8 ms·

‘Limbic Capitalism’ Preys on Our Addicted Brains

179 points by jsf 7y ago

lostmymind66 7y ago
Should we include weed and booze in this as well?
- microwavecamera 7y ago
  No.
- manfredo 7y ago
  Probably not weed, and definitely not alcohol. Chemical addiction is a physiological phenomenon. Behavior addictions are psychological.
  - narag 7y ago
    I agree with your later sentences, but I have doubts that it implies the former. It's possible you have no physiological addiction to alcohol but you do have an addictive behaviour that involves alcohol.
  - iSnow 7y ago
    >Chemical addiction is a physiological phenomenon. Behavior addictions are psychological. Doubtful, they all work via the same underlying hardware and excitation of the Limbic system doesn't care for the causes.
- CyanBird 7y ago
  The article does indeed mention them both >The nature of addiction has implications—more precisely, temptations—for businesses that sell habituating products. One is to encourage early and frequent consumption. Treat the lads, the saloonkeepers used to say, and you’ll have their money in the till when they’re adults. And the more they drink, the greater the profits. To this day, 80 percent of alcohol sales go to the 20 percent of customers who are the heaviest users, a pattern that applies across the business of brain reward. More than half of all marijuana finds its way into the lungs and stomachs of those who spend more than half their waking hours stoned. Insofar as addictions to marijuana, or to anything else, develop most often among the poor, the marginal and the genetically vulnerable, they are sources of inequality and injustice as well as illness.
  - mruts 7y ago
    This isn't actually true. Those who have more income spend much more money on drugs. I used to smoke weed all day everyday for 10 years, and knew a ton of others that did so. None of us were poor, all had good jobs and made good income. Moreover, people that only smoke rarely and have never smoked get the wrong impression about what smoking all day does to you. I would hardly call it being 'stoned', more like being slightly buzzed and less anxious. I don't think anyone who didn't know me would have ever been able to tell, unless I smelled like weed or something. I now don't smoke at all, and the difference in experience is pretty minimal. I feel about the same as I did when I was smoking constantly, which is a testament to the powerful ability for neuronal self-regulation in the brain; both on and off drugs.
    - namanyayg 7y ago
      What led to quitting and how did you accomplish it?
      - mruts 7y ago
        I was reading some papers about the detrimental the effect of weed on working memory. So I decided to stop smoking a week after that. Surprisingly, my cognitive performance declined severely for a period of a couple weeks, as measured by dual n-back performance against my on weed baseline. After those two weeks, it started getting better. About a month later, I was at my on weed baseline. Two months after that, I have exceeding my weed baseline by a significant margin. I took an IQ test and realized about a 10 IQ point gain from my baseline IQ, which I was pretty happy with. In regards to accomplishing it, I dunno, I guess I just stopped all at once. I'm not the type of person who can handle moderation of anything really, so just quitting all at once worked really well. I had previously quit heroin a long time ago in my youth, so quitting weed wasn't really a big deal compared to that. It's been maybe 6 months since I last smoked at this point, and I don't really feel any different, besides my cognitive improvements I suppose.
        namanyayg 7y ago
PaulHoule 7y ago
A good article on Quillette, wow...
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, and especially not flamebait, which this is. Instead, when there's a good article, post a substantive comment if you have one, or simply don't post.
tomcam 7y ago
Back in the day, I began my career in programming intending to be a game developer. Coming from a family of addicts I noticed even in the late 1980s that games and chat-style apps could be powerfully addictive. (This awareness kept me off Twitter, Facebook, and so on.) I moved into compiler work and line of business apps, which surprisingly I find just as enjoyable. I never really regretted avoiding games because there are enough things to get me in trouble already.
manfredo 7y ago
How do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Most people wouldn't look down on someone who stays up till 3 AM reading a gripping book, but many would if we swap the book with a video game. Definitely people who can't hold down jobs or education due to addition to video games or social media is a problem, but I suspect that a lot of the concern is due to an overall negative view towards games and internet use. What I do think is a problem is the fact that we have much better data collection on how people use video games and internet services. Absent that information, developers had to think about crafting a good overall experience that people were willing to pay for. With that information, people optimize for overall time used instead of the quality of the experience. Hours and dollars spent is an easy metric to show to executives, judging the overall quality of the experience is much more subjective.
- CyanBird 7y ago
  >ow do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Just like we have always done, if something constantly disturbs day to day activities, then it is an addictive behaviour >That is, the addictive behavior “spills over” into several dimensions of one’s daily life https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210595/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210595/ _______ >What I do think is a problem is the fact that we have much better data collection on how people use video games and internet services I think this doesnt get to the core of the issue, and that's that, humans have always sought better and more efficient ways to get enjoyment out of things, people would infuse their rectums with alcohol way back in Egyptian times to get a stronger alcohol "high". The difference between lets say, 1980's arcades and modern mobile games is simply the tools available, the aim is the same. Only now we can do it faster with A/B testing, with the knowledge of Skinner boxes, etc Having worked in GameDev, one of the most flooring things I have faced is people asking me for me to introduce said addictive inducing systems and mechanisms.... They want the enjoyment, they want to be "addicted", they want a game "so good" that they can't put it down. And when it comes to what you mention of the metrics, yeah, 100%, modern digital era metrics are all based in the so called "Attention Economy", specially for social platforms, in the case of Netflix or Fortnite, their biggest competitors are people actually working, or asinine things like taking a walk, cooking, spending time with family, etc. We are in a race to the bottom for people's attentions and lives, HackerNews itself is yet another Skinnerbox for those that enjoy learning things. Reddit, Twitter, Youtube they all are designed to be addictive, Limbic Capitalism, and to not do so would mean that said platforms would lose in the free market against others that did employ said tactics... We are optimizing for human pleasure, yet what happens when said pleasure is actually a potential enemy?
CyanBird 7y ago
"Limbic Capitalism" Oh god that's such a wondrous name, the perfect descriptor
lordnacho 7y ago
I've been thinking about this a lot. In terms of political economy, there's a lot of reliance on the ideas of information, free will and rationality. To cut a long story short, if people have information about the market, they can use their knowledge of their own desires to act, which creates some sort of efficiency. Glossing over a load of stuff here because it's a large subject, but that's sort of the spiel you get when people are talking about all sorts of political/economic decisions. And you can generate both leftie and rightie policies depending on how you think about things. The problem is if deciding things depends on free will and information, what do we do when it seems there are exceptions? I'll leave aside information problems since we're more talking about rationality. But if it turns out people can know what WoW does to your studies, and they still end up doing this, how should we think about this? Easy answer is that their real desire is to play WoW all day, but that doesn't seem very satisfying. If they're making an irrational decision, that has other consequences on our society. For instance, a whole load of behaviours need to be controlled. Obvious things like smoking and drugs, but what about overeating? Too much soda? Social media? And what exactly is the correct policy response to irrational behaviour? Keep in mind solutions like taxes/subsidies also rely on rationality.
- CyanBird 7y ago
  Our entire idea of "agency", "individuality" and even "freedom" needs to be re-thinked. Basically all of what we have built resides in one way or another on the idea that individuals bar exceptions such as with physical drugs have some sort of inalienable agency to them. That entire rockbed is simply not really true, and more like highly idealized thoughts from thinkers of the 1800's Policy makers and politicians have been struggling with these problems for the last +150 years, and increasingly so in the last 30 ever since the creation of political microtargetting and the perfection of advertising, cambridge analytica and digital microtargetting+psychographics is just the cherry on top Planet Money released an episode touching on all of these subjects "Ep 915 How to meddle in an election" https://www.npr.org/2019/05/24/726536757/episode-915-how-to-meddle-in-an-election https://www.npr.org/2019/05/24/726536757/episode-915-how-to-... Also, anybody that hasn't should absolutely watch "Century of the self" by Adam Curtis
  - 7y ago
mettamage 7y ago
I have to say: this is one fancy title that is fun to pronounce! The meaning is less fun.
gtt 7y ago
I think usage of Capitalism here is a misnomer, because replacing 'capitalism' with 'human greed' or 'human fallibility' changes nothing. The problem is not caused by markets or property rights. If anything, competition actually makes games least toxic. Look how pay2win games being replaced by vanity items selling games.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Yes, but capitalism is the system that says "human greed is good" and that basing everything self-interest turns out for "the best". From Adam Smith: "“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." To Gordon Gecko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_Is_Good_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_Is_Good_(disambiguation) Via countless others...
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Understand there's a difference between 'greed' and 'self-interest'. One in consuming; the other, enlightened.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Destroying others for one's own gain is fully compatible with self-interest -- there's nothing enlightened about it. Altruism, yes, is enlightened.
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    > Yes, but capitalism is the system that says "human greed is good" and that basing everything self-interest turns out for "the best". > From Adam Smith: "“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." Smith wasn't saying greed is "good". He was saying that self-interest is unavoidable, so the economic system must accept that inevitability. I don't think you'll find anything in the work of Smith, celebrating greed the way that Gordon Gecko quote does, or that Ayn Rand and her acolytes did. Smith talks just as much about the near-universal human need to be both "loved" and "lovely"; i.e., to be thought well of both by one's self and by others: Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blameworthiness; or to be that thing which, though, it should be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame. [1] There doesn't seem to be anything consistent with "greed is good" in that, or in anything I've seen attributed to Smith. [1] http://motivatedmastery.com/adam-smith-on-human-nature-and-our-desire-to-be-both-loved-and-lovely/ http://motivatedmastery.com/adam-smith-on-human-nature-and-o...
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
The individual, is basically legacy hardware, and we refined hacking this legacy hardware over the past 20 years. The combined interest in hacking this hardware will always be more effective and cheaper then all defense, bugfixes and updates the individual and his peers can muster. We should criminalize the act of hacking individuals, as the hardware can not be changed and applying security updates and bugfixes has proven ineffective or impossible. It should be viewed not as a weakness of the person but a vile act on a vurnerable creature. Similar in nature to the human rights, in which we grant us one another - animals as we are - inmuteable dignity. This dignity is violated, if one is hacked/manipulated against his/her own interest to serve the interests of another individual, cooperation, nation-state or a idea. This sort of behaviour is not new. There have been precedences, where gurus, churches and whole nations, have overriden the individuals possibility to think or act different.
dgudkov 7y ago
This is why the advances in AI sometimes look scary to me. "Limbic capitalism" (great term, btw) existed and thrived long before the internet and AI era - tobacco, alcohol, credit cards, etc. Finding and monetizing a human addiction has always been extremely profitable. What worries me, is that the power of AI and the easy ability to reach millions of people at once through social media and internet advertisement will make finding new human additions and exploiting them easier than ever. There is nothing that can stop businesses from basically hacking the human limbic system (aka lizard brain) and monetizing it using the vast power of AI. Facebook just pioneered it, but many will follow. The most dangerous AI is not the killer robots scorching the Earth a-la the Terminator movie. The most dangerous AI is the one that will make humans fall in love with it.
michalu 7y ago
.
- GuiA 7y ago
  China’s Great Leap Forward: 50 million deaths Stalin’s regime: 10 million deaths Khmer Rouge: 2 million deaths (25% of Cambodia’s population) East Germany “denazification efforts”: tens of thousands of deaths, possible as high as a hundred thousand I don’t entirely disagree with the nuance you’re trying to make, but it’s worth keeping in mind that some things are very measurable when it comes to these communist/totalitarian regimes.
  - CyanBird 7y ago
    I'm sorry, but this is such a cheapo propaganda like comment to what the other guy said Throwing numbers around as if the decentralized killing or the fami es within non-totalitarian systems weren't comparable is just silly The guy is t advocating for anything of the sort, and the article doesn't mention governments themselves, but decentralized profit driven enterprises....
    - GuiA 7y ago
      One does not exclude the other. You can bring up the numbers for other governments if you wish, they’re interesting to discuss as well. Regarding your accusations, it’s hard to settle anything now that the author deleted their comment. However, I stand firm by my statement that one cannot make claims to the effect of “life wasn’t so bad in $past_totalitarian_regime” without keeping numbers of direct human deaths - from executions, interment camps, famines - at the forefront of our minds.

179 points by jsf 7y ago

lostmymind66 7y ago

Should we include weed and booze in this as well?

microwavecamera 7y ago
No.
manfredo 7y ago
Probably not weed, and definitely not alcohol. Chemical addiction is a physiological phenomenon. Behavior addictions are psychological.
- narag 7y ago
  I agree with your later sentences, but I have doubts that it implies the former. It's possible you have no physiological addiction to alcohol but you do have an addictive behaviour that involves alcohol.
- iSnow 7y ago
  >Chemical addiction is a physiological phenomenon. Behavior addictions are psychological. Doubtful, they all work via the same underlying hardware and excitation of the Limbic system doesn't care for the causes.
CyanBird 7y ago
The article does indeed mention them both >The nature of addiction has implications—more precisely, temptations—for businesses that sell habituating products. One is to encourage early and frequent consumption. Treat the lads, the saloonkeepers used to say, and you’ll have their money in the till when they’re adults. And the more they drink, the greater the profits. To this day, 80 percent of alcohol sales go to the 20 percent of customers who are the heaviest users, a pattern that applies across the business of brain reward. More than half of all marijuana finds its way into the lungs and stomachs of those who spend more than half their waking hours stoned. Insofar as addictions to marijuana, or to anything else, develop most often among the poor, the marginal and the genetically vulnerable, they are sources of inequality and injustice as well as illness.
- mruts 7y ago
  This isn't actually true. Those who have more income spend much more money on drugs. I used to smoke weed all day everyday for 10 years, and knew a ton of others that did so. None of us were poor, all had good jobs and made good income. Moreover, people that only smoke rarely and have never smoked get the wrong impression about what smoking all day does to you. I would hardly call it being 'stoned', more like being slightly buzzed and less anxious. I don't think anyone who didn't know me would have ever been able to tell, unless I smelled like weed or something. I now don't smoke at all, and the difference in experience is pretty minimal. I feel about the same as I did when I was smoking constantly, which is a testament to the powerful ability for neuronal self-regulation in the brain; both on and off drugs.
  - namanyayg 7y ago
    What led to quitting and how did you accomplish it?
    - mruts 7y ago
      I was reading some papers about the detrimental the effect of weed on working memory. So I decided to stop smoking a week after that. Surprisingly, my cognitive performance declined severely for a period of a couple weeks, as measured by dual n-back performance against my on weed baseline. After those two weeks, it started getting better. About a month later, I was at my on weed baseline. Two months after that, I have exceeding my weed baseline by a significant margin. I took an IQ test and realized about a 10 IQ point gain from my baseline IQ, which I was pretty happy with. In regards to accomplishing it, I dunno, I guess I just stopped all at once. I'm not the type of person who can handle moderation of anything really, so just quitting all at once worked really well. I had previously quit heroin a long time ago in my youth, so quitting weed wasn't really a big deal compared to that. It's been maybe 6 months since I last smoked at this point, and I don't really feel any different, besides my cognitive improvements I suppose.
      - namanyayg 7y ago

PaulHoule 7y ago

A good article on Quillette, wow...

dang 7y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, and especially not flamebait, which this is. Instead, when there's a good article, post a substantive comment if you have one, or simply don't post.

tomcam 7y ago

Back in the day, I began my career in programming intending to be a game developer. Coming from a family of addicts I noticed even in the late 1980s that games and chat-style apps could be powerfully addictive. (This awareness kept me off Twitter, Facebook, and so on.) I moved into compiler work and line of business apps, which surprisingly I find just as enjoyable. I never really regretted avoiding games because there are enough things to get me in trouble already.

manfredo 7y ago

How do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Most people wouldn't look down on someone who stays up till 3 AM reading a gripping book, but many would if we swap the book with a video game. Definitely people who can't hold down jobs or education due to addition to video games or social media is a problem, but I suspect that a lot of the concern is due to an overall negative view towards games and internet use. What I do think is a problem is the fact that we have much better data collection on how people use video games and internet services. Absent that information, developers had to think about crafting a good overall experience that people were willing to pay for. With that information, people optimize for overall time used instead of the quality of the experience. Hours and dollars spent is an easy metric to show to executives, judging the overall quality of the experience is much more subjective.

CyanBird 7y ago
>ow do we differentiate from a compelling and effective form of entertainment with an addictive activity? Just like we have always done, if something constantly disturbs day to day activities, then it is an addictive behaviour >That is, the addictive behavior “spills over” into several dimensions of one’s daily life https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210595/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210595/ _______ >What I do think is a problem is the fact that we have much better data collection on how people use video games and internet services I think this doesnt get to the core of the issue, and that's that, humans have always sought better and more efficient ways to get enjoyment out of things, people would infuse their rectums with alcohol way back in Egyptian times to get a stronger alcohol "high". The difference between lets say, 1980's arcades and modern mobile games is simply the tools available, the aim is the same. Only now we can do it faster with A/B testing, with the knowledge of Skinner boxes, etc Having worked in GameDev, one of the most flooring things I have faced is people asking me for me to introduce said addictive inducing systems and mechanisms.... They want the enjoyment, they want to be "addicted", they want a game "so good" that they can't put it down. And when it comes to what you mention of the metrics, yeah, 100%, modern digital era metrics are all based in the so called "Attention Economy", specially for social platforms, in the case of Netflix or Fortnite, their biggest competitors are people actually working, or asinine things like taking a walk, cooking, spending time with family, etc. We are in a race to the bottom for people's attentions and lives, HackerNews itself is yet another Skinnerbox for those that enjoy learning things. Reddit, Twitter, Youtube they all are designed to be addictive, Limbic Capitalism, and to not do so would mean that said platforms would lose in the free market against others that did employ said tactics... We are optimizing for human pleasure, yet what happens when said pleasure is actually a potential enemy?

CyanBird 7y ago

"Limbic Capitalism" Oh god that's such a wondrous name, the perfect descriptor

lordnacho 7y ago

I've been thinking about this a lot. In terms of political economy, there's a lot of reliance on the ideas of information, free will and rationality. To cut a long story short, if people have information about the market, they can use their knowledge of their own desires to act, which creates some sort of efficiency. Glossing over a load of stuff here because it's a large subject, but that's sort of the spiel you get when people are talking about all sorts of political/economic decisions. And you can generate both leftie and rightie policies depending on how you think about things. The problem is if deciding things depends on free will and information, what do we do when it seems there are exceptions? I'll leave aside information problems since we're more talking about rationality. But if it turns out people can know what WoW does to your studies, and they still end up doing this, how should we think about this? Easy answer is that their real desire is to play WoW all day, but that doesn't seem very satisfying. If they're making an irrational decision, that has other consequences on our society. For instance, a whole load of behaviours need to be controlled. Obvious things like smoking and drugs, but what about overeating? Too much soda? Social media? And what exactly is the correct policy response to irrational behaviour? Keep in mind solutions like taxes/subsidies also rely on rationality.

CyanBird 7y ago
Our entire idea of "agency", "individuality" and even "freedom" needs to be re-thinked. Basically all of what we have built resides in one way or another on the idea that individuals bar exceptions such as with physical drugs have some sort of inalienable agency to them. That entire rockbed is simply not really true, and more like highly idealized thoughts from thinkers of the 1800's Policy makers and politicians have been struggling with these problems for the last +150 years, and increasingly so in the last 30 ever since the creation of political microtargetting and the perfection of advertising, cambridge analytica and digital microtargetting+psychographics is just the cherry on top Planet Money released an episode touching on all of these subjects "Ep 915 How to meddle in an election" https://www.npr.org/2019/05/24/726536757/episode-915-how-to-meddle-in-an-election https://www.npr.org/2019/05/24/726536757/episode-915-how-to-... Also, anybody that hasn't should absolutely watch "Century of the self" by Adam Curtis
- 7y ago

mettamage 7y ago

I have to say: this is one fancy title that is fun to pronounce! The meaning is less fun.

gtt 7y ago

I think usage of Capitalism here is a misnomer, because replacing 'capitalism' with 'human greed' or 'human fallibility' changes nothing. The problem is not caused by markets or property rights. If anything, competition actually makes games least toxic. Look how pay2win games being replaced by vanity items selling games.

coldtea 7y ago
Yes, but capitalism is the system that says "human greed is good" and that basing everything self-interest turns out for "the best". From Adam Smith: "“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." To Gordon Gecko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_Is_Good_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed_Is_Good_(disambiguation) Via countless others...
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  Understand there's a difference between 'greed' and 'self-interest'. One in consuming; the other, enlightened.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Destroying others for one's own gain is fully compatible with self-interest -- there's nothing enlightened about it. Altruism, yes, is enlightened.
- tomhoward 7y ago
  > Yes, but capitalism is the system that says "human greed is good" and that basing everything self-interest turns out for "the best". > From Adam Smith: "“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." Smith wasn't saying greed is "good". He was saying that self-interest is unavoidable, so the economic system must accept that inevitability. I don't think you'll find anything in the work of Smith, celebrating greed the way that Gordon Gecko quote does, or that Ayn Rand and her acolytes did. Smith talks just as much about the near-universal human need to be both "loved" and "lovely"; i.e., to be thought well of both by one's self and by others: Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blameworthiness; or to be that thing which, though, it should be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame. [1] There doesn't seem to be anything consistent with "greed is good" in that, or in anything I've seen attributed to Smith. [1] http://motivatedmastery.com/adam-smith-on-human-nature-and-our-desire-to-be-both-loved-and-lovely/ http://motivatedmastery.com/adam-smith-on-human-nature-and-o...

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago

The individual, is basically legacy hardware, and we refined hacking this legacy hardware over the past 20 years. The combined interest in hacking this hardware will always be more effective and cheaper then all defense, bugfixes and updates the individual and his peers can muster. We should criminalize the act of hacking individuals, as the hardware can not be changed and applying security updates and bugfixes has proven ineffective or impossible. It should be viewed not as a weakness of the person but a vile act on a vurnerable creature. Similar in nature to the human rights, in which we grant us one another - animals as we are - inmuteable dignity. This dignity is violated, if one is hacked/manipulated against his/her own interest to serve the interests of another individual, cooperation, nation-state or a idea. This sort of behaviour is not new. There have been precedences, where gurus, churches and whole nations, have overriden the individuals possibility to think or act different.

dgudkov 7y ago

This is why the advances in AI sometimes look scary to me. "Limbic capitalism" (great term, btw) existed and thrived long before the internet and AI era - tobacco, alcohol, credit cards, etc. Finding and monetizing a human addiction has always been extremely profitable. What worries me, is that the power of AI and the easy ability to reach millions of people at once through social media and internet advertisement will make finding new human additions and exploiting them easier than ever. There is nothing that can stop businesses from basically hacking the human limbic system (aka lizard brain) and monetizing it using the vast power of AI. Facebook just pioneered it, but many will follow. The most dangerous AI is not the killer robots scorching the Earth a-la the Terminator movie. The most dangerous AI is the one that will make humans fall in love with it.

michalu 7y ago

GuiA 7y ago
China’s Great Leap Forward: 50 million deaths Stalin’s regime: 10 million deaths Khmer Rouge: 2 million deaths (25% of Cambodia’s population) East Germany “denazification efforts”: tens of thousands of deaths, possible as high as a hundred thousand I don’t entirely disagree with the nuance you’re trying to make, but it’s worth keeping in mind that some things are very measurable when it comes to these communist/totalitarian regimes.
- CyanBird 7y ago
  I'm sorry, but this is such a cheapo propaganda like comment to what the other guy said Throwing numbers around as if the decentralized killing or the fami es within non-totalitarian systems weren't comparable is just silly The guy is t advocating for anything of the sort, and the article doesn't mention governments themselves, but decentralized profit driven enterprises....
  - GuiA 7y ago
    One does not exclude the other. You can bring up the numbers for other governments if you wish, they’re interesting to discuss as well. Regarding your accusations, it’s hard to settle anything now that the author deleted their comment. However, I stand firm by my statement that one cannot make claims to the effect of “life wasn’t so bad in $past_totalitarian_regime” without keeping numbers of direct human deaths - from executions, interment camps, famines - at the forefront of our minds.