Well written Ryan. Big Tech has created "experience machines" for decades for us all, and the key to their adoption was figuring out how to hijack reinforcing dopaminergic pathways and make the experience addictive. Everyone has struggled (or continues to struggle) with social media addiction, and look how much money that industry has printed.
Your conclusion felt unsatisfactory to me, however. How can we induce productive human action? Society strives for this constantly, I believe as a default, yet we are constantly led astray by the vices of money and fame. These tend to come in fields that are NOT making the human condition better (which professions and fields make the most money?). I agree that the free-market + necessary regulation is the future. My question is, is it possible for capitalism to incentivize productive human ambition in this regards?
Well written Ryan. Big Tech has created "experience machines" for decades for us all, and the key to their adoption was figuring out how to hijack reinforcing dopaminergic pathways and make the experience addictive. Everyone has struggled (or continues to struggle) with social media addiction, and look how much money that industry has printed.
Your conclusion felt unsatisfactory to me, however. How can we induce productive human action? Society strives for this constantly, I believe as a default, yet we are constantly led astray by the vices of money and fame. These tend to come in fields that are NOT making the human condition better (which professions and fields make the most money?). I agree that the free-market + necessary regulation is the future. My question is, is it possible for capitalism to incentivize productive human ambition in this regards?