from Hacker News

Can you resist all the addictions modern life throws at you? Only if you're rich

by 47thpresident on 2/3/25, 1:24 AM with 16 comments

• by s1artibartfast on 2/3/25, 2:33 AM

  I know enough poor and old people to know this isn't the case. I have a lot of friends in their 60s and 70s and when I visit them, it is like a time machine to the 90s. The healthy ones use email, but don't do social media and many don't have tv. They read books, talk, and partake in face to face social groups.

  Many are on low fixed incomes in poor rural areas. You can get a trailer home on 40 acres quite cheap if you are several hours from a Metro hub, and live even cheaper if you rent.

  This is a long way of saying that intentionally matters and the choices and tradeoffs we make matter too.

• by al_borland on 2/3/25, 1:47 AM

  I refuse to believe that the only way to resist picking up a cell phone too much is to take a dopamine suppressing drug. That simply trades one problem for another.

• by aprilthird2021 on 2/3/25, 2:10 AM

  Our highly individualistic culture is not suited to help people break free from addictions.

  Does anyone remember when South Park had an episode about how evil some guy was for saying secondhand smoke was bad and how nuanced the topic was, and how it was people's right to smoke wherever they wanted?

  I'm not saying that's everyone. I'm not saying that's solely why we fail at this. But it's an example of a culture that's broadly extremely individualistic and tolerant of aberrance from individuals. That has many advantages. One flaw of it, is that it becomes very hard, in such a culture, to tamp down on vices.

• by bell-cot on 2/3/25, 1:34 AM

  Dear Guardian, please read some history. The addictions of the rich, often to vices which the great unwashed could not dream of affording, were quite well-known a millennium or few ago.

  (That said...yes, modern capitalism cares extremely little for the 99%, and the financial markets love the certainty of a "our customers are addicts" business model.)

• by andrewfromx on 2/3/25, 1:37 AM

  "The economy increasingly relies on addiction, with companies deliberately targeting the brain's limbic system ("limbic capitalism") to encourage overconsumption."

• by armchairhacker on 2/3/25, 1:53 AM

  Semaglutide, therapy, private schools, expensive “digital detox” retreats.

  You don’t have to be that rich to afford any of these except retreats. Moreover, you don’t have to be rich at all to eat healthy, exercise, sleep well, and raise your kids right (which are more effective than the above, except for rare cases like medical conditions).

  Meanwhile many rich people suffer from addictions. In fact, it’s probably harder for famous people to get good therapists who they can and do trust, since everyone knows them and there’s big incentive to expose their secrets. And being rich offers new addictions, and enables existing ones since there’s no “rock bottom”.