Our Brains Tell Stories So We Can Live (2013)

nautil.us

113 points·dnetesn··7 comments

Living in the modern world almost feels like the reward circuitry is under attack from corporations with their advertising and they are almost always trying to trick us into doing things that are beneficial to them and harmful to us. (Ex. Fast food, Social Media, even insurance companies :))

Arguably it has been that way for a while, but then factor the internet in, and the time we are spending on it, these corporations have almost unlimited direct access to our brain and can show us whatever image they want to train our brains in ways they want.

The proteins in a cell form complex organelles, each with a specific role to play in the functioning of the cell. The cells in your body each specialize to constitute a complex, conscious organism. Likewise, you are part of a complicated social and technological network.[1] And just as the cell doesn’t ask the proteins what they think of their functions, our human ecosystem doesn’t care much what we think about it’s operation. As technology creates more and more refined models of the human body and mind we will find ourselves slotted more and more tightly into roles so the whole machine can operate more efficiently.

[1] https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.ht...

Agreed. The better we understand the brain the better we can exploit the reward system for profit. We can even automate the process on a person by person basis.

The reward system was designed to be triggered, or exploited. The trick is saying what's good and what's bad stimulation.

missing here -- empathy

And, more importantly, fast feedback on what works or not.

Is this person arguing in favor of the NPC meme?

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