facing it.............................

 The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.

-Cal Newport

The dopamine...................

.............................................................culture:

    via

One of the all-time...........................

 ........................................great quotes.

dependence and addiction...............

 Industrialization plus globalization has not only generated the fastest economic growth in history; collectively they have dramatically increased the standard of living of billions of people the world over.  Unlike the shockingly unequal preindustrial world, the industrialization/globalization combo has achieved the seemingly impossible duology of enabling the utterly unskilled to live at something above an abused subsistence level while pushing the frontiers of human knowledge and education further and faster and more broadly than ever before. . . .

     Botton line: the world we know is eminently fragile.  And that's when it is working to design.  Today's economic landscape isn't so much dependent upon as it is eminently addicted to American strategic and tactical overwatch.  Remove the Americans, and long-haul shipping degrades from being the norm to being the exception.  Remove the mass consumption due to demographic collapses and the entire economic argument for mass integration collapses.  One way or another, our "normal" is going to end, and end soon.

-Peter Zeihan, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

Why dieting is difficult.....................

 When dopamine signaling reaches a certain level you increase learning dramatically to the point where something becomes habitual. We have a name for this: addiction. Addiction has a terrifying sound to it, but it’s just the point where something learned is so powerful it can overwhelm constructive behavior. . . .

Next time you’re “hungry”, ask yourself: “Would I eat broccoli?” If not, you’re probably not really hungry. This will make you a leaner person. No, I didn’t say happier. I said, “leaner.”

-More neuroscience on the subject here

Are you not entertained................?

 Wallace seemed to understand that as media multiplies, so does competition for attention. And as competition for our attention multiplies, content is no longer optimized for beauty or art or even enjoyment—but rather for its addictive qualities. . . .

. . .what we would all need to aspire to become: recovered addicts. People who can cut themselves off cold turkey, who can turn off the drug. People who can manage their own attention and not fall victim to endless streams of mindless engagement. People who can step above the fray of political addiction and demand substance over bluster. And not just for our own sake. For everyone else’s as well. 

-Mark Manson, from this post

cinema lovers may recognize the title from this classic scene

Scott's feeling a bit cranky today.......

Today I declare the phone companies to be enemies of the state. They are ruining everything you love, and everything you care about. And they are doing it right in front of you. 

-Scott Adams, as extracted from here