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Comment by mdp2021 | Hacker News Reader

mdp2021

> is poisonous

With all due, some may want to advise you to check into that. It could be that it does strange things because of the way you are wired.

Please note (about similar corners) what I have already written in the page, "for some it brings a satisfaction and this is an outlet valve that reduces adverse social effects; for some it is a kindler and it will increase adverse social effects".

To some it will be the opposite of a poison - it will be constructive. It will depend.

This cannot be said of alchool and similar.

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The idea of porn as an outlet valve just sounds to me like the self-medication hypothesis for alcoholism. I have no doubt there's people who watch lots of porn and believe that it's helping them with some problem or another, but I'm more skeptical that it actually is helping and a lot more skeptical that it's so helpful as to make up for the negative consequences.

> outlet valve

It is very rational: some need the experiences to meet the natural instances, and virtual ones suffice.

> self-medication hypothesis for alcoholism

Do not even joke: alcoholism is (*) an addiction (*) to an intoxicant...

> watch lots

That's you assuming things.

> helping them with some problem or another

Still you with your constructs: maybe they just enjoy it like other pleasant experiences.

> negative consequences

That confirms "it's you": which "negative consequences"? We do not see any necessary damaging impact.

Well, doesn't porn-ish entertaiment fuck up ones reward system? I'm not talking of porn specificly, but about a range of products that turn people into "dopamine rats", constantly pressing a button for more bursts of novelty?

> fuck up ones reward system

I am personally not aware of those (products that would damage one's reward system), can you name some?

besides porn, things like facebook, tiktok, instagram, reddit... generalising, it's everything that acts as a button "gib me more novelty" that one can press as much and as frequently as they want.

surely, not everybody is hooked by these things, and it's definitely possible to use them without harm, but sometimes it requires training and (self-)awareness.

But every source of pleasure could create addiction, so it is not valid to point to a specific one, and the requirement of self control and gratification delay remains generally fundamental.

Not every source of pleasure is equally addictive by its nature.

However, I'm not talking about _addiction_, but messing with the dopaminergic system. It's, I'd say a specific kind of "pleasure" with particular mechanisms to trigger.

The problem here is not that a person "is not having control over doing, taking or using something to the point where it could be harmful to them" (https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/addiction-wha...). The problem is that the reward system gets broken. If a person is actually addicted to instagram scrolling, like people are addicted to smoking, it just adds another layer of complexity. As I observing from myself, "checking stuff on my phone" looks like a bad habit rather than an addiction.

So, it seems you are saying that there exist products that, giving "pleasure upon command", make people akin to Damasio's rats - they would constantly go to the pleasure trigger.

But people are not rats: they are or can be made aware that crude pleasure is a negligible factor. Duties and other values count much more.

The dopaminergic system is inferior to judgement.

If there are issue in managing the dopaminergic system, the issue is cultural - and has to be treated in that framework.

It's like with the cognitive disaster in many medical doctors, that seem to equate "quality of life" with "pleasure" (in their own twisted ignorant subdevelopment): health itself has an extremely high value, crude veneers like said pleasure have not or can be plain countervalues.

nah, alcohol is a poison. this is a fact

the effects are dose based which teens are not known to respect :)

Following what you are writing, you misunderstood my post, Sitzkrieg.

I was not writing about alchool... I said that some controversial imagery may be neutral or even enriching to some - while alchool remains a poison (it physically is).

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