siding with your own favourite genres tribe or moral ick reactions.
Wow, both of those strike me either as a stretch, or a sign there could be more consideration of the facts. The kind of sensitivities I'm alluding to easily cover a dozen genres of music. Ick reactions, if there are any, would be aesthetic, rather than moral. (And I do enjoy electronica as well as acoustic music.)
The sensitivity I speak of is grounded in empirical fact. You can measure, record, and analyze overtones of acoustic instruments. You can do the same for sensitivity to rhythmic nuance. Melodies and their modulation of tension and release are empirical fact as well. I think that cultural practices that reduce sensitivity to facts and awareness of reality are generally undesirable.
I think that's the same kind of insensitivity I faced as a child, when I observed interference fringes for the first time, and adults told me I was somehow off base.
Would a cultural loss of sensitivity to literary nuance be a good or a bad thing? Would a cultural loss of sensitivity to emotional nuance be a good or a bad thing? Sometimes the correct answer is found in the same direction the bias pulls to. I'm against amusia and unawareness, not electronica or specific genres.
Good points all of it, you've though way more about this than I have.
... or "How to Operate Your Limbic System", or "A Practical Guide to Superstimulus". That's how I see it, anyway.
Your Brain on Porn is a website mainly dedicated to exposing the addictive aspects of pornography; interpreting this in light of the blind idiot god; and then forming a community around "rebooting", or prolonged abstinence that allows the brain to re-sensitize itself to, at the least, non-fetishistic sexual pleasure. By consistently NOT accessing whatever circuit is driving one's, well, drive, one sends this loop into atrophy. Eventually, one becomes able to quit. And then one finds alternatives.
Here is why I find this site so valuable: frequently during the arguments the site owner sets up, he doesn't just bring up pornography as the culprit here. To form his clauses he draws upon research on addictions to junk food, or video games, and then tries to draw parallels to porn's effects: the escalating need of novelty due to rapidly declining pleasure response.
So I don't think it stops with porn. For me, any superstimulus is a bad superstimulus, despite the fact that some sirens are more necessary to listen to than others. It could be worth reflecting on what would actually count as a superstimulus; and then asking if one would benefit from a long hiatus from that stimulus. I'm not sure how long that cycle would be, but many "rebooters" proclaim seeing effects after three weeks, up to three months. It might not be enough to simply manage akrasia, as there could still be a chronic sensitivity problem in place. That would require time.
Here's what I thought of, so far.
Superstimulus List:
- Reduction of social anxiety. (Socially dominant monkeys have a greater density of dopamine receptors in the striatum than their less-dominant counterparts. I'm not saying that abstaining from porn will turn you into the CEO of a corporation with three girlfriends and a gimp -- I wish! -- but it sure as hell wouldn't hurt.)
- Clearer focus. (This may come from lack of wont than an actual greater ability to focus, which is fine.)
- Greater motivation.
Think of it like this: if all your adaptive needs are fulfilled, what incentive is there for your body to maximize your fitness? For all it knows, you've done a great job: you are now in the dreaded Comfort Zone.
Abstinence puts one outside of the realm of comfort, but not to the point of putting one in harm's way. It requires no "push", just self-awareness; something I would consider as the lowest hanging fruit of self-improvement.