Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F 4 days ago
>Unfortunately it is exactly what users "want".
With this approach, everybody wants fentanyl.
Open a restaurant masquerading as providing high-quality, locally sourced organic food, discreetly sprinkle the hardest drug on the most popular plates, slowly increase the dosage until people are completely hooked, and voilà, you can legitimately claim "people wanted the drug; it was their choice."
> Would you eat at a McD's where the "Happy Meal" has fentanyl in it?
This is largely a communication problem. Fentanyl is unacceptable, but a large subset of people would be glad to get food with CBD oil for free. Or caffeine - as last year's Panera charged lemonade scandal [1] revealed. Or alcohol, that's already very normal. Or monosodium glutamate, a personal favorite of mine which was once surrounded by negative press, or high-fructose corn syrup, or trans-saturated fats. Or maybe not an intentional part of the food, but traces of herbicides, pesticides, and antibiotics may end up in food, and microplastics or PFOS from packaging will be eaten as well. And I'm sure you've seen old advertisements for cure-all elixirs that contained cocaine.
Health experts know that certain ingredients are bad, and many others are regularly consumed in quantities far, far exceeding their safe levels, but you don't have to look too deeply at a grocery store shelf or fast food menu to realize that the contents are boycott worthy but normalized to the point of being inescapable.
People know even less about what Meta is doing with their data or what their addictive apps do to their brains, and are equally powerless to learn about it or change it.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/panera-charged-lemonade-drinks-ca...
People start using/abusing alcohol (and cigarettes, etc.) knowing it is addictive and damaging. This has not affected the business of bars/pubs. With this in mind, it shouldn't be a surprise that people still start using FB, IG, etc.
The fact that Zuck (and Elon) are all buddy buddy with the current admin in Washington shouldn't be lost in the conversation.
> we're all aware what it is, yet we still use it, unironically.
Well, part of that is because people got addicted gradually, starting before it was common knowledge. Another part of it is that people actually do need to use these services (for some reasonable definition of "need") because some friends, family members, government/community services, etc. can only be contacted via these services.
So McDonalds puts quite a bit of sugar into their beef patties. We know sugar is quite addictive to humans. And harmful. Hard drugs are not so acceptable but this is exactly what McDonalds has been doing and yes inspectors confirm this is what’s happening. There is even lots of regulation around food. Yet they find a way.
It think the second paragraph sort of agrees with you.
> With this approach, everybody wants fentanyl.
One difference that may possibly affect the strength of your argument is that fentanyl is a physically addictive drug. Social media may be "addictive" but they aren't addictive. If you genuinely believe they're equivalent, use social media for a year, and fentanyl for a year, and see which is easier to quit.
Actually, scratch that: make it a thought experiment. But if you can see that they aren't equivalent, you can see that it's not a good comparison.
As someone who has struggled with physical and mental addictions for my entire life: breaking a physical addiction is trivially easy compared to breaking a mental addiction. And breaking a physical addiction is really hard (I'm currently suffering withdrawal effects from a recent decision to quit vaping nicotine and it sucks).
Mileage varies for different people, of course. But dopamine is dopamine and addiction is addiction and it's neither kind nor fair to tell someone else that their addiction isn't real because there's no change in their blood chemistry.
You just described Starbucks
It started as small roaster of coffee but now it’s a Sugar+Caffeine drink system for addicts.
Right, and the things preventing restaurants from doing this:
1. At-scale boycott: would you eat at a McD's where the "Happy Meal" has fentanyl in it? But somehow, this doesn't work for "social" media -- we're all aware what it is, yet we still use it, unironically.
2. Regulation: if a food inspector eats at your restaurant and confirms rumours that your food is actually addictive, your restaurant will get shut down. But somehow, FB/IG/etc. can operate without regulation, and free of any consequences. Sarah Wynn-Williams' book "Careless People" is worth reading.