[TheOtherHobbes]

That's not wrong, but it's a selective take. The entire economy operates like an addiction machine, using proven psychological techniques to modify individual and collective behaviours and beliefs.

It's not just social media. It's gaming, ad tech, marketing, PR, religion, entertainment, the physical design of malls and stores... And many many more.

The difference with social media is that the sharp end is automated and personalised, instead of being analysed by spreadsheet and stats package and broken out by demographics.

But it's just the most obvious poison in a toxic ecosystem.

[enaaem]

Every country in the world already does tons of intervention combatting addiction. There are already bans and restrictions on gambling, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes etc… Wether we consider social media addiction to be harmful and how to do it is a good question to be asked, but intervention into harmful addiction is generally uncontroversial.

[Thiez]

Note that gambling is currently the only recognized non-substance-related addiction in the DSM-5. As a society we speak of things like 'tiktok addiction', 'gaming addiction', 'food addiction' and 'porn addiction' but none of these are real recognized disorders. That is not to say that certain behaviors cannot be maladaptive and hard to quit, but this is not enough to make something an addiction - we don't call hypochondria a 'cleaning addiction' even though it might look like one.

[wat10000]

There's a big difference in terms of frequency and availability.

Physical design of stores gets you when you're shopping, then it's done. Organized religion tends to get its hooks into you once or twice a week. Marketing, PR, ads, all sporadic. Social media is available essentially 24/7 and is something you can jump into with just a few seconds of spare time.

If more traditional addiction machines are a lottery you can play a few times a week, social media is a slot machine that you carry with you everywhere you go.

[GorbachevyChase]

I don’t know what personal religious experience you’re speaking from, but my church is a little more oriented toward helping people overcome addictions and personal failings. If you’re in Europe, then I think the messaging in the mosques about consuming alcohol are pretty strict. I can’t speak from firsthand knowledge.

[swiftcoder]

> personal failings

I'm sure your specific church is lovely, but depending on the church, "personal failings" may include such gems as "being gay", depression, autism, PTSD, poverty...

[wat10000]

Well sure, they don't want the competition. Churches have naturally evolved to use techniques that keep people coming back. The ones that don't do that die out.

[cess11]

Are you sure churches are a natural phenomenon rather than a cultural one?

[dragonwriter]

Culture is a natural phenomenon.

[cess11]

The distinction between culture and nature is quite old and very well established in occidental discourse.

Why are you refusing it?

[wat10000]

Where did I suggest anything of the sort?

[forgetfreeman]

"The entire economy" here being a pseudonym for marketing and advertising?

[finghin]

Though capitalism is to blame for plenty of problems, I don't agree with this take, and I see it repeated quite often.

Economies, capitalist or otherwise, are very much defined by needs and wants. (With this, I presume, you agree already.)

But addiction is another topic altogether from everyday needs and wants like oil, aspirin, or cinema tickets.

[pardon_me]

Manufactured consent, planned economies, controlled economies, imbalance of wealth or power, tariffs, subsidies, tax breaks, lobbying, ad networks, tracking, algorithmic content delivery, AI generation, asymmetric access to information, social effects, requirements to live despite inaccessible resources for basic needs, government control, private property but no free land available, and international trade laws, are a few things that come to mind which very much go against the idea that we are living in anything like the model of capitalism we learn about in school.

2026 is not based on wants and needs except in isolated situations. We are at the hypernormal point of manufacturing problems to sell solutions, because there's very little rent or work left to extract from assets. Lives of excess are maintained by depriving others of necessities. The intense control and misdirection required to keep this somewhat stable is starting to be felt.

[Nasrudith]

Manufactured consent as a notion always felt like projection to me because of its advocates. As it was a notion pushed by people who insist they know "the interests" of people who are "voting wrong". All the while disregarding the fact that if we could rely on others knowing the interests of others better than others then aristocracy would be a superior system as the nobles being more educated would know the interests of the peasantry better.

[Thiez]

So do you believe that propaganda doesn't exist, or doesn't work, or that only ever accurately shows the truth? Because as I see it you must believe that people cannot be misled by propaganda to deny the possibility of manufactured consent.

[saubeidl]

Yup. It's capitalism that's the core problem. Social media is just a particularly nasty outgrowth.

[Quarrelsome]

its not necessarily "capitalism". Think about how Myspace was, or early Facebook, that was capitalism but didn't have the same issues.

Its the "lean startup" culture as well as books like "Hooked, how to build habit forming products" - Nir Eyal.

The dark lean startup pattern is where you break down the big picture rationale for the company. You extract metrics that contribute to the company's success (i.e. engagement) and you build a machine that rewards changes to the underlying system that improves those metrics.

If done successfully, you create an unwitting sociopathy, a process that demands the product be as addictive as possible and a culture that is in thrall to the machine that rewards its employees by increasing those metrics. You're no longer thinking about purpose or wondering about what you're doing to your users. You simply realise that if you send this notification at this time, with this colour button, in this place, with this tagline then the machine likes it. Multiple people might contribute a tiny piece of a horrifying and manipulative whole and may never quite realise the true horror of the monster they've helped build, because they're insulated by being behind the A/B test.

[Jensson]

> its not necessarily "capitalism". Think about how Myspace was, or early Facebook, that was capitalism but didn't have the same issues.

No thats exactly capitalism, capitalism ensures processes gets more and more efficient over time, as you say previous versions were less efficient at inducing addictive behaviors but capitalism ensured we progressed towards more and more addictive apps and patterns.

Capitalism doesn't mean we start out with the most efficient money extractor, it just moves towards the most efficient money extractor with time unless regulated.

This is well known and a feature, capitalism moves towards efficiency and regulation helps direct that movement so that it helps humanity rather than hurts us. Capitalism would gladly serve you toxic food but regulations ensures they earn more money by giving you nutritious food. Now regulations are lagging a bit there so there is still plenty of toxic food around, but it used to be much worse than now, the main problem with modern food is that people eat too much directly toxic compounds.

[Quarrelsome]

That's a type of capitalism. Quakers built plenty of capitalistic entities that were primarily interested in profit but cared more for the long term with more of an eye on social and spiritual purpose. Extractive capitalism doesn't get to pretend its all of capitalism, we just assume that because its been active throughout our entire lifespan.

US hegemony has permitted and encouraged shareholder primacy, hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts in order to facilitate the growth of its markets. However we'd be blinkered to assume that this is the only way capitalism can be. Its a choice we make and we deserve this outcome where we've enslaved a generation of children to be eye-balls for ad impressions for silicon valley startups.

We could make other choices but then we'd be personally less rich and see less growth. Do we really think those extra zeros in very few people's portfolio's are worth this macabre world we've created?

[Jensson]

> Quakers built plenty of capitalistic entities that were primarily interested in profit but cared more for the long term with more of an eye on social and spiritual purpose.

And those were replaced by profit seeking enterprises, that is capitalism. Sure some try to create such benevolent entities, but the profit seeking ones out-competes and replaces them over time, that is how capitalism works.

So you can temporarily have a nice company here and there, but 50 years later likely it got replaced by a profit seeking one. The only way to get pro social behaviors from these is to make pro social acts the most profitable via regulations, but its still a profit seeking enterprise that doesn't try to be benevolent.

[Quarrelsome]

yeah that's because we allowed aggressive takeovers, especially leveraged ones. They got replaced by extractive capitalism due to a lack of regulation, not just because "capitalism".

The extractive profit seeking entities don't "out-compete" they just use their capital in unregulated conditions to strip mine economies and poison capitalism to become sociopathy. Letting that happen is a choice, letting it continue is a choice.

[saubeidl]

I judge a system by what it does, not by what it's proponents say it could theoretically do.

Extractive capitalism is real-world capitalism.

[Quarrelsome]

but it does that because of US hegemony empowering its equity to be extractive. We've lost a lot of organisations in the UK due to aggressive and leveraged buyouts. That's not necessarily reflective of capitalism as an abstract but geo-political reluctance in regulating its very worst excesses.

I appreciate your position but I can't help but feel like it's like saying cars are crap because they breakdown too easily, when in practice; you're constantly red lining them.

My point is that it doesn't have to be like this, but its a choice that we as society make, and we could choose to not make it.

[prewett]

You're not describing capitalism, you're describing managerialism with a manager-evaluation function of profit.

Managers do not need to be evaluated by EPS, but when you are a public company with diffuse shareholders (who are the actual "capitalists", and who include any of use with a 401k or pension), that's an easy one for people to agree on. Also, when your society gives up on the restraints of (in our case) Judeao-Christian values and say "we're just overgrown apes", well, then you get HBS style of management, because there's nothing restraining acting "because we can". I think we have a spiritual crisis more than an economic system crisis.

[Thiez]

The VOC and EIC would like a word. While under these so-called 'Judeo-Christian values' Europe was wildly antisemitic, colonised most of the known world, and subjugated, genocided, and enslaved indigenous populations. The UK even wrote a slave bible. Slavery in the US also happened while these 'values' were held in high regard.

If your personal religious beliefs help you be a good person then that's great for you, keep believing. But historically it doesn't appear that more religious societies are more moral societies.

[_DeadFred_]

Early Facebook's behavior was what they wanted to do/be. But upon exposure to what others were doing Facebook chose to adopt patterns/techniques that repulsed them originally because Facebook didn't want to be out competed (so Capitalism). Capitalism/competition is what led their behavioral change.

Go back to the recent removal of lead article discussed here. In Capitalism government regulation has to level the playing field or else all players will stoop to poisoning society/the world because if they don't then someone else will gain and advantage. Even hyper rightwing Rayliner agreed Government intervention is the ONLY way to prevent Capitalists from injecting poison into their products if that poison gives a competitive advantage.

What leaded gas was to the boomers brains social media is to current youths' brains.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46865275