[hiatus]

> Ultimately you are in control of your eyeballs and your time. Stop watching!

There are people making hundreds of thousands of dollars whose sole job is to get you locked into a feedback loop in these apps. We are engineering addiction.

[whitemary]

The addiction is a side effect of a society built on exploitation. In other words, capitalism is literally the problem.

[hiatus]

Does addiction exist in non-capitalist countries? Could you expand because I'm not sure if I understood the point you're making.

[meowtimemania]

Why would TikTok or FaceBook not engineer addiction? It generates more money for them. If they don't engineer addiction, another company will emerge and engineer addiction.

I think this type of problem has to be solved by the government.

[hiatus]

My point was, my parent was in a sense blaming the victim for not peeling their eyes away from the screen when literally millions of dollars of thought and effort went into making sure that they don't.

I agree that in the absence of direct negative consequences it seems unlikely we will see a change in the status quo.

[paulcole]

No, to be clear I wasn’t “in a sense” blaming the victim. I’m directly blaming anyone who hates their relationship with TikTok and leaves the app on their phone and continues to watch it.

[hiatus]

Do you similarly blame people stuck in abusive relationships or those who abuse substances? You haven't addressed the fact that the app on their phone is an engineered pachinko literally designed to glue you to the screen.

[paulcole]

No. Just because I blame one set of victims doesn’t mean I blame all sets of victims.

And I don’t need to address that fact because the root of the issue is the person installing the app. It doesn’t matter how well engineered the pachinko machine is if I can long-press it out of my existence.

[Joeri]

Should all addictive products be allowed? When does such a product deserve being regulated or outlawed?

[jstarfish]

You regulate or outlaw products when they negatively impact self or public health or safety.

There's a brief scene on Bojack Horseman involving a commercial for some chicken product. In it, a kid yells at his parents "I don't want to go to school, I want Chicken-4-Dayz!"

Some kids are badly-behaved. They get a lot of validation and reinforcement of their behavior from these platforms, especially since any disciplinary misstep by a parent invites CPS visits. But we should ask why products like "Chicken-4-Dayz" influence children to reject their own actual needs and tone that shit down.

I hear a lot of stories from teachers about teenage boys coming to school exhausted beyond functioning. Child labor abuses from working extra shifts at the factory? No. They're up all night all week playing Call of Duty.

When people opt to consume a product instead of doing the things they need to do to survive past their consumption, it's addiction. All controlled substances have this trait. Given an infinite supply of amphetamines, most people will dehydrate or starve to death.

[hiatus]

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, possibly because the message is uncomfortably paternalistic if taken to its logical conclusion? I don't think that government should serve the role of surrogate parent but at the same time recognize that there exists substances (physical or otherwise) from which some humans have an incredibly difficult time tearing themselves away once they've been exposed (and there likely exist substances which any of us would find hard to deny after exposure).

At the same time, is it the role of the state to prevent people from realizing their own destruction? And further, what is the role of the state in regulating things that were designed outright to be as addictive as possible?

[jstarfish]

Many people here have lucrative careers that depend on maintaining the status quo, so heretics are unpopular.

> I don't think that government should serve the role of surrogate parent

Neither do I, but at some point it needs to be a backstop against implosion of the country. We're being subject to the Opium Wars playbook (brought to you by TikTok: China's Revenge).

What purpose does government serve if not doing something to mitigate?

It seems most interested in facilitating this behavior for the sake of economic growth, but that engine is destined to seize. Money in the hands of the middle/lower classes is the oil that keeps it running.

> And further, what is the role of the state in regulating things that were designed outright to be as addictive as possible?

So far we've managed it with alcohol, tobacco, slot machines and hard drugs. The role of the state on this matter is pretty well-defined.

[paulcole]

Reminds me of the famous saying,

> I’m from the government and I’m here to help.