Where are the products?
In 2010, Paul Graham wrote an essay about the internet called The Acceleration of Addictiveness. These 14 years later, it holds up. (In 2010, I was still taking SuperPump, a "pre-workout" supplement containing 250 mg of caffeine and a potpourri of other stimulants, at 5pm and wondering why I couldn't sleep.)
Graham's thesis is that the acceleration of technological progress has effected an increase in the levels of addictiveness in the world. More things that we like will become things we like too much. In the temporary(?) absence of societal antidotes, Graham opines that individuals should develop personal strategies to reduce exposure to the addictive elements of modern society.
In medium, the majority of society is f*cked. Their fate is an addiction to cheap mental baubles that will prevent them from feeling, thinking, and producing to their potential. Those of us who read Hacker News (also a Paul Graham creation), maybe we have a shot at escaping the numb psychosis that is (in 2024) the norm, but only if we cultivate a personal vigilance against the technological development of ever more pleasurable, addicting, socially-acceptable drugs. There will be winners, but as a portion of society, they will be few (and they will not let their children use the technologies they have wrought).
Coming as it does from one of the leading framers of the modern pseudo-intellectual discourse about technology, society, and the internet, I find this unsatisfactory.
