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Metus comments on Unfriendly Natural Intelligence - Less Wrong Discussion
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I have a pet hypothesis that almost anything popular or widely consumed/practiced is some kind of porn, that is an extremely potent stimulant for any positive number of human needs. I do not mean drugs like heroin which is chemically inducing a pleasant state in the brain, but stuff like hamburgers, the recipe of which is designed to be a food porn.
Assuming some truth in this hypothesis, what items can we add to your list? Movies, series and television in general are an example of what I think is story porn. Of course well designed games exploit this need too, but appeal to other emotions too. Thinking about your example of exercise, the converse need to relax is exploited by particularly comfortable home surroundings and furniture.
An essay from Paul Graham which explores this idea and the future trends:
The Acceleration of Addictiveness
A very relevant reference. I see clear differences between addiction and redirection of emotions though. Most of the examples I gave at least don't look like addiction.
See also this applicable rationality quote: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jsm/rationality_quotes_march_2014/an1k
I don't like the differences and distinctions people find between "addiction" and "{insert all the things people call addiction besides addiction}".
As a definition, we could say addiction is the threshold of need whereby an individual will (a) die or (b) be incapacitated without an activity of substance, but even then you'd have trouble defining (b) in my mind.
To Metus' pet Everything-is-Porn Theory, I'd say at least that many more people are "addicted" to many more things than we realize, it just doesn't kill, or incapaciate them according to a broad enough definition. I wouldn't know where to begin with examples—many peoples' lives are basically controlled by many of the drives in your post.
There people who spend 15+ hours a day on Reddit—addicted? How about 5+ hours on Reddit and another 8 on WoW? Have the 13+ hour/day Reddit/WoWers who scrape together enough for rent each month (but have no savings) managed to climb above the threshold for "addiction"?
This is my view too. A good portion of the people in my life are addicted to something at any given time by this broader definition. I've experienced short periods of it myself ranging from gaming to geeking out way to much on a particular topic at the expense of proper food and sleep. I see it as a result of access to an ever increasing range of pleasure induces experiences at ever lower costs and hyperbolic discounting - too much of a good thing with blinders to future costs.
On what Gunnar_Zarncke has named Extreme Curiosity: "Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.". -David Hume
That looks like a circular approach. Humans need what they extensively do because they need it.
Are you using "porn" to mean superstimulus?
That seems kind of an odd terminology, considering that porn isn't necessarily a superstimulus. They may not have had realistic depictions of nude people in the ancestral environment, but they did have actual nude people.
Perfectly beautiful nude people, on demand, with infinite rapid novelty is a superstimulus.
Even the plausible, heavily watered down version of your statement is sufficient:
Attractive nude people, easily accessed, with a large amount of variety, is a super-stimulus.
I'm not sure about your use of "porn".
But yes. Obviously the pleasure derived from watching movies is exploited by the media industry. It is not clear which emotions exactly this exploits. Curiosity for sure. But also what I listed under awe: The pleasure from beauty and of course music. Also the hard to pin down pleasure from humor.