The Age of Addiction
by David T. Courtwright · first published 2019
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We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are hooking our kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously and deliberately rewire our brains? Nothing, David Courtwright says, unless we understand the history and character of the global enterprises that create and cater to our bad habits. The Age of Addiction chronicles the triumph of what Courtwright calls "limbic capitalism," the growing network of competitive businesses targeting the
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You might like the book "The Age of Addiction, How Bad Habits Became Big Business" by David T. Courtwright. It talks about substitutability of pleasures, among other things. The most interesting idea that I took from it was the idea of "blending"…
on “Prohibition and ice cream in the US Navy” ↗…https://open.substack.com/pub/vonnik/p/how-to-take-your-brai... Yes, the addictions are engineered in the service of shareholder value. There are many ways to fight it! Fwiw, this dynamic goes way beyond VC and tech. Douglas Courtwright writes about this in Age of Addiction: https://www.amazon.com/The-Age-of-Addiction-audiobook/dp/B07...
on “Engineered Addictions” ↗…usual example provided to support that theory, but historians and experts in the domain do acknowledge there was still an overall decrease in consumption of alcohol during prohibition. 'Courtwright’s The Age of Addiction has the statistics: “Per capita consumption initially fell to 30 percent of pre-Prohibition levels, before gradually increasing to 60 or 70 percent by 1933.” That suggests a 30 percent reduction, at a…
on “Marijuana Damages Young Brains” ↗> Prohibition doesn’t work. Actually, it did work [1]: > Courtwright’s The Age of Addiction has the statistics: “Per capita consumption initially fell to 30 percent of pre-Prohibition levels, before gradually increasing to 60 or 70 percent by 1933.” That suggests a 30 percent reduction, at a…
on “Australia to crack down on gambling ads after years of criticism” ↗