deal enough to smoke for free plus a little extra. They certainly aren't getting rich off it. And many of them don't have connections to other drugs.
That said, there is some truth to what you are saying... In school we are taught that ALL drugs are bad, that they will kill you, ruin your life, etc. Then people try marijuana, and realize it actually isn't a big deal. So that can lead some people to incorrectly conclude that all they learned was lies, not just the part about marijuana, and so they recklessly continue trying other drugs. I'll grant you this happens occasionally. But the fault there not within marijuana, but within the current education policy of treating all drugs equally. Give kids the truth and a little respect, and they just might surprise you.
The amount who try marijuana that move on to cocaine isn't even close to 100%. Even if I was to grant you that marijuana was a stepping stone, statistics put the number less than 50%. Most polls put the amount of American adults who've tried marijuana close to 42%. Only around 16% have tried cocaine. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1821697,00.ht...
Also, most marijuana dealers only deal enough to smoke for free plus a little extra. They certainly aren't getting rich off it. And many of them don't have connections to other drugs.
That said, there is some truth to what you are saying... In school we are taught that ALL drugs are bad, that they will kill you, ruin your life, etc. Then people try marijuana, and realize it actually isn't a big deal. So that can lead some people to incorrectly conclude that all they learned was lies, not just the part about marijuana, and so they recklessly continue trying other drugs. I'll grant you this happens occasionally. But the fault there not within marijuana, but within the current education policy of treating all drugs equally. Give kids the truth and a little respect, and they just might surprise you.
One thing I've noticed is that when people first become open minded and try marijuana, despite everything they've been told by authority figures, they don't necessarily try anything more dangerous because their peers know it's bad. Since it tends to be an inherently social activity (in most cases you are convinced by peers to try it), you will inevitably discuss further experimentation. When enough people mention the risks of hard drugs, you'll tend to stay away from them.
There is a lot of truth to this, peers are a strong influence. I do think, however, that things would improve further if the schools were honest as well. At the very least, it'd be one less thing that erodes trust in the government as an authority.
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The iphone is definitely a hip flask for internet addicts.
I don't know about that. It's more frustrating to use long-term than a full fledged browser, so while it gets the job done for utilitarian fact-finding while on the go, it can't feed an unfocused addiction. At least not in my case.
My nexus used to be one. Then I installed aldiko and started reading books all the time instead. I'm much happier now.
The answer is clearly to rely less on social antibodies to specific addictions and more on recognizing and fighting the general pattern of addictiveness, an effort that this essay itself is a part of. The more we learn about the generic properties of addiction, the more we can not only recognize addictive and harmful things earlier, but also deliberately make worthwhile tasks addictive as well, such as exercise as an obvious example.
I think PG makes a good point, but I hesitate to call some of these things addictions, because many typical people get over them. I watched a lot of TV when I was a little kid, but practically none once I was past twelve. I watched my daughter do the same switch, but even more rapidly. I found MMOGs incredibly attractive when they first came out, but much, much less attractive by a few years later (as measured by no subscriptions). A lot of things people call addictive are qualitatively different from an addition to opiates, say.
Still, he's definitely right that the world is getting more addictive.
Still, he's definitely right that the world is getting more addictive.
The "Slow movement" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Movement ) is an interesting example of an attempt to create a mass movement that addresses some of these issues, while not completely cutting off modern conveniences.
(I'm linking it not because I agree, but because it's an interesting example of an attempt to collectively change people's response to modern technology. Examples like the Amish are in a similar vein, but much more extreme.)
(I'm linking it not because I agree, but because it's an interesting example of an attempt to collectively change people's response to modern technology. Examples like the Amish are in a similar vein, but much more extreme.)
One problem that people who work with computers for a living have versus people who don't, is that, if you are an internet addict and you are, e.g. a nurse, you can always just avoid computers altogether for, say a week or a month, if your addiction gets out of hand.
But for people who work with a computer for their day job, avoiding the cause of the addiction is much tougher.
It's like if a TV critic had a TV addiction. He/She couldn't just stop watching TV altogether to defeat the addiction.
Sometimes I think the only solution for extreme cases is to take a sabbatical from work and become something like a waiter for a few months. No computers needed and lots of human interaction.
But for people who work with a computer for their day job, avoiding the cause of the addiction is much tougher.
It's like if a TV critic had a TV addiction. He/She couldn't just stop watching TV altogether to defeat the addiction.
Sometimes I think the only solution for extreme cases is to take a sabbatical from work and become something like a waiter for a few months. No computers needed and lots of human interaction.
Sounds familiar:
Anathem is set on and around the planet Arbre. Thousands of years prior to the events in the novel, society was on the verge of collapse. Intellectuals entered concents, much like monastic communities but without the religious elements. Here, the avout—a term for intellectuals living under vows and separated from saecular society [...]—retain only limited access to tools and technology and are watched over by officials answering to the outside world (known as the Sæcular Power).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem
Anathem is set on and around the planet Arbre. Thousands of years prior to the events in the novel, society was on the verge of collapse. Intellectuals entered concents, much like monastic communities but without the religious elements. Here, the avout—a term for intellectuals living under vows and separated from saecular society [...]—retain only limited access to tools and technology and are watched over by officials answering to the outside world (known as the Sæcular Power).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem
That's different. In Anathem, the world suffered one Manhatten project too many. Governments isolated the geeks and confiscated their toys as a survival measure.
Internet addiction seems to be the elephant in the room of modern culture. Whole families are addicted, but it's not talked about. Not to mention the more, shall we say, illicit side of the 'net.
That said, TV and newspapers are arguably just as bad (or worse) and they've been around for ages. So that's... reassuring.
However I think the iPad an iPhone are good in the sense that they remove the social isolation involved with logging onto the net.
That said, TV and newspapers are arguably just as bad (or worse) and they've been around for ages. So that's... reassuring.
However I think the iPad an iPhone are good in the sense that they remove the social isolation involved with logging onto the net.
"That said, TV and newspapers are arguably just as bad (or worse)....."
How are newspapers as bad or worse than internet addiction? You don't have most of the members of a family going off to read newspapers in different parts of the house.
How are newspapers as bad or worse than internet addiction? You don't have most of the members of a family going off to read newspapers in different parts of the house.
Newspapers are like the internet in that every single day people waste an hour or more of their life reading them. They also clutter your living room and raise your carbon footprint. And also... reading the Daily Mail or The Guardian everyday can't be good for you! Realistically they're not as bad as TV or the net though.
It might be too broad to refer to the internet as a single entity. Those of us with internet addiction are actually addicted to specific things online - the internet is just the medium.
In the case of hacker news, what we're addicted to is startup news and gossip. It's ironic that this very morning I was thinking about how to produce some sort of audio version of HN for my daily commute.
In the case of hacker news, what we're addicted to is startup news and gossip. It's ironic that this very morning I was thinking about how to produce some sort of audio version of HN for my daily commute.
> In the case of hacker news, what we're addicted to is startup news and gossip.
Not me. I'm more interested in programming technology and understanding how trends in technology shape society -- and reading PG's essay has helped me do this.
Not me. I'm more interested in programming technology and understanding how trends in technology shape society -- and reading PG's essay has helped me do this.
I actually want to get an iPad just to quarantine my internet addiction. If I treat my computer purely as a workspace I'll get more done while at my computer; if I've got an iPad for other things, I won't go through Hacker News withdrawals.
This was inspired by something PG said in another essay--that he deals with internet addiction by using separate computers for work and internet. The iPad is just a purpose built machine for that, in my view.
This was inspired by something PG said in another essay--that he deals with internet addiction by using separate computers for work and internet. The iPad is just a purpose built machine for that, in my view.
It didn't work though. I always ended up slipping into using the Internet on my work computer. Even after I bought a new computer, nicer than my work computer, for using the Internet. So now I've gone back to one computer, which I basically treat as radioactive and have exiled to a corner of the room. I should add a warning notice to that essay.
Edit: Added one.
Edit: Added one.
I agree. If I can get all RSS, twitter, video, etc. on the iPad and off the computer it will start to feel more like a TV or entertainment device. This way I will feel like I'm wasting time vs. working.
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I'm making an attempt at trying to establish myself online to catch the attention of VCs and angels now that I've moved to the bay area, but the result has been a constant urge to monitor everything. Buried within PG's essay is a hint that maybe he thinks it's not worth it in retrospect - zen painter or junkie hacker it seems.
While everyone talks about the wired generation, I think that the ability to focus on one thing for an extended period of time may become the killer mental app of the future.
The long hikes that PG mentioned are a good idea. I've started to do things that exercise my ability to focus. Reading challenging novels and writing are good drills.
I've also started trying to recognize when I try to do two things at once and look for opportunities to focus on only one thing. This can be trivial. I'll fold laundry while watching a tennis match, but I avoid browsing the web. I've noticed that if I do this while watching sports, I quickly lose track of what's going on in the game.
Lastly, I'm more certain than ever that you really need to be engaged (maybe even passionate) with your work to stand a chance against distraction. About 6 months ago, I was really enjoying my programming project, and focus came easily. It took no motivation to get started. I did check HN, but I wasn't killing time on it.
The long hikes that PG mentioned are a good idea. I've started to do things that exercise my ability to focus. Reading challenging novels and writing are good drills.
I've also started trying to recognize when I try to do two things at once and look for opportunities to focus on only one thing. This can be trivial. I'll fold laundry while watching a tennis match, but I avoid browsing the web. I've noticed that if I do this while watching sports, I quickly lose track of what's going on in the game.
Lastly, I'm more certain than ever that you really need to be engaged (maybe even passionate) with your work to stand a chance against distraction. About 6 months ago, I was really enjoying my programming project, and focus came easily. It took no motivation to get started. I did check HN, but I wasn't killing time on it.
Agree completely about long hikes. Sadly I was posting pictures from a hike in the Tetons this summer. Not sure what that has to say about Internet addiction.
It's hard to escape the irony of the situation of the typical programmer. Programming requires extended periods of focus and deep concentration but the very medium in which most of us work is a firestorm of distractions. How can you be an effective mobile app developer if you don't immerse yourself in the experience of mobile media? We're like the crack dealer that has to constantly sample his wares.
Like PG and others in this thread I've tried to combat these distractions by limiting email and internet time, leaving the mobile phone off, and deliberately spending free time doing things like reading books and going on long hikes out in the woods. It's hard not to feel a bit at odds with my profession though.
Like PG and others in this thread I've tried to combat these distractions by limiting email and internet time, leaving the mobile phone off, and deliberately spending free time doing things like reading books and going on long hikes out in the woods. It's hard not to feel a bit at odds with my profession though.
Concentrate of fostering positive outcomes instead of fighting the negative ones. What do you want to accomplish?
Say, you want to write a new mobile app. Your desire itself will consist of rational analysis and emotional drive, the former being required to make it a sound business and the latter required to plow through to the finish line. Before you start, ask yourself - how much will this project take? one month? Let's make it three months - a good estimate for overruns. Do you have enough drive to plow through it without distraction? If the answer is a resounding, enthusiastic form-the-top-of-your-lungs yes, go right ahead - you will not be distracted because the shining beacon of the goal will pull you in the right direction.
If the answer came up short of "super yes", you need to plan a set of activities that will replenish your enthusiasm. Early user feedback works best for me (and if you can't get it your business itself is iffy). Peer encouragement is second best, if you can get it(that's a good reason to apply to YC). Quality business metrics themselves are motivating in an addictive way, just make sure to get addicted to the right metrics. Lastly, try something that your family and non-techie friend can relate to. If you keep telling everyone in your social circle what you do and they keep staring blank in return it will get to you one day, underminign your motivation. Plan ahead and don't let that happen.
And finally, remember back to what motivated you in the past and do more of that. When you sit right now in front of the computer reading this post you might not remember much right away, but as you spend more time thinking about "what really gets me going" in the coming days, things will start coming to the surface. Write them down as they do.
Say, you want to write a new mobile app. Your desire itself will consist of rational analysis and emotional drive, the former being required to make it a sound business and the latter required to plow through to the finish line. Before you start, ask yourself - how much will this project take? one month? Let's make it three months - a good estimate for overruns. Do you have enough drive to plow through it without distraction? If the answer is a resounding, enthusiastic form-the-top-of-your-lungs yes, go right ahead - you will not be distracted because the shining beacon of the goal will pull you in the right direction.
If the answer came up short of "super yes", you need to plan a set of activities that will replenish your enthusiasm. Early user feedback works best for me (and if you can't get it your business itself is iffy). Peer encouragement is second best, if you can get it(that's a good reason to apply to YC). Quality business metrics themselves are motivating in an addictive way, just make sure to get addicted to the right metrics. Lastly, try something that your family and non-techie friend can relate to. If you keep telling everyone in your social circle what you do and they keep staring blank in return it will get to you one day, underminign your motivation. Plan ahead and don't let that happen.
And finally, remember back to what motivated you in the past and do more of that. When you sit right now in front of the computer reading this post you might not remember much right away, but as you spend more time thinking about "what really gets me going" in the coming days, things will start coming to the surface. Write them down as they do.
I think your suggestion to reframe this in a positive way is a good one but the dilemma remains to some degree. For instance, I've cut out Facebook, Twitter and TV and cut my time spent on various online forums down to a bare minimum. This has certainly helped my concentration but I also feel less in the loop wrt web development as a result.
But it's better to be building the next bandwagon than jumping on the last, right?
But it's better to be building the next bandwagon than jumping on the last, right?
True, to be most efficient at web development I need an internet connection. To check docs and Google solutions so I don't have to reinvent the wheel, as well as communicate quickly with others working on the same projects plus monitoring and testing quickly in production.
Removing the internet connection may improve efficiencies in some areas but I'll be a whole lot more efficient if I can have the connection and manage to not be distracted.
Removing the internet connection may improve efficiencies in some areas but I'll be a whole lot more efficient if I can have the connection and manage to not be distracted.
Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Why is this "new" addiction wrong? What does it mean to say it is bad?
pg is taking great pains to distance himself from real addiction, like crystal meth. Yet he never explicitly explains anywhere why the new "addiction" is actually bad, other than trying to loosely associate it with alcohol. I don't think that the "addictiveness" of a thing alone is enough to call it bad. I'm way more addicted to air than a meth addict is addicted to his fix, and I don't consider air addiction a disability.
Now perhaps he's right and it really is bad--but I think this is a fundamental assumption that needs to be discussed and argued, not swallowed whole.
* Is it morally bad?
* Is it dangerous?
* Can the claims of loss of productivity be scientifically substantiated? To what extent?
* To what extent is the comparison to alcohol valid? Is it mood-altering? Does it significantly affect decisionmaking?
I think these are important questions that we have somehow skipped in this discussion.
My personal take is that we simply have a lot more free time now than we did 50 or 100 years ago, where we needed to spend more time feeding and clothing ourselves, and so Farmville arises to fill the empty space. Could this be redirected into something productive? Maybe? But people also burn out and have inefficiencies, so I'm not sure you could extract much more productivity unless we returned to hand-to-mouth.
pg is taking great pains to distance himself from real addiction, like crystal meth. Yet he never explicitly explains anywhere why the new "addiction" is actually bad, other than trying to loosely associate it with alcohol. I don't think that the "addictiveness" of a thing alone is enough to call it bad. I'm way more addicted to air than a meth addict is addicted to his fix, and I don't consider air addiction a disability.
Now perhaps he's right and it really is bad--but I think this is a fundamental assumption that needs to be discussed and argued, not swallowed whole.
* Is it morally bad?
* Is it dangerous?
* Can the claims of loss of productivity be scientifically substantiated? To what extent?
* To what extent is the comparison to alcohol valid? Is it mood-altering? Does it significantly affect decisionmaking?
I think these are important questions that we have somehow skipped in this discussion.
My personal take is that we simply have a lot more free time now than we did 50 or 100 years ago, where we needed to spend more time feeding and clothing ourselves, and so Farmville arises to fill the empty space. Could this be redirected into something productive? Maybe? But people also burn out and have inefficiencies, so I'm not sure you could extract much more productivity unless we returned to hand-to-mouth.
I defined bad as things you don't want to want. E.g. because while they give you initial pleasure, they might give you net less pleasure in the long run. Though that isn't the only reason you might not want to want something. For example, you might dislike the environmental cost, or the thing might conflict with some principle you held.
I don't think there's a sharp distinction between "real" addiction and other types. I think there's a smooth continuum. Even among things at the extreme, like addictive drugs, there's a continuum.
I don't think there's a sharp distinction between "real" addiction and other types. I think there's a smooth continuum. Even among things at the extreme, like addictive drugs, there's a continuum.
I don't think the phrase "don't want to want" has any semantic meaning if you try to break it down.
Here's a silly contrived example: I am addicted to air. A suffocating person has no air. They are very well aware of their addiction. They wish they did not need air. They "don't want to want" air. The whole of NASA probably wishes humans could get along fine without air. But none of this means that dependance on air is "bad" or should be avoided in the normative case.
I agree with you 100% that there is a smooth continuum of addiction. Where we disagree (and where, I would say, you've forgotten to argue something) is that you believe addiction and badness are inherently correlated.
Here's a silly contrived example: I am addicted to air. A suffocating person has no air. They are very well aware of their addiction. They wish they did not need air. They "don't want to want" air. The whole of NASA probably wishes humans could get along fine without air. But none of this means that dependance on air is "bad" or should be avoided in the normative case.
I agree with you 100% that there is a smooth continuum of addiction. Where we disagree (and where, I would say, you've forgotten to argue something) is that you believe addiction and badness are inherently correlated.
I think the reason it seems meaningless not to want to want air is that we're influenced the apparent impossibility of doing without it. But imagine if it actually were possible. E.g. if in some advanced future technology the blood could be oxygenated directly, or our brain states were transferred to some form of computer. Then it's reasonable to imagine someone not wanting to be tied to tedious, corporeal respiration.
I wouldn't call it bad to want air. It doesn't bother me to have to breathe, though to be honest I hadn't thought about it any more than a medieval peasant would have thought about the possibility of flying across the Atlantic. But I'd be annoyed if I were no longer able to fly across the Atlantic, and it's not inconceivable that someone in x years might be annoyed at having to breathe.
I wouldn't call it bad to want air. It doesn't bother me to have to breathe, though to be honest I hadn't thought about it any more than a medieval peasant would have thought about the possibility of flying across the Atlantic. But I'd be annoyed if I were no longer able to fly across the Atlantic, and it's not inconceivable that someone in x years might be annoyed at having to breathe.
Maybe I am too tired tonight, but I don't see how this reply addresses the question--why is addiction (perhaps specifically "internet addiction" or whatever you want to call it)--bad enough to warrant "hip flask" and other equivalences with alcohol?
My comment about the oxygen was trying to derail the equivalence of addictiveness with badness by a "proof by counterexample". The proof goes like this: If oxygen is addictive, and if it is not bad, then not all addictive things are bad.
I am having trouble parsing your reply, but it seems that the premise of the proof that you are attacking is not the goodness/badness of oxygen, which you do not dispute, but you do not think it qualifies as actually addictive because at some point it will be cured, just as the "dependence" on "[not] flying across the atlantic" was cured.
Again, it is late, and I am probably misreading you, but we will probably at some point find a cure for all sorts of addictions, but this does not make them any less real or potent right now. It might console you, as you suffocate, that someday people will no longer die this way. But it cannot help you. The need for oxygen is still substantial.
My comment about the oxygen was trying to derail the equivalence of addictiveness with badness by a "proof by counterexample". The proof goes like this: If oxygen is addictive, and if it is not bad, then not all addictive things are bad.
I am having trouble parsing your reply, but it seems that the premise of the proof that you are attacking is not the goodness/badness of oxygen, which you do not dispute, but you do not think it qualifies as actually addictive because at some point it will be cured, just as the "dependence" on "[not] flying across the atlantic" was cured.
Again, it is late, and I am probably misreading you, but we will probably at some point find a cure for all sorts of addictions, but this does not make them any less real or potent right now. It might console you, as you suffocate, that someday people will no longer die this way. But it cannot help you. The need for oxygen is still substantial.
Here's an example: this back-and-forth between you and Paul was fascinating enough that I read every word, but now that I spent 5 minutes doing it, I realize I'd rather have been working on my startup idea. I didn't realize this as I was reading it, but now that I spent a somewhat significant amount of time reading (and now, also, answering), I wish I hadn't. Part of me wants to finish writing this comment and go write code, and another part wants to open github and start playing with implementations of ideas that have been building up over the past two weeks.
In general, something you (1) do often, (2) enjoy while you're doing it (immediate gratification), but (3) don't enjoy having done it in hindsight (gratifying recollection?), can be classified as the bad kind of addictive.
That said, a simple change of framing could make this activity non-addictive. If I think of this comment as engaging in a community of philosophical study of sorts, of "partaking in the hive mind", as they say on reddit, of "swimming in a River", as Yegge once called it, the memory of this comment suddenly has meaning and the recollection is suddenly gratifying.
In general, something you (1) do often, (2) enjoy while you're doing it (immediate gratification), but (3) don't enjoy having done it in hindsight (gratifying recollection?), can be classified as the bad kind of addictive.
That said, a simple change of framing could make this activity non-addictive. If I think of this comment as engaging in a community of philosophical study of sorts, of "partaking in the hive mind", as they say on reddit, of "swimming in a River", as Yegge once called it, the memory of this comment suddenly has meaning and the recollection is suddenly gratifying.
We may be talking past one another. Perhaps it would help if you picked out a sentence or passage from the essay that seems false.
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I'd say "bad enough" is usually judged individually case by case.
If somebody decides that their biggest goal in life is to sell as many condoms as possible as a traveling nightclub salesman in order to add to the total amount pleasures felt by mankind, they might consider a habit of getting drawn into reading HN in nightclubs much worse than a habit of getting drawn into grabbing a drink from a hip flask.
Basically anything that yields pleasure (or suffering) can affect the way you perceive and evaluate things and make immediate choices in your life. I think this is the basic mechanism of mental addiction. The results of this mechanism can be either good, bad or somewhat of both.
I think it's only matter of semantics whether you wish to call things like wanting to take care of your children an "addiction" although they are usually personally and culturally perceived as mainly "good" behavior. I think we culturally attach a nuance of negativeness in the word "addiction" but I don't think Paul's essay really depends on that cultural assumption.
I think he is looking at the issue more from the side of the perceiving individual and you are trying more to define some objective measures and semantics for addiction. These are both valid points of view but in my opinion very, very different.
If somebody decides that their biggest goal in life is to sell as many condoms as possible as a traveling nightclub salesman in order to add to the total amount pleasures felt by mankind, they might consider a habit of getting drawn into reading HN in nightclubs much worse than a habit of getting drawn into grabbing a drink from a hip flask.
Basically anything that yields pleasure (or suffering) can affect the way you perceive and evaluate things and make immediate choices in your life. I think this is the basic mechanism of mental addiction. The results of this mechanism can be either good, bad or somewhat of both.
I think it's only matter of semantics whether you wish to call things like wanting to take care of your children an "addiction" although they are usually personally and culturally perceived as mainly "good" behavior. I think we culturally attach a nuance of negativeness in the word "addiction" but I don't think Paul's essay really depends on that cultural assumption.
I think he is looking at the issue more from the side of the perceiving individual and you are trying more to define some objective measures and semantics for addiction. These are both valid points of view but in my opinion very, very different.
Addiction limits our ability to choose our actions. If faced with a choice between being addicted and not-addicted to something, a rational person will prefer not being addicted. Therefore addiction is bad.
Oxygen is not inherently bad. Dependence on oxygen is bad.
Oxygen is not inherently bad. Dependence on oxygen is bad.
The analogy to breathing is a bad one, because breathing air is not an addiction, it is a physical need. If you stop breathing, you die. If you stop reading HN or Reddit or Facebook, you don't die.
So, saying that an addiction is about things you "don't want to want" makes sense if you add the caveat that it applies to things you don't need to survive as a human being.
EDIT: I should add that another way in which the breathing analogy fails is that for addictions, usually we refer to things that you do so much that it adversely impacts your everyday life in the sense it puts you in danger losing your job, your spouse, your friends, etc, or even if you don't lose them, you reduce your productivity and thus your overall chance at success in life. Even though we need to breathe every second, no one has lost their job or friends because they "breathed too much".
So, saying that an addiction is about things you "don't want to want" makes sense if you add the caveat that it applies to things you don't need to survive as a human being.
EDIT: I should add that another way in which the breathing analogy fails is that for addictions, usually we refer to things that you do so much that it adversely impacts your everyday life in the sense it puts you in danger losing your job, your spouse, your friends, etc, or even if you don't lose them, you reduce your productivity and thus your overall chance at success in life. Even though we need to breathe every second, no one has lost their job or friends because they "breathed too much".
If you've ever seen someone go 'cold-turkey' then you realise that plenty of additions have reached the status of 'physical need'.
In fact, at a molecular level in the brain almost all addictive substances and activities have a physical component.
I once read a book about addiction, the title was 'from chocolate to heroin' or something to that effect. It listed an absolutely amazing number of substances that you can develop an addiction to. Oxygen wasn't one of those, but I get the point the OP tries to make, which is that there is physical discomfort associated with not being able to satisfy your cravings. Now in the case of Oxygen that 'discomfort' will lead to your rapid expiry, a thing that in the case of most - but not all - substances you can be addicted to will not occur. But there are addictions that will make you very ill indeed if you try to break your dependency bonds too quickly.
In fact, at a molecular level in the brain almost all addictive substances and activities have a physical component.
I once read a book about addiction, the title was 'from chocolate to heroin' or something to that effect. It listed an absolutely amazing number of substances that you can develop an addiction to. Oxygen wasn't one of those, but I get the point the OP tries to make, which is that there is physical discomfort associated with not being able to satisfy your cravings. Now in the case of Oxygen that 'discomfort' will lead to your rapid expiry, a thing that in the case of most - but not all - substances you can be addicted to will not occur. But there are addictions that will make you very ill indeed if you try to break your dependency bonds too quickly.
I never claimed there was no physical component to addictions or that withdrawal symptoms can't be very bad.
It's just that it is possible to end all existing addictions (alcohol, drugs, Facebook, etc) and still live, but no one can end the "addiction" to oxygen and still live.
That's why it's unreasonable to compare breathing to addiction.
It's just that it is possible to end all existing addictions (alcohol, drugs, Facebook, etc) and still live, but no one can end the "addiction" to oxygen and still live.
That's why it's unreasonable to compare breathing to addiction.
> In fact, at a molecular level in the brain almost all addictive substances and activities have a physical component.
Surely you could remove the "almost" from this sentence and it still be right. ALL deliberate behaviours are caused by brain activity, and therefore have physical components because the brain is a physical object.
Surely you could remove the "almost" from this sentence and it still be right. ALL deliberate behaviours are caused by brain activity, and therefore have physical components because the brain is a physical object.
Yes, you're right.
There's a difference between a physical response to withdrawal and a physical requirement to live. As far as I'm aware there aren't any addictions that change your physiology to the degree that you have a permanent dependency (would be fascinated to know if there are any though).
Yes, going 'gold turkey' can induce a heart attack which in turn can cause you to die:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_cold_turkey_withdrawal_from_n...
The 'workaround' is to reduce drug consumption slowly or to use a surrogate (in the case of heroin methadone is usually used).
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_cold_turkey_withdrawal_from_n...
The 'workaround' is to reduce drug consumption slowly or to use a surrogate (in the case of heroin methadone is usually used).
This is something discussed extensively in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of religion amoungst other places. It is sometimes referred to as a second order desire.
For an obvious example, I want ice cream. I do not want to want ice cream. I know that eating ice cream is counter to my fitness goals and not overly good for my teeth either. Yet, I want ice cream. My first order desire is for ice cream, but I hold a second order desire to not want ice cream.
Your air example fails to be analogous because air is necessary for life. A person may very well be able to stop wanting air, but they will not be able to stop needing it to live.
For an obvious example, I want ice cream. I do not want to want ice cream. I know that eating ice cream is counter to my fitness goals and not overly good for my teeth either. Yet, I want ice cream. My first order desire is for ice cream, but I hold a second order desire to not want ice cream.
Your air example fails to be analogous because air is necessary for life. A person may very well be able to stop wanting air, but they will not be able to stop needing it to live.
Consider "want to want" as "would do in the limit of complete knowledge, infinitely fast thought processes and perfect self-control", i.e., reflective equilibrium. If you had perfect self-control then you would choose to breathe, but not to play World of Warcraft.
It does, because people's preferences do not obey the rules of rationality. They differ inconsistently across different time-scales, so that it's very common (eg) to have a very strong desire for something immediately gratifying (a cigarette, more ice cream, whatever) and a weaker desire to not want them. This is a fairly well-studied phenomenon; you can [start here](http://picoeconomics.org/breakdown.htm) with the work of George Ainslie.
Nobody's addicted to air. You need air: just enough to get along. But you don't try to inhale as much as you can; you don't get sick getting too much of it -- although there is enough air around to inflate yourself like a balloon if you were actually addicted to it.
Addiction is when you take too much of something; under 5 cigarettes a day don't give you cancer; 1 glass of wine a day actually makes you healthier. But if you get addicted to tobacco or alcohol (or bad food) these things end up killing you.
Incidentally can modern addictions pg's talking about, really kill you? Can you die from Internet addiction? Porn/TV/Farmville addiction? If they can't kill you can they be called "addictive"...?
Addiction is when you take too much of something; under 5 cigarettes a day don't give you cancer; 1 glass of wine a day actually makes you healthier. But if you get addicted to tobacco or alcohol (or bad food) these things end up killing you.
Incidentally can modern addictions pg's talking about, really kill you? Can you die from Internet addiction? Porn/TV/Farmville addiction? If they can't kill you can they be called "addictive"...?
there are plenty of examples in Korea where people have died from "too much internet"
a very sad example: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/209478-Update-South-Korean...
a very sad example: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/209478-Update-South-Korean...
I don't think this example, however sad, is valid:
- addiction should harm the addicted, not somebody else
- from the article: "The girl, who was born prematurely and weighed 5 pounds (2.25 kilograms), was often fed rotten formula and was beaten when she cried out of hunger, the affidavit said." so what killed this child is not "Internet addiction" but being born to abusive parents...
I think I can explain. I want to breath, but I never wanted to stop breathing. I want to play games, but I really wish I didn't want to. Not that I want to become a vegetable with no desires. I want some replacement that feeds my emotions and instincts just like games but adds "energy" instead of taking it away. By energy I mean anything that improves the chance of my genes survival (or genes of my species): health, money, safety, experience, knowledge.
I'd say that I'm addicted to the Internet, but I do want to want it. I just don't want to want it as much.
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Dr Drew always says the hallmark of addiction is
progressive use in the face of adverse consequence (effects on school or work, health, finance, legal, relationships).
Aside from direct damage which varies from negligible to substantial, the indirect costs should be taken into account. They're not always easy to guage.
Something that takes a lot of time certainly has an opportunity cost. The time it takes could have been spent doing something else. Someone addicted to a game may spend less time getting exercise, learning what it takes to get a ham license, learning to program, working on real personal relationships.... the list goes on and on.
Generally things that give instant gratification tend to be addictive. Has our society suffered from not living within its means? Have we fostered an environment that actually encourages addiction to spending?
Look at the nature of what's on commercial tv, and the ads. The programs are designed to keep us hooked. (they don't sell programs to us, they sell us to advertisers) And look at the nature of the ads and what we consume. To some, our purpose in life is to CONSUME. Just who is that good for?
Next time you play a game or pick something to watch, ask yourself what you're gaining, what it costs, and will you better of later or be a better person as a result?
Maybe the skills learned in those games aren't useful enough to be worth the price.
Of course if we measure lifetimes in man-hours and look at the numbers a different way can get some disturbing stats.
It's probably a leap to equate the cumulative hours lost to gaming to death. Perhaps it would be easier to accept if we measured the hours spent with updates and fighting malware? (That would make a catchy story... measure the lives lost due to Windows bugs LOL)
We don't have to be productive all the time, but shouldn't we find pleasure in ways that help our minds and bodies?
Something that takes a lot of time certainly has an opportunity cost. The time it takes could have been spent doing something else. Someone addicted to a game may spend less time getting exercise, learning what it takes to get a ham license, learning to program, working on real personal relationships.... the list goes on and on.
Generally things that give instant gratification tend to be addictive. Has our society suffered from not living within its means? Have we fostered an environment that actually encourages addiction to spending?
Look at the nature of what's on commercial tv, and the ads. The programs are designed to keep us hooked. (they don't sell programs to us, they sell us to advertisers) And look at the nature of the ads and what we consume. To some, our purpose in life is to CONSUME. Just who is that good for?
Next time you play a game or pick something to watch, ask yourself what you're gaining, what it costs, and will you better of later or be a better person as a result?
Maybe the skills learned in those games aren't useful enough to be worth the price.
Of course if we measure lifetimes in man-hours and look at the numbers a different way can get some disturbing stats.
It's probably a leap to equate the cumulative hours lost to gaming to death. Perhaps it would be easier to accept if we measured the hours spent with updates and fighting malware? (That would make a catchy story... measure the lives lost due to Windows bugs LOL)
We don't have to be productive all the time, but shouldn't we find pleasure in ways that help our minds and bodies?
"Could this be redirected into something productive? Maybe? But people also
burn out and have inefficiencies, so I'm not sure you could extract much more
productivity unless we returned to hand-to-mouth."
That's not the point. If you're addicted, then it isn't pleasurable anymore. You're "forced" by the addiction to do something that you don't enjoy anymore. It has nothing to do with productive/unproductive work.
I think that today it's harder to stay conscious, because there's more and more addictive stuff. What's better for a producer in a capitalist society then an addicted consumer?
That's not the point. If you're addicted, then it isn't pleasurable anymore. You're "forced" by the addiction to do something that you don't enjoy anymore. It has nothing to do with productive/unproductive work.
I think that today it's harder to stay conscious, because there's more and more addictive stuff. What's better for a producer in a capitalist society then an addicted consumer?
Actually, I'll call you on that. I think our collective addiction to air is HORRIBLE. Air oxidizes our tissues, causing aging, shortages prevent us from getting the most physical exertion, etc. If we didn't need air, we'd be much more capable. If someone could figure out a way to free us from this burden, we'd be better off running farther, staying young longer, and much much more.
The chemical reactions that drive your body are best compared to a very slow burn. Oxidisation (burning) needs oxygen, and oxygen needs to be somehow added to keep the 'fire' (your continued existence as an entity) going. Those that no longer consume oxygen (at least, those that are animals) are usually labelled as 'deceased'.
Aging and all the other things you list as a burden are definitely affected by our use of 'air', but without that air you wouldn't live long enough to experience these effects. The positives seem to clearly outweigh the negatives.
Aging and all the other things you list as a burden are definitely affected by our use of 'air', but without that air you wouldn't live long enough to experience these effects. The positives seem to clearly outweigh the negatives.
I disagree with the fact that people currently have more free time as compared to 50-100 years ago.
According to http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.work.hours.us
there is a clear trend in a shortening workweek each decade across industries.
there is a clear trend in a shortening workweek each decade across industries.
I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing the data out.
Definition of "free time": "time available for hobbies and other activities that you enjoy"
drewcrawford's excellent stats are very clear on the point: "between 1880 and 1995 the amount of work per day fell nearly in half, allowing leisure time to more than triple."
drewcrawford's excellent stats are very clear on the point: "between 1880 and 1995 the amount of work per day fell nearly in half, allowing leisure time to more than triple."
The two points I can address:
* Is It *dangerous*?
* Can the claims of loss of productivity be scientifically substantiated? To what extent?
>At the extreme, yes
Let me rephrase the question a bit, because at extremes everything is dangerous. Is it any more or less dangerous, on average, than other things in society considered to be bad? Are there more or less hikikomoris than DWIs? Are there more or less WoW addicts than rich old men with boats or other (presumably harmless) unproductive activities?
> If an employee spends 8 hours browsing Reddit, instead of doing work that needed to be done, the loss of productivity is quantifiable
Are you sure? Did they really lose 8 hours worth of work? How is "time spent" any better a metric for productivity than counting lines of code?
I find, for me personally, that when I am burnt out I won't produce in any amount of time until I recharge, and when I'm fully charged I'm not interested in browsing Reddit. This is a personal anecdote, and not data; but can we get some data--any data--correlating productivity and browsing Reddit, positively or negatively? I suspect the relationship is a lot more complex than "X hours lost."
Let me rephrase the question a bit, because at extremes everything is dangerous. Is it any more or less dangerous, on average, than other things in society considered to be bad? Are there more or less hikikomoris than DWIs? Are there more or less WoW addicts than rich old men with boats or other (presumably harmless) unproductive activities?
> If an employee spends 8 hours browsing Reddit, instead of doing work that needed to be done, the loss of productivity is quantifiable
Are you sure? Did they really lose 8 hours worth of work? How is "time spent" any better a metric for productivity than counting lines of code?
I find, for me personally, that when I am burnt out I won't produce in any amount of time until I recharge, and when I'm fully charged I'm not interested in browsing Reddit. This is a personal anecdote, and not data; but can we get some data--any data--correlating productivity and browsing Reddit, positively or negatively? I suspect the relationship is a lot more complex than "X hours lost."
> Are you sure? Did they really lose 8 hours worth of work? How is "time spent" any better a metric for productivity than counting lines of code?
Coding is a poor example because there is no generally accepted metric for productivity. (Figure out good way of measuring programmer productivity and you'd have a mint.) However, some jobs do have a valid metric. Data entry: 300 forms take an average of X hours to do. After X hours reading Reddit and not entering forms, 0 forms have been entered. Simplistically, X hours have been 'lost'.
Coding is a poor example because there is no generally accepted metric for productivity. (Figure out good way of measuring programmer productivity and you'd have a mint.) However, some jobs do have a valid metric. Data entry: 300 forms take an average of X hours to do. After X hours reading Reddit and not entering forms, 0 forms have been entered. Simplistically, X hours have been 'lost'.
Data entry: 300 forms take an average of X hours to do. After X hours reading Reddit and not entering forms, 0 forms have been entered. Simplistically, X hours have been 'lost'.
X hours of data entry have been lost. X hours of participating in the Reddit hivemind have been gained :) Steve Yegge once hypothesized that Reddit-like websites are the first incarnation of a new breed of superorganisms, which evolve into something called Rivers: https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddv7939q_20gw8h9pcx
X hours of data entry have been lost. X hours of participating in the Reddit hivemind have been gained :) Steve Yegge once hypothesized that Reddit-like websites are the first incarnation of a new breed of superorganisms, which evolve into something called Rivers: https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddv7939q_20gw8h9pcx
I think the best way way to conceive of technological progress is in terms of node density, where each node is a person. That is why I define the following terms the way I do:
Web 1.0 lets individuals create and express ideas
Web 2.0 lets groups create and express ideas
Web 3.0 lets societies create and express ideas
Notice that what causes each qualitative shift are new inventions/innovations that allow for increasing densification of nodes. Notice also that it's a rather beautiful idea in the mathematical sense, because web 3.0 is different from web 2.0 in exactly the same way that web 2.0 is different than web 1.0.
That's why I hate this whole "web 3.0 is the semantic web" meme, because it's completely arbitrary and lacking in any parallelism.
Web 1.0 lets individuals create and express ideas
Web 2.0 lets groups create and express ideas
Web 3.0 lets societies create and express ideas
Notice that what causes each qualitative shift are new inventions/innovations that allow for increasing densification of nodes. Notice also that it's a rather beautiful idea in the mathematical sense, because web 3.0 is different from web 2.0 in exactly the same way that web 2.0 is different than web 1.0.
That's why I hate this whole "web 3.0 is the semantic web" meme, because it's completely arbitrary and lacking in any parallelism.
> What does it mean to say it is bad?
How about this: if in advance of the behavior, you intend to partake moderately, and in the event you consistently overindulge, and after the fact you regret your excess, then something about this behavior is bad.
I'm leaving aside some of the other points you bring up, but if you've got a habit that consistently leads to dissatisfaction and regret, I think it's fair to call it a problem for that reason alone.
How about this: if in advance of the behavior, you intend to partake moderately, and in the event you consistently overindulge, and after the fact you regret your excess, then something about this behavior is bad.
I'm leaving aside some of the other points you bring up, but if you've got a habit that consistently leads to dissatisfaction and regret, I think it's fair to call it a problem for that reason alone.
> if in advance of the behavior, you intend to partake moderately, and in the event you consistently overindulge, and after the fact you regret your excess, then something about this behavior is bad.
(This is not at all intended to be a joke:) In many cultures, homosexual activity would meet this criteria. There are many social and psychological reasons for guilt to manifest itself, and I don't think that these alone form a robust definition of badness.
Now I don't mean to trivialize those who really struggle with, say, reading HN or Reddit or playing WoW.
But I do think that a lot of the talk about internet "addiction" is really a misunderstood type of burnout. I consider it totally normal to "waste" 1-3 hours each day, and I have no impulse to blame Reddit. If it wasn't the internet, it would be something else. There's simply a finite amount of time that I can spend being productive.
And it comes in waves. Sometimes, coming off a particularly grueling schedule, I can't get anything done for a week or more. Is this bad? I think it's pretty normal. It's a result of pushing myself past my production limit, building up a "productive" debt. I just need some time to recharge.
There's even some research to back up this view. See Galliot et al: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17279852
So again, not to trivialize long-term WoW players' addiction, but I am regularly unproductive for a few hours a day, at times for a week or more, and feel no guilt or regret. Is this addiction? Is this bad? Maybe I'm just in denial, but I sort of doubt it.
(This is not at all intended to be a joke:) In many cultures, homosexual activity would meet this criteria. There are many social and psychological reasons for guilt to manifest itself, and I don't think that these alone form a robust definition of badness.
Now I don't mean to trivialize those who really struggle with, say, reading HN or Reddit or playing WoW.
But I do think that a lot of the talk about internet "addiction" is really a misunderstood type of burnout. I consider it totally normal to "waste" 1-3 hours each day, and I have no impulse to blame Reddit. If it wasn't the internet, it would be something else. There's simply a finite amount of time that I can spend being productive.
And it comes in waves. Sometimes, coming off a particularly grueling schedule, I can't get anything done for a week or more. Is this bad? I think it's pretty normal. It's a result of pushing myself past my production limit, building up a "productive" debt. I just need some time to recharge.
There's even some research to back up this view. See Galliot et al: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17279852
So again, not to trivialize long-term WoW players' addiction, but I am regularly unproductive for a few hours a day, at times for a week or more, and feel no guilt or regret. Is this addiction? Is this bad? Maybe I'm just in denial, but I sort of doubt it.
If I wasted 1-3 hours each day I would be okay. Some days I waste far less than this and feel good. But some days, I have lots of stuff to do, and I accidentally spend like 5 or 6 hours on HN and then I feel really shitty afterwards. _That_ is why we are trying to fix this problem. Maybe this doesn't happen to you, and that's good. But it does happen to me sometimes.
> (This is not at all intended to be a joke:) In many cultures, homosexual activity would meet this criteria. There are many social and psychological reasons for guilt to manifest itself, and I don't think that these alone form a robust definition of badness.
Huh? How does that work? Do homosexuals in such homophobic cultures... I dunno, intend to go to the local gay spot for just a blow job and wind up barebacking?
Huh? How does that work? Do homosexuals in such homophobic cultures... I dunno, intend to go to the local gay spot for just a blow job and wind up barebacking?
You're assuming that dissatisfaction and regret mean the activity was bad. What if you overindulge in learning and regret knowing all kinds of details about Lisp? Some outside observers don't consider your time wasted, quite the contrary. But by your measurement, regretting knowing Lisp would mean that knowing Lisp is bad.
My point is that you can always pick opposing activities that people will feel are time wasted or well-spent. But why? Because you have some implicit notion of ultimate value that helps you weigh time spent on one or the other.
In the absence of such a theory of good and evil you might as well criticize pg for becoming addicted to hiking or addicted to insightful thinking. Cool for him, but he's wasting his life if he doesn't have all the achievements in Team Fortress 2.
There is no way to create this kind of theory out of the subject's reflection on their own activities. After all, the subject might be wrong!
My point is that you can always pick opposing activities that people will feel are time wasted or well-spent. But why? Because you have some implicit notion of ultimate value that helps you weigh time spent on one or the other.
In the absence of such a theory of good and evil you might as well criticize pg for becoming addicted to hiking or addicted to insightful thinking. Cool for him, but he's wasting his life if he doesn't have all the achievements in Team Fortress 2.
There is no way to create this kind of theory out of the subject's reflection on their own activities. After all, the subject might be wrong!
These are things that, as pg put it, I don't want to want. I don't care what changed on HN in the last 15 seconds, so why do my fingers type this reflexively when I've opened my browser to do something else? I was just here, I've already read the stuff I'm interested in. I don't want to be here.
Yeah, I know about noprocrast. It doesn't stop my fingers from typing h-a-down-enter .
Yeah, I know about noprocrast. It doesn't stop my fingers from typing h-a-down-enter .
Very interesting perspective.
I would take the moral relativist approach to arguing that these things are bad. Suppose a hypothetical person who spends time on (e.g.) Facebook when there's something else they themselves would prefer to do with that time. Would the addiction be bad for this person?
If so, we only need to point to the existence of a statistically significant number of such people to substantiate the argument that their Facebook addiction is a "bad" thing. Unless we have reason to believe that Facebook addiction in general (not Facebook itself, just addiction to it) has benefits, we can transfer this to Facebook addiction in general.
Here's one person so identified: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/ep.facebook.addict/inde...
To my knowledge, nobody's done a study of this, but I find it more plausible than not that there exist many people who spend time on Facebook that they would prefer to use doing other things.
I've picked on Facebook quite a bit here. This is not in any way meant to be a dig against the service or company; Facebook is just a convenient example.
I would take the moral relativist approach to arguing that these things are bad. Suppose a hypothetical person who spends time on (e.g.) Facebook when there's something else they themselves would prefer to do with that time. Would the addiction be bad for this person?
If so, we only need to point to the existence of a statistically significant number of such people to substantiate the argument that their Facebook addiction is a "bad" thing. Unless we have reason to believe that Facebook addiction in general (not Facebook itself, just addiction to it) has benefits, we can transfer this to Facebook addiction in general.
Here's one person so identified: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/ep.facebook.addict/inde...
To my knowledge, nobody's done a study of this, but I find it more plausible than not that there exist many people who spend time on Facebook that they would prefer to use doing other things.
I've picked on Facebook quite a bit here. This is not in any way meant to be a dig against the service or company; Facebook is just a convenient example.
It is somehow comforting to know that PG is struggling with the same addiction I am.
"Liking something too much" is perhaps too weak a definition for addiction. You're addicted to something if you don't genuinely need it, but it's uncomfortable to seriously contemplate giving it up. I like watching television too much, in the sense that I would prefer to like it less, but I haven't watched any in months, and this does not seem problematic.
I have to agree with the main thesis, though: however you define it, things are getting more addictive. That seems like an almost necessary consequence of capitalism. If your product or service is addictive, you can cause much more discomfort to your customers without losing them. Almost every way of improving the bottom line without improving the product involves causing discomfort to your customers (the only exception being "get more customers"), and any of those things can be done at the same time as improving the product. Just look at credit cards: everybody hates them, their policies are extremely abusive, but people are addicted to the convenience they provide. It's not worth giving up capitalism for (it's still the worst economic system except all the others, with posthumous apologies to Churchill).
I think there's perhaps a business model in managing the increasing addictiveness of the world around us. I'm not sure where, but it's such a potential value that there must be one.
I have to agree with the main thesis, though: however you define it, things are getting more addictive. That seems like an almost necessary consequence of capitalism. If your product or service is addictive, you can cause much more discomfort to your customers without losing them. Almost every way of improving the bottom line without improving the product involves causing discomfort to your customers (the only exception being "get more customers"), and any of those things can be done at the same time as improving the product. Just look at credit cards: everybody hates them, their policies are extremely abusive, but people are addicted to the convenience they provide. It's not worth giving up capitalism for (it's still the worst economic system except all the others, with posthumous apologies to Churchill).
I think there's perhaps a business model in managing the increasing addictiveness of the world around us. I'm not sure where, but it's such a potential value that there must be one.
Maybe PG and I would agree on this, because I do think things are becoming more "addictive", but I don't believe he's addressed the root cause of the problem.
I think with new technological advances, etc, things are becoming better at being "false substitutes" -- i.e. masquerading themselves as the authentic ways in which we should best satisfy the natural human desires and instincts we all have within us.
Addiction comes into play when we are consistently using a false substitute instead of the real thing, so addiction is really much farther down the road - at that point your brain has been fully deceived to indulge in these false substitutes...
Examples:
1. Processed "Fat Free" garbage food and fad diets instead of healthy eating and normal exercise.
2. Facebook instead of "Face-to-face" social networking
3. HD porn instead of healthy sexual relationships
4. Online dating instead of learning human interaction
5. Books like "The Game" or PUA. Rather than addressing your inner confidence issues, you read this, learn the rules, and treat women like they're another sport
5. Passively watching TV and sucking up the Internet for mental "stimulation", rather than reading books, creating, and building things.
6. Constantly seeking your 15 minutes of fame and attention (which is FAR easier to get these days) rather than real love and affection
7. The list goes on...
I know for a fact this list will be controversial, but I think people will agree with me that these are, in fact, substitutes for the best way to satisfy the many human desires we have. Obviously if you're not addicted, then good for you. It's harsh though. Suck it up and desire to do better. I'm certainly guilty of some of them myself.
I think with new technological advances, etc, things are becoming better at being "false substitutes" -- i.e. masquerading themselves as the authentic ways in which we should best satisfy the natural human desires and instincts we all have within us.
Addiction comes into play when we are consistently using a false substitute instead of the real thing, so addiction is really much farther down the road - at that point your brain has been fully deceived to indulge in these false substitutes...
Examples:
1. Processed "Fat Free" garbage food and fad diets instead of healthy eating and normal exercise.
2. Facebook instead of "Face-to-face" social networking
3. HD porn instead of healthy sexual relationships
4. Online dating instead of learning human interaction
5. Books like "The Game" or PUA. Rather than addressing your inner confidence issues, you read this, learn the rules, and treat women like they're another sport
5. Passively watching TV and sucking up the Internet for mental "stimulation", rather than reading books, creating, and building things.
6. Constantly seeking your 15 minutes of fame and attention (which is FAR easier to get these days) rather than real love and affection
7. The list goes on...
I know for a fact this list will be controversial, but I think people will agree with me that these are, in fact, substitutes for the best way to satisfy the many human desires we have. Obviously if you're not addicted, then good for you. It's harsh though. Suck it up and desire to do better. I'm certainly guilty of some of them myself.
Even if we accept your frame, it's not a simple thing. Consider these "false" substitutes:
Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing;
Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends;
HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships;
Online dating instead of avoiding social situations because you never meet anyone you actually want to talk to, and when you do they're always seeing someone else;
Chess and WoW instead of mortal combat and intertribal warfare;
Football fandom instead of burning the fields of rival clans and kidnapping their women and children.
Inventiveness taketh away, but it also giveth.
Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing;
Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends;
HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships;
Online dating instead of avoiding social situations because you never meet anyone you actually want to talk to, and when you do they're always seeing someone else;
Chess and WoW instead of mortal combat and intertribal warfare;
Football fandom instead of burning the fields of rival clans and kidnapping their women and children.
Inventiveness taketh away, but it also giveth.
But some of the things you mention only look bad when compared to even crappier alternatives.
> Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing;
Around the baby boomer generation until people 20 or so years younger there was a sweet spot where mass-produced food was available but more expensive than more traditionally-prepared and traditionally-grown food. Also, people spent a lot more time cooking (and less time watching cooking tv shows), which helped create a relationship with food that wouldn't stand today's fast food habits. At least here in Brazil.
> Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends;
The solution to this existed before the suburbs (which are a post-ww2 phenomenon), and is called living in small cramped places in cities close to where you work and to most people you will meet. Some people still live like this, and enjoy it. Suburbs are soul crushing, but they are by no means necessary.
> HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships;
Well, not every sexual relationship is unhealthy, and if you ignore the healthy ones this is vacuously good. The truth is, developing healthy sexual habits is a difficult part of growing up, and keeping people in fantasy land is not a solution to this anymore than giving everyone a government allowance is a solution to the problem that it's hard to find fulfilling jobs.
The other points are less glaringly false, but have small subtleties that can be teased out.
> Large quantities of mass-produced food instead of meager quantities of undependable crops that you spend 90% of your working life growing;
Around the baby boomer generation until people 20 or so years younger there was a sweet spot where mass-produced food was available but more expensive than more traditionally-prepared and traditionally-grown food. Also, people spent a lot more time cooking (and less time watching cooking tv shows), which helped create a relationship with food that wouldn't stand today's fast food habits. At least here in Brazil.
> Facebook instead of being lonely and isolated in your suburban home, miles from any of your friends;
The solution to this existed before the suburbs (which are a post-ww2 phenomenon), and is called living in small cramped places in cities close to where you work and to most people you will meet. Some people still live like this, and enjoy it. Suburbs are soul crushing, but they are by no means necessary.
> HD porn instead of unhealthy sexual relationships;
Well, not every sexual relationship is unhealthy, and if you ignore the healthy ones this is vacuously good. The truth is, developing healthy sexual habits is a difficult part of growing up, and keeping people in fantasy land is not a solution to this anymore than giving everyone a government allowance is a solution to the problem that it's hard to find fulfilling jobs.
The other points are less glaringly false, but have small subtleties that can be teased out.
"But some of the things you mention only look bad when compared to even crappier alternatives."
I think that was the whole point... mechanicalfish's list contains false dichotomies, in order to illustrate that the same is true of the original list.
I think that was the whole point... mechanicalfish's list contains false dichotomies, in order to illustrate that the same is true of the original list.
Which people in Brazil are we talking about, that had such better diets 50-60 years ago? In 1950, the life expectancy from birth in Brazil was 50 years (a big improvement from before 1930 when life expectancy was about 33 years; by 1975 the life expectancy was about 60 years, and today it's about 73 years). Part of this was high infant mortality and poor access to healthcare, but another big part of it was that Brazil, like most of the world, mostly consisted of chronically undernourished people.
(These data are eyeballed from http://www.gapminder.org/world/)
(These data are eyeballed from http://www.gapminder.org/world/)
I mean my parents, my girlfriend's parents, my friends' parents, and almost every middle-class to upper-class person my age's parents as well. Not our grandparents, mind you.
> almost every middle-class to upper-class person
Okay. That is only a fraction of the population of Brazil, which has long had one of the highest Gini coefficients in the world.
Okay. That is only a fraction of the population of Brazil, which has long had one of the highest Gini coefficients in the world.
I agree, I think my examples weren't as clear as they should be. I was running out the door trying to get my thoughts out...
My point still stands though, we're often addicted to or deceived by that which is an inferior and poorer substitute for the "real" thing. Sure, technology may improve our ability to better fulfill desires when it's the only option.
However, given the context (and this may just be me), usually I view addiction in a negative light, so my examples were used to demonstrate the negative effects of addiction to false substitutes.
Rarely do you hear the word addiction mentioned in a positive fashion about someone, such as "Oh, he's absolutely addicted to healthy eating!"
Even when we do joke that someone is "addicted" to something positive such as healthy eating, we're usually passively stating that we think they're doing something far in excess than what we believe is normal... so it's still ultimately a comment delivered with a negative subtext.
My point still stands though, we're often addicted to or deceived by that which is an inferior and poorer substitute for the "real" thing. Sure, technology may improve our ability to better fulfill desires when it's the only option.
However, given the context (and this may just be me), usually I view addiction in a negative light, so my examples were used to demonstrate the negative effects of addiction to false substitutes.
Rarely do you hear the word addiction mentioned in a positive fashion about someone, such as "Oh, he's absolutely addicted to healthy eating!"
Even when we do joke that someone is "addicted" to something positive such as healthy eating, we're usually passively stating that we think they're doing something far in excess than what we believe is normal... so it's still ultimately a comment delivered with a negative subtext.
This is a good point. In many cases, you sate desires with the substitute, you neglect to get all the additional long-term indirect benefits. Some examples: exercise vs. liposuction (exercise is Social, discipline-building), breast milk vs. formula (receiving formula instead of breast milk gives higher risk of certain types of cancer for reasons still unknown).
There's a word for a substitute that's more compelling than what it copies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli
There has been a lot of discussion of superstimuli on Less Wrong, here is an example that ties in fairly well with pg's essay Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization
http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...
Not just controversial but wrong, for the most part. For example, Facebook is not a substitute for face-to-face social interaction, but complements it. (How am I going to interact face-to-face with someone far away?) The same is true for #3, #4 and the second #5 at least.
Of course, if I were to spend 100% of my time on Facebook and therefore completely neglect face-to-face social contacts (<cough>), then that would likely be a problem. The opposite (100% face-to-face contacts and no online ones) would arguably be a problem too, in this day and age.
Of course, if I were to spend 100% of my time on Facebook and therefore completely neglect face-to-face social contacts (<cough>), then that would likely be a problem. The opposite (100% face-to-face contacts and no online ones) would arguably be a problem too, in this day and age.
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Technological progress means making things do more of what we want.
There are two reasonably distinct categories of things I want. I don't have good names for them, so I'll just label them A and B:
A is things like: Artificial organs, cheap clean energy, cheap clean and fast transportation, robot house-cleaners, faster-and-faster computers.
B covers things like: When I was quitting smoking, I wanted more alcohol and coffee. When I was doing a boring job, I wanted to browse the internet more. When I was exhausted from a long commute I wanted more and more TV in the evenings.
Category B is full of things I want, but which I don't want to want. What I really want is all the stuff in category A. I only ever "wanted" each thing in category B as a short-term quick fix to some other underlying problem in my life.
Capitalism is great as far as it goes, but I don't believe it is able to distinguish between these two senses of want. Perhaps it needs an upgrade?
There are two reasonably distinct categories of things I want. I don't have good names for them, so I'll just label them A and B:
A is things like: Artificial organs, cheap clean energy, cheap clean and fast transportation, robot house-cleaners, faster-and-faster computers.
B covers things like: When I was quitting smoking, I wanted more alcohol and coffee. When I was doing a boring job, I wanted to browse the internet more. When I was exhausted from a long commute I wanted more and more TV in the evenings.
Category B is full of things I want, but which I don't want to want. What I really want is all the stuff in category A. I only ever "wanted" each thing in category B as a short-term quick fix to some other underlying problem in my life.
Capitalism is great as far as it goes, but I don't believe it is able to distinguish between these two senses of want. Perhaps it needs an upgrade?
Artificial organs, cheap clean energy, cheap clean and fast transportation, robot house-cleaners, faster-and-faster computers.
Rich people problems
Rich people problems
What's your point?
I could characterize nutritionally-void foodstuffs like coffee or tea, or expensive entertainment like TV or the Internet, as 'rich people stuff' too. If you're in the West, you're 'rich people'.
I could characterize nutritionally-void foodstuffs like coffee or tea, or expensive entertainment like TV or the Internet, as 'rich people stuff' too. If you're in the West, you're 'rich people'.
It's interesting that the article talks about avoiding addictions, rather than making beneficial things more addictive. If we're in some sort of addictions arms race, we need to strive for balance, not isolation.
Paul I've never been much on flattering you for your essays. You're a great writer, but sadly none of them did much for me -- and you've got a willing audience, so it didn't seem necessary.
This time, however, you wrote a good essay. Broadly-scoped, yet with enough cogent sparkles to make it a worthwhile read.
Glad to see you continuing to engage on this.
My hope is that we're going to develop new social norms for what is "normal" -- best operating range. This time in our evolution might be like when heroin first was introduced. For a time, normal as in "regular people" were people who used drugs. Normal as in best operating range were people who abstained. They were probably pretty boring people, actually. Here's hoping the boring people save the day.
Heard a new phrase last week, "digital drugs". I like it. Seems to fit.
Also, for more reading, here's a shameless plug for "Technology is Heroin" which I wrote a year and a half ago on the same topic http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is... You said at the time you wanted to address this issue, and I'm glad it's still on your radar.
This time, however, you wrote a good essay. Broadly-scoped, yet with enough cogent sparkles to make it a worthwhile read.
Glad to see you continuing to engage on this.
My hope is that we're going to develop new social norms for what is "normal" -- best operating range. This time in our evolution might be like when heroin first was introduced. For a time, normal as in "regular people" were people who used drugs. Normal as in best operating range were people who abstained. They were probably pretty boring people, actually. Here's hoping the boring people save the day.
Heard a new phrase last week, "digital drugs". I like it. Seems to fit.
Also, for more reading, here's a shameless plug for "Technology is Heroin" which I wrote a year and a half ago on the same topic http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is... You said at the time you wanted to address this issue, and I'm glad it's still on your radar.
We'll increasingly be defined by what we say no to.
Does that make it harder or easier to keep one's identity small? - http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
Does that make it harder or easier to keep one's identity small? - http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
That is a great writeup. Hits home also: my wife and I had decided a while ago to not have liquor in the house - just wine. I also hike a lot (live in the mountains of Central Arizona (Sedona)) and my wife and I additionally try to walk every day on easy trails. Getting away from computers for long break is good in so many ways I'll not try to enumerate them.
It appears to me that you publish your essays in bursts. Coincidence, or the result of something else, such as working on multiple essays in parallel?
This is a nitpick and an aside, but this sentence:
When cigarettes first appeared, they spread the way an infectious disease spreads through a previously isolated population.
...is not literally true. Cigarettes are hundreds of years old. They were apparently being manufactured in Europe in the 1830s.
Of course, this doesn't affect PG's point in the slightest; he's remarking on how the smoking boom stopped, not how it started.
I wonder why cigarettes went through such a huge boom in the mid-20th century. Perhaps it's simply a matter of better manufacturing techniques leading to a decline in costs.
When cigarettes first appeared, they spread the way an infectious disease spreads through a previously isolated population.
...is not literally true. Cigarettes are hundreds of years old. They were apparently being manufactured in Europe in the 1830s.
Of course, this doesn't affect PG's point in the slightest; he's remarking on how the smoking boom stopped, not how it started.
I wonder why cigarettes went through such a huge boom in the mid-20th century. Perhaps it's simply a matter of better manufacturing techniques leading to a decline in costs.
Better (more efficient/effective) manufacturing techniques? Or more efficient/effective marketing techniques?
(I had a little trouble there with the adjective "better" applied to Madison Avenue's promotion of cigarettes).
(I had a little trouble there with the adjective "better" applied to Madison Avenue's promotion of cigarettes).
I vaguely remember that potassium nitrate speeds up the absorption, giving cigarettes more of a "kick", thus making them more addictive. When I used to smoke (5 years since I kicked the habit, yay!) chemical-free tobacco felt less addictive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate
Great essay, but the responses here make me want to say: let's not forget that some of these bad addictive things also have their good sides.
A lot of the articles on HN are inspiring.
Sometimes it is good to switch off and relax with a movie or a computer game.
And so on...
A lot of the articles on HN are inspiring.
Sometimes it is good to switch off and relax with a movie or a computer game.
And so on...
It will actually become a reasonable strategy (or a more reasonable strategy) to suspect everything new.
No. The reasonable strategy is, and has always been, defining the positive outcomes you want to reach rather than negative ones you want to avoid. The opposite of "drunk" is not "he avoids drinking", it's "he lives a fulfilled life without allowing alcohol to consume his existence".
The opposite of internet addict is not someone who abstains from internet, it is someone who lives a balanced life with work and play in equal measures, and play being divided amongst all the nature requires from us - exercise, family, friends, sex, artistic self-expression, fooling around with no purpose etc.
The same is true for any other addiction.
No. The reasonable strategy is, and has always been, defining the positive outcomes you want to reach rather than negative ones you want to avoid. The opposite of "drunk" is not "he avoids drinking", it's "he lives a fulfilled life without allowing alcohol to consume his existence".
The opposite of internet addict is not someone who abstains from internet, it is someone who lives a balanced life with work and play in equal measures, and play being divided amongst all the nature requires from us - exercise, family, friends, sex, artistic self-expression, fooling around with no purpose etc.
The same is true for any other addiction.
Agreed. This old article from Wired (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.06/1.6_amish.html) describes how the Amish aren't just rejectionists. Unlike the rest of us, they have a tradition of thinking deeply about technology before adopting it into our lifestyle.
Especially in the hacker set and in certain aspects of urban professional culture, the idea is that you let technology inform you of how you should be living your life. This is madness.
Especially in the hacker set and in certain aspects of urban professional culture, the idea is that you let technology inform you of how you should be living your life. This is madness.
The same is true for any other addiction.
The internet, for me, has been different to any other addiction because it has changed so much as I've been using it (and very gradually, so I didn't notice for a long time).
The internet, for me, has been different to any other addiction because it has changed so much as I've been using it (and very gradually, so I didn't notice for a long time).
but now you know, right?
Sure, but neither alcohol nor the internet is all that addictive. Most people are quite capable of controlling their usage of both, so it's not risky to try for the first time.
Heroin, on the other hand, is apparently so ridiculously addictive that just trying it once is a bad idea. Or maybe you can try it a few times before it gets hard to quit -- I don't know, and I don't particularly want to find out. It's a sensible strategy to stay away from all hard drugs as a result.
Maybe Farmville or World of Warcraft version 15.0 circa 2018 will be more like heroin than like alcohol.
Heroin, on the other hand, is apparently so ridiculously addictive that just trying it once is a bad idea. Or maybe you can try it a few times before it gets hard to quit -- I don't know, and I don't particularly want to find out. It's a sensible strategy to stay away from all hard drugs as a result.
Maybe Farmville or World of Warcraft version 15.0 circa 2018 will be more like heroin than like alcohol.
You can always ween yourself off heroin by checking into rehab - you just need to have the will to do that one step. And I suggest that the will comes from knowing what you seek in life, rather than knowing what you wish to avoid.
EDIT: I see what you mean now, you were focusing on "same is true for any other addiction". I was mostly talking about "digital drugs" like facebook and the like that pg is worried about, rather than about chemical drugs like heroin. I guess I don't really care that much about heroin and the like, and don't want to argue about it as it gets away from the main topic.
EDIT: I see what you mean now, you were focusing on "same is true for any other addiction". I was mostly talking about "digital drugs" like facebook and the like that pg is worried about, rather than about chemical drugs like heroin. I guess I don't really care that much about heroin and the like, and don't want to argue about it as it gets away from the main topic.
It's a good thing you don't want to argue about heroin, because you're pretty wrong:
> You can always ween yourself off heroin by checking into rehab - you just need to have the will to do that one step.
Rehab success rates are so abysmal that most will not even publish their results; Googling, I see generic rehab rates of 2-20%, and heroin is one of the harder drugs to quit. Apparently half or fewer of addicts will even finish rehab (http://ezinearticles.com/?Drug-Rehab-Success-Rates&id=14...), much less actually become drug-free.
> You can always ween yourself off heroin by checking into rehab - you just need to have the will to do that one step.
Rehab success rates are so abysmal that most will not even publish their results; Googling, I see generic rehab rates of 2-20%, and heroin is one of the harder drugs to quit. Apparently half or fewer of addicts will even finish rehab (http://ezinearticles.com/?Drug-Rehab-Success-Rates&id=14...), much less actually become drug-free.
Why not just give in to information addiction? Unlike many other addictions, there's the possibility that the knowledge gained from it could lead to beneficial outcomes. As the book "Ambient Findability" says: what we find changes who we become.
For technological addiction, here's the system the Amish people use to adopt to something unknown:
... he goes to his bishop with this proposal: "I like to try this out." Bishop says to Ivan, "Okay Ivan, do whatever you want with this. But you have to be ready to give it up, if we decide it is not helping you or hurting others." So Ivan acquires the tech and ramps it up, while his neighbors, family, and bishops watch intently. They weigh the benefits and drawbacks. What is it doing to the community? ... [1]
Inertia and a cost/benefit calculation, two things that are often absent in the normal Addictive iGadget buying process.
[1] http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/amish_hackers...
... he goes to his bishop with this proposal: "I like to try this out." Bishop says to Ivan, "Okay Ivan, do whatever you want with this. But you have to be ready to give it up, if we decide it is not helping you or hurting others." So Ivan acquires the tech and ramps it up, while his neighbors, family, and bishops watch intently. They weigh the benefits and drawbacks. What is it doing to the community? ... [1]
Inertia and a cost/benefit calculation, two things that are often absent in the normal Addictive iGadget buying process.
[1] http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/amish_hackers...
I remember, many years ago (mid-to-late 90s), being afraid that I had grown addicted to computer games. Between Command & Conquer (over peer-to-peer dial-up!), Quake Team Fortress, Civilization II, and a few others, I was playing 30-40 hours of PC games per week.
I eventually grew out of the habit, and now don't find PC or console games appealing anymore. The fact that I naturally gave it up without any intervention means it wasn't an addiction.
Most other computer enthusiasts that I know or work with have a similar story of "growing out of" their addiction to computer games. I imagine many on HN have similar stories to tell.
I think the examples in PG's essay are "phases", not addictions.
And I predict that most of the people PG knows who self-identify as Internet addicts will eventually out-grow their compulsion.
I eventually grew out of the habit, and now don't find PC or console games appealing anymore. The fact that I naturally gave it up without any intervention means it wasn't an addiction.
Most other computer enthusiasts that I know or work with have a similar story of "growing out of" their addiction to computer games. I imagine many on HN have similar stories to tell.
I think the examples in PG's essay are "phases", not addictions.
And I predict that most of the people PG knows who self-identify as Internet addicts will eventually out-grow their compulsion.
You have a point, but I don't think it's that simple. With things like hard liquor, heroin, cocaine, and other generally accepted to be addictive things, a lot more people go through "phases" of the stuff than actually waste their entire lives on it. We've all seen slightly depressed people binging self-destructively on alcohol, and some of my more outgoing friends have done the same with cocaine when they were younger, and today live perfectly normal, healthy lives.
Being "just a phase" for a lot of people (myself included) doesn't make it less likely for it to be an addictive thing, makes it more (how many healthy normal non-addictive activities are considered "phases" by some people but end up eating out entire lives?).
Being "just a phase" for a lot of people (myself included) doesn't make it less likely for it to be an addictive thing, makes it more (how many healthy normal non-addictive activities are considered "phases" by some people but end up eating out entire lives?).
Dieting - becoming vegetarian, vegan, etc.
Job aspirations - granted, this is usually children and teenagers.
Religious or Political ideologies. For instance, as a highschooler I was convinced that Socialism was the best system - so long as you could do it Right. I have since become more cynical.
Job aspirations - granted, this is usually children and teenagers.
Religious or Political ideologies. For instance, as a highschooler I was convinced that Socialism was the best system - so long as you could do it Right. I have since become more cynical.
Very insightful. I'll look for you on the trail :)
The OP seems related to Clay Shirky's argument about "cognitive surpluses" See http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Surplus-Creativity-Generosit...
His argument is roughly that strongly addictive behaviors arise to soak up spare time created by technological advances, e.g. gin halls in the 17th century england as a response to the industrial revolution and TV/Radio/Etc in response to the dramatic drop in hours worked per week in the 20th century.
Hopefully our society will create new ways to use time in productive ways (a challenge especially appropriate to those of us on HN) pulling many, otherwise unsuspecting, away from worthless addictive pursuits.
His argument is roughly that strongly addictive behaviors arise to soak up spare time created by technological advances, e.g. gin halls in the 17th century england as a response to the industrial revolution and TV/Radio/Etc in response to the dramatic drop in hours worked per week in the 20th century.
Hopefully our society will create new ways to use time in productive ways (a challenge especially appropriate to those of us on HN) pulling many, otherwise unsuspecting, away from worthless addictive pursuits.
I once read the suggestion (I can't remember where, but it was on the internet somewhere, so if this is you then speak up) that the real reason that we haven't been contacted by space probes from any other civilization is that all civilizations eventually invent a MMORPG that is so enthralling they lose interest in boring things like interstellar travel.
To PG:
If you were doing a startup right now, would you get an iphone?
If you were doing a startup right now, would you get an iphone?
People can already be defined by what they say no (or yes) to. Amish? No Technology. Republicans? No to government assistance. Democrats? No to big business. On a more personal level, do you drink? do you do drugs? And so on.
This: "I worry we may be heading for a future in which only a few people plot their own itinerary through no-land, while everyone else books a package tour. Or worse still, has one booked for them by the government.
Sounds very similar to much of Neal Stephenson's work, especially Anathem, where the Avout plot their own way and everyone else is merely addicted to the world. Snow Crash also has aspects of what the world is starting to look like, and I wonder if Stephenson is particularly well-placed to look at some of these trends because he's got a lot of the hacker ethos and yet makes his living by writing very long, very detailed books that demand attention if they're going to be read and digested.
Sounds very similar to much of Neal Stephenson's work, especially Anathem, where the Avout plot their own way and everyone else is merely addicted to the world. Snow Crash also has aspects of what the world is starting to look like, and I wonder if Stephenson is particularly well-placed to look at some of these trends because he's got a lot of the hacker ethos and yet makes his living by writing very long, very detailed books that demand attention if they're going to be read and digested.
Not everyone else -- there are artists, the religious, the geographically isolated, the military, martial arts devotees, and those who are just too down and out to participate. Come to think of it, Anathem includes almost all of them in the story and leaves the normals out of the picture entirely.
I worry about the acceleration of addiction in particular subgroups of the population. WoW (or Farmville), for example, is not crystal meth... but that flippant observation is a response to a core truth that some people just have a lot of trouble saying no. Maybe they're poorly educated, maybe they're genetically predisposed to addiction, maybe they're clinically depressed, for whatever the reason they've got a weakened psychic immune system. It gets dramatically easier (A/B testing! end to end analytics! using their own friends' pictures as your call to action!) and stupendously more profitable (virtual goods!) over time to pay extraordinarily savvy engineers and marketers to design the Skinner's Box From Hell and extract money from them.
And what do you do if you're a startup founder at the next Zynga and discover, running the numbers one day, that 80% of your revenue comes from 2% of the population who cannot attend the user meetups because they can't bear to be separated from your service for that long?
And what do you do if you're a startup founder at the next Zynga and discover, running the numbers one day, that 80% of your revenue comes from 2% of the population who cannot attend the user meetups because they can't bear to be separated from your service for that long?
As I remarked in my own essay on the subject (linked by billswift below, keyword "superstimuli"), I don't think the problem comes from the edge cases. I think the problem is that if you make a product 5% more addictive than the competition, you can steal 80% of their customers, and this creates an incentive to make things more and more addictive well past the point where it starts to hurt the median customer significantly. The edge cases are just the canaries in the coal mine - the ones who are hurt blatantly, visibly, and undeniably.
Link for those who don't want to scroll down:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...
http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...
In practice I would draw the line at things that are mostly consumed by addicts. So I'd have no problem being a vintner, but I wouldn't want to be a heroin manufacturer, even if it were legal.
There are various edge cases you'd have to treat individually-- e.g. if the median user wasn't an addict but all your revenues came from the addicts. In that case, again, I probably wouldn't want to do it.
There are various edge cases you'd have to treat individually-- e.g. if the median user wasn't an addict but all your revenues came from the addicts. In that case, again, I probably wouldn't want to do it.
Speaking as someone that worked at one of Zynga's main competitors, I can assure you that industry makes 90% of its revenue off 10% of its users. It's a mental addiction to simulated success.
[deleted]
Mark Pilgrim kindly requests that you get your own word: http://twitter.com/diveintomark/statuses/19715440495
This one is taken: http://addictionis.org/
This one is taken: http://addictionis.org/
Handbags at dawn.
Is Mark Pilgrim a big shot in the 'addiction' community or something? I am probably stumbling ignorantly into something by asking that question.
Is Mark Pilgrim a big shot in the 'addiction' community or something? I am probably stumbling ignorantly into something by asking that question.
And what do you do if you're a startup founder at the next Zynga and discover...
It depends on what your goals were. :) If you were in it for the money you plow right ahead. If you waned to make the world a better place (and get paid for that) you dump it on your investors and move on to the next thing.
Another option is to see if you can put what you learned about compulsive behaviors to better uses - I think the world would be better off if people were compulsive about maintaining good finances, hygiene, business schedule etc. Better yet, compulsively making sure they did the best they could for their family.
It depends on what your goals were. :) If you were in it for the money you plow right ahead. If you waned to make the world a better place (and get paid for that) you dump it on your investors and move on to the next thing.
Another option is to see if you can put what you learned about compulsive behaviors to better uses - I think the world would be better off if people were compulsive about maintaining good finances, hygiene, business schedule etc. Better yet, compulsively making sure they did the best they could for their family.
It's a tough career move, but I think you'd be morally obligated to destroy the thing you created instead of just passively abandoning it. Or at least fix it. Adding automatic crop harvesters/replanters to Farmville would do a lot to heal Zynga's soul. WoW though, you just might have to turn off.
>Another option is to see if you can put what you learned about compulsive behaviors to better uses - I think the world would be better off if people were compulsive about maintaining good finances
I've said before that I think many resource-building games have similar reward mechanisms to running a business[1]
Look at, for example, eve online. I know at least one very smart guy who put more effort into accounting within that game than I put into accounting at my business.
If you could figure out how to exploit this; you know, to make doing the accounting for my business as rewarding to this guy as doing accounting in eve online, hot damn, you could make a lot of money.
[1]http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/5/15/5477/35240
I've said before that I think many resource-building games have similar reward mechanisms to running a business[1]
Look at, for example, eve online. I know at least one very smart guy who put more effort into accounting within that game than I put into accounting at my business.
If you could figure out how to exploit this; you know, to make doing the accounting for my business as rewarding to this guy as doing accounting in eve online, hot damn, you could make a lot of money.
[1]http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/5/15/5477/35240
> I think the world would be better off if people were compulsive about maintaining good finances, hygiene, business schedule etc. Better yet, compulsively making sure they did the best they could for their family.
I imagine they would, but that sounds like a hard problem to me. I suspect it's AI-complete; the only way to do it would be for post-singularity AI to control the destiny of the human species.
I've never seen the attraction of grind-y games like WoW or Farmville. (Caveat: I've never played farmville; I have played WoW and found it pointless). Perhaps games could be created that taught people useful skills, e.g. something like Guitar Hero that teaches you to play an instrument.
I imagine they would, but that sounds like a hard problem to me. I suspect it's AI-complete; the only way to do it would be for post-singularity AI to control the destiny of the human species.
I've never seen the attraction of grind-y games like WoW or Farmville. (Caveat: I've never played farmville; I have played WoW and found it pointless). Perhaps games could be created that taught people useful skills, e.g. something like Guitar Hero that teaches you to play an instrument.
Rock Band 3 Pro Mode will actually teach you to play instruments:
From: http://www.rockband.com/zine/rock-band-3-announcements
The Rock Band 3 Squier Stratocaster is a fully functional, full-sized, six-string electric guitar that also functions as a game controller that Fender and Harmonix have teamed up to develop.
From: http://www.rockband.com/zine/rock-band-3-announcements
The Rock Band 3 Squier Stratocaster is a fully functional, full-sized, six-string electric guitar that also functions as a game controller that Fender and Harmonix have teamed up to develop.
Is it true? Can you actually learn to play guitar on this thing? I got to try it. Fondling strings should be an effective way to get away from it all.
That's the goal. FTA:
Ever had someone ask you why you play plastic guitar instead of learning a real instrument? Now you can tell them you ARE learning a real instrument. Rock Band 3 empowers players to develop actual musical skills through the fun of Rock Band Pro gameplay. Start at Easy and work your way up through Expert on three different Pro Modes, just like you did with the plastic guitars and plastic drums.
It applies to drums (adds additional cymbals), keyboard (though it's only two octaves), and guitar, which according to promotional videos, if you play through expert on Guitar, you're playing every real note on the guitar.
Ever had someone ask you why you play plastic guitar instead of learning a real instrument? Now you can tell them you ARE learning a real instrument. Rock Band 3 empowers players to develop actual musical skills through the fun of Rock Band Pro gameplay. Start at Easy and work your way up through Expert on three different Pro Modes, just like you did with the plastic guitars and plastic drums.
It applies to drums (adds additional cymbals), keyboard (though it's only two octaves), and guitar, which according to promotional videos, if you play through expert on Guitar, you're playing every real note on the guitar.
This is exactly what I'm doing now. I used principles that I elaborated on in this post[1] to help guide construction of my new social app, http://www.EndAnts.com, built to combat thinking disorders.
[1] http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/why-games-are-fun-the-psy...
[1] http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/why-games-are-fun-the-psy...
There is a much easier explanation. There are people who have crappy lives. Whether by their own decisions, by fate, or by circumstance, their normal daily lives are something they are trying to avoid. Anything that helps them avoid the reality of their life becomes addictive. The only way to fix this problem is by changing their lives. But Oprah is already making a large profit by selling them that idea.
This is why I don't think I could, ethically, ever work at a manufacturer of Facebook-type games. Probably not even at a MMORPG maker.
And what to do if you are Google and your business model is predicated on people with poor impulse control?
Ad land's been a long time darkside after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
I guess we all have our shadow.
Ad land's been a long time darkside after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
I guess we all have our shadow.
[deleted]
While reading the article, I couldn't help but think back to a David Foster Wallace essay (I think it was E Unibus Pluram, on the nature of television) that proposed the following definition of addictiveness:
Something is addictive in the worst way if it proposes itself as a solution to the problems that the addiction itself creates.
For example: - I enjoy practicing Judo, but Judo isn't addictive. It isn't because it isn't a solution to the problems associated with it (i.e.: I don't play more Judo to elevate injuries). Whereas if I drink and feel guilty for drinking, I can drink more to elevate the guilt, which just leads me to feeling more guilty, and so then I drink some more, etc et all.
(Or if I feel guilty because I'm on the Internet so much, I can go find a game or surf Facebook or do fake work to elevate the guilt - so I can 'worry about it later', and this leads me down a vicious cycle of procrastination.)
The point I'm making here is that not everything we want will turn out addictive - that is, not everything can propose itself as a solution to the problems it creates. Those traits are limited to only a few kinds of things.
And so it would perhaps be better to say that addiction is accelerating because accelerating technology allows us to create more things, and some of these things are bound to have those addictive traits.