[SEQ RERUN] Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization

Tyrrell_McAllister

Today's post, Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization, was originally published on 16 March 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

As a side effect of evolution, super-stimuli exist, and as a result of economics, are getting and should continue to get worse.

(alternate summary:)

At least 3 people have died by playing online games non-stop. How is it that a game is so enticing that after 57 straight hours playing, a person would rather spend the next hour playing the game over sleeping or eating? A candy bar is superstimulus, it corresponds overwhelmingly well to the EEA healthy food characteristics of sugar and fat. If people enjoy these things, the market will respond to provide as much of it as possible, even if other considerations make it undesirable.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Blue or Green on Regulation?, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization, was originally published on 16 March 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

As a side effect of evolution, super-stimuli exist, and as a result of economics, are getting and should continue to get worse.

(alternate summary:)

At least 3 people have died by playing online games non-stop. How is it that a game is so enticing that after 57 straight hours playing, a person would rather spend the next hour playing the game over sleeping or eating? A candy bar is superstimulus, it corresponds overwhelmingly well to the EEA healthy food characteristics of sugar and fat. If people enjoy these things, the market will respond to provide as much of it as possible, even if other considerations make it undesirable.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

Um, the whole paper is about harmful sensations. It is about how gaining information can cause harm - and gaining information is mostly done through the senses.

The "motif" as folks tried to outline it in the dead Wikipedia article referred mostly to tales and mythology in which otherwise normal acts of observation resulted in extraordinary results. (The article had no sources so it was nuked, and I liked it despite the terrible name, which is why "harmful sensation" is on my google watch. I'm actually tickled pink whenever someone references it in a paper because it means it's one step closer to getting back into Wikipedia :D) The prime element in mythology and legend is supernatural. Argu... (read more)

1David_Gerard15y

You're (and it's) not talking about what we're talking about here. The title of this post is "Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilisation", and Nick's paper has nothing to do with that sort of poison meme that I could see. Not everything fitting the words "harmful sensation" is an example of a superstimulus, a human-crashing meme or even of the motif (trope) of harmful sensation - and the latter may fade into mere bad information, but is nevertheless not the same thing.

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