Yes, technology is the way we circumvent effort to deliver results (e.g. to live longer, healthier, and with less pain/fear.)
Yes, our civilization rewards and encourages short circuiting effort, depriving us of the basic positive feedback loop of effort to reward.
It's been like this since the invention of the wheel and fire. It's up to us to find and/or create meaningful (and effortful) lives, and it is more sustainable to focus on the path than the destination; every zen text teaches this.
This article started off strong but ended up quippy, spiteful and shallow. Still, I appreciate the effort ;-]
One could argue that this is a flaw of evolution. There is a system that gives you a reward after you accomplish something and hence you associate the final result with the reward.
If I offer you a shortcut, your brain is going to take it, easier reward, right?
And yet this has probably been a problem for ages. Nomad hunters probably had a huge dopamine rush after hunting. Then agriculture was invented and for some people getting food was just spending hard earned money at the market. And I don't think they fucked their dopamine system
What I mean by all this is that evolution and our brains will find a way to evolve and change our reward system. We will find other things that feel rewarding
“Because we've created a world where effort gets treated like a disease to be cured.”
That pretty much sums it up for me. Well put. I am at a point where I am trying to acquire hobbies to improve my happiness and there is a difficulty modifier now on a lot of things where it’s like “what’s the point”. It reminds me of when X-Box first offered the ability to watch other people play. I was grinding to get like five more points on a course to hit the 200 point requirement, so I downloaded the top ghost video for the course. That person and I were not even playing the same game; they were orders of magnitude better than I was and all I wound up learning was I would never be that good at it.
Why does the author use a computer and the Internet to write and distribute his thoughts?
Certainly it would be more rewarding to create paper from scratch and walk the earth handing his ideas to people? He could even create his own written language from scratch!
The way to get the most out of AI is not to simply automate away things you love; it’s to go bigger and try to solve bigger actual problems while using AI.
I teach an advanced university level course in how to write books with AI. It’s amazing to watch students (some traditional published authors) unlock new levels of flow and creativity.
I think the key is that you are supposed to automate whatever feels boring for you, and that should leave you more time to engage in activities that you actually feel joy for.
If your hobby is programming by all means disable AI assistance and spend hours coding, but for some people it might feel like a chore sometimes or just be their day job. Allowing them to automate that process further so that they can have more free time reading a book or doing woodworking doesn't feel that bad.
Eliminate effort in the places you don't enjoy it, concentrate effort in places you do, recognise that sometimes the places that pay aren't the ones you enjoy most, and that sometimes you don't enjoy things until you've pushed through the basics.
> But everyone else? You're voluntarily breaking yours. I need medication to feel what you could feel naturally if you stopped training your brain that effort gets you nowhere.
> I was born with this dysfunction. You're choosing it.
This ending is worse than a TV show revealing a dream sequence.
We get it, you're special, we're sheep, thank you for enlightening us.
I was truly enjoying it until the author decided to throw out a middle finger.
> But everyone else? You're voluntarily breaking yours. I need medication to feel what you could feel naturally if you stopped training your brain that effort gets you nowhere.
> I was born with this dysfunction. You're choosing it.
This blog pushes the idea of “dopamine deficiency” as a real scientific concept, but it’s not an actual medical diagnosis (unless you have Parkinson’s disease). To be fair, the linked blog post implies that a doctor gave them this idea, which can happen when you go to a doctor who feels like they’re doing patients a favor by telling them they have a “chemical imbalance” or a deficiency of a neurotransmitter to alleviate objections for taking medication.
The other post also implies that a brain scan was used as part of the diagnosis process, so this is a good place to point out that brain scans are not diagnostic for ADHD. There have been a few notable quack doctors who tried to push fMRI misinterpretations as specialty ADHD diagnostic tools such as Dr. Amen, but these aren’t actually validated by anything nor have they even been shown to be repeatable.
As always: When someone starts talking about dopamine as the chemical that explains everything in life or makes claims to have a deficiency of it, realize that they’re talking about dopamine as a metaphor rather than actual science. Unfortunately people start taking the dopamine metaphor too literally and believe that any lack of motivation is equivalent to a physical lack of dopamine, which is not true.
I had this epiphany last year when I went through some old holiday pictures and saw a photo of a monument in a location that I had no memory of. So I spent some time retracing our steps on that day, based on other pictures from around the same time, and places that I knew we visited. It took a while, but eventually I managed to zero in on the place and felt pretty satisfied as I starred the location on Google Maps.
Since the monument in question was somewhat relevant to my work, I shared the picture in my company chat and asked if anyone had seen it and knew from the top of their head where this was. Almost immediately one colleague threw the picture into an AI reverse image search and instantly came up with the answer where it was and what the monument represented. I was incredibly annoyed at that; not because someone was able to come up with the answer much faster than I did on my own, but because it took the FUN out of the whole thing.
That's when I realized that my instinctive dislike for AI is because it takes the fun out of everything for me. The process of figuring out where this photo was taken was much more rewarding than the eventual answer. Similarly, when programming I take pleasure out of figuring out difficult problems and coming up with elegant solutions for then. Writing the actual code isn't the interesting or difficult part, and I don't need an AI to do that for me. AI is being hyped up by people who are not interested in the process of learning and understanding and who just want a quick shortcut to the answer, completely missing the point in my opinion.
Edgy take by young adult with same problem as everyone else, except everyone else suffering from it due to lazyness and asthenic personality whereas he suffers uniquely due to external reasons outside his own control.
The things I enjoy aren’t because I’m the best at them. I don’t care that software could crush me at reading or playing games. Or a robot can lift more weight than I can or hike a trail faster than me. A robot could surely crush me at laying out on the beach and snorkeling.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Enjoy what you want without thinking about how much worse you are than someone or something else.
Cook because you like it or have to do it for financial reasons. Write because you enjoy it (or have to for financial reasons). You get the point.
"Least effort" is the way of life, it is not just how the brain works, it is how the universe works. From the principle of least action that is maybe the most fundamental law of physics, to chemistry, to biology, to human activity. It is all some form of minimization.
Humanity developed agriculture because it requires less effort than hunting and gathering for feeding a given population. We developed machines because it is less effort than doing things by hand, etc... If your dopamine system rewards doing things with less effort, it is working properly.
The caveat is that doing something with less effort does not mean doing less, it can also mean doing more with the same amount of effort, including personal development. It doesn't mean you should AI everything or be sloppy, just not glorify effort as some intrinsic quality, the result is what matters.
We are being given dopamine faster and easier on purpose. The dopamine you get from painting something yourself is no different than the dopamine you get from letting AI do it. The whole point of the modern, technological world is to get us more dopamine and faster. Our dopamine pathway is a profit center.
This is the same story with sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, social media and...
Stress.
Stress triggers dopamine release via cortisol. In acute stress this is no problem, but with chronic stress the dopamine receptors get down regulated. Yes, you see, you actually can get addicted to stress. Any adrenaline junkies out there? You are actually looking for dopamine.) This is where I feel news addiction can come in for some people. 24x7 stress from anywhere around the globe.
This is how the modern world makes money,
He thinks, and states, "I was born with this dysfunction. You're choosing it." Nah brother, 99% of people are driven by impulses they have no control over, and technology/modern life is just making it worse. Just go to any Starbucks in the morning. You think people are there for the taste of the coffee? Nope, they are there for the drug. Now it is possible his nutrition and genetics make this more of a problem form him, but no one chooses addiction.
He also says in an older article "After a few therapy sessions, doctor appointments, and even a brain scan, I found my answer—dopamine deficiency. There’s no cure, but there’s treatment."
I have been working in nutritional genetics and with my own Asperger's, OCD and Schizoaffcetive Disorder for the last 20 years. I can assure you here is no way to be diagnosed with a dopamine deficiency (and no brain scan for it either). I could see if he had gene testing that found mutations in DDC or somewhere else that inhibited Dopamine production, but he is just a kid, grasping at straws. I know this because I was him at 33. I do not fault him for it, I praise him. Because at least he is thinking about it
It turns out I have a mutation in my CBS gene which limits the rate P5P (B6) binds to the enzyme (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs773734233) which. creates a functional B6 deficiency with several down stream effects. I made several assumption that were wrong in the past, but they all led me to my treatment, and saved my mind and also my life.
he is blaming the individuals for their addiction, this is immoral. Blame the dealers of dopamine who know exactly what they are doing and public health for doing nothing about it.
Dopamine is a primal reward system. It's useless in the evolved modern world that requires rational thought, discipline and hard work. You probably wouldn't get much done waiting for a dopamine reward.
21 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 40.3 ms ] threadYes, technology is the way we circumvent effort to deliver results (e.g. to live longer, healthier, and with less pain/fear.)
Yes, our civilization rewards and encourages short circuiting effort, depriving us of the basic positive feedback loop of effort to reward.
It's been like this since the invention of the wheel and fire. It's up to us to find and/or create meaningful (and effortful) lives, and it is more sustainable to focus on the path than the destination; every zen text teaches this.
This article started off strong but ended up quippy, spiteful and shallow. Still, I appreciate the effort ;-]
I don’t think so.
I still spend the hours — because it needs to sound original. It needs to feel authentic. I have to add my own personal parts to the story.
I still struggle writing it.
The AI helps, but it doesn’t replace the work. The dopamine’s still there — because I’m still in the loop.
If I offer you a shortcut, your brain is going to take it, easier reward, right?
And yet this has probably been a problem for ages. Nomad hunters probably had a huge dopamine rush after hunting. Then agriculture was invented and for some people getting food was just spending hard earned money at the market. And I don't think they fucked their dopamine system
What I mean by all this is that evolution and our brains will find a way to evolve and change our reward system. We will find other things that feel rewarding
That pretty much sums it up for me. Well put. I am at a point where I am trying to acquire hobbies to improve my happiness and there is a difficulty modifier now on a lot of things where it’s like “what’s the point”. It reminds me of when X-Box first offered the ability to watch other people play. I was grinding to get like five more points on a course to hit the 200 point requirement, so I downloaded the top ghost video for the course. That person and I were not even playing the same game; they were orders of magnitude better than I was and all I wound up learning was I would never be that good at it.
Certainly it would be more rewarding to create paper from scratch and walk the earth handing his ideas to people? He could even create his own written language from scratch!
The way to get the most out of AI is not to simply automate away things you love; it’s to go bigger and try to solve bigger actual problems while using AI.
I teach an advanced university level course in how to write books with AI. It’s amazing to watch students (some traditional published authors) unlock new levels of flow and creativity.
It’s not the tool. You’re just using it wrong.
If your hobby is programming by all means disable AI assistance and spend hours coding, but for some people it might feel like a chore sometimes or just be their day job. Allowing them to automate that process further so that they can have more free time reading a book or doing woodworking doesn't feel that bad.
> I was born with this dysfunction. You're choosing it.
This ending is worse than a TV show revealing a dream sequence.
We get it, you're special, we're sheep, thank you for enlightening us.
I was truly enjoying it until the author decided to throw out a middle finger.
> I was born with this dysfunction. You're choosing it.
This blog pushes the idea of “dopamine deficiency” as a real scientific concept, but it’s not an actual medical diagnosis (unless you have Parkinson’s disease). To be fair, the linked blog post implies that a doctor gave them this idea, which can happen when you go to a doctor who feels like they’re doing patients a favor by telling them they have a “chemical imbalance” or a deficiency of a neurotransmitter to alleviate objections for taking medication.
The other post also implies that a brain scan was used as part of the diagnosis process, so this is a good place to point out that brain scans are not diagnostic for ADHD. There have been a few notable quack doctors who tried to push fMRI misinterpretations as specialty ADHD diagnostic tools such as Dr. Amen, but these aren’t actually validated by anything nor have they even been shown to be repeatable.
As always: When someone starts talking about dopamine as the chemical that explains everything in life or makes claims to have a deficiency of it, realize that they’re talking about dopamine as a metaphor rather than actual science. Unfortunately people start taking the dopamine metaphor too literally and believe that any lack of motivation is equivalent to a physical lack of dopamine, which is not true.
Since the monument in question was somewhat relevant to my work, I shared the picture in my company chat and asked if anyone had seen it and knew from the top of their head where this was. Almost immediately one colleague threw the picture into an AI reverse image search and instantly came up with the answer where it was and what the monument represented. I was incredibly annoyed at that; not because someone was able to come up with the answer much faster than I did on my own, but because it took the FUN out of the whole thing.
That's when I realized that my instinctive dislike for AI is because it takes the fun out of everything for me. The process of figuring out where this photo was taken was much more rewarding than the eventual answer. Similarly, when programming I take pleasure out of figuring out difficult problems and coming up with elegant solutions for then. Writing the actual code isn't the interesting or difficult part, and I don't need an AI to do that for me. AI is being hyped up by people who are not interested in the process of learning and understanding and who just want a quick shortcut to the answer, completely missing the point in my opinion.
Lol.
Struggle builds character or whatever.
The things I enjoy aren’t because I’m the best at them. I don’t care that software could crush me at reading or playing games. Or a robot can lift more weight than I can or hike a trail faster than me. A robot could surely crush me at laying out on the beach and snorkeling.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Enjoy what you want without thinking about how much worse you are than someone or something else.
Cook because you like it or have to do it for financial reasons. Write because you enjoy it (or have to for financial reasons). You get the point.
Humanity developed agriculture because it requires less effort than hunting and gathering for feeding a given population. We developed machines because it is less effort than doing things by hand, etc... If your dopamine system rewards doing things with less effort, it is working properly.
The caveat is that doing something with less effort does not mean doing less, it can also mean doing more with the same amount of effort, including personal development. It doesn't mean you should AI everything or be sloppy, just not glorify effort as some intrinsic quality, the result is what matters.
We are being given dopamine faster and easier on purpose. The dopamine you get from painting something yourself is no different than the dopamine you get from letting AI do it. The whole point of the modern, technological world is to get us more dopamine and faster. Our dopamine pathway is a profit center.
This is the same story with sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, social media and...
Stress.
Stress triggers dopamine release via cortisol. In acute stress this is no problem, but with chronic stress the dopamine receptors get down regulated. Yes, you see, you actually can get addicted to stress. Any adrenaline junkies out there? You are actually looking for dopamine.) This is where I feel news addiction can come in for some people. 24x7 stress from anywhere around the globe.
This is how the modern world makes money,
He thinks, and states, "I was born with this dysfunction. You're choosing it." Nah brother, 99% of people are driven by impulses they have no control over, and technology/modern life is just making it worse. Just go to any Starbucks in the morning. You think people are there for the taste of the coffee? Nope, they are there for the drug. Now it is possible his nutrition and genetics make this more of a problem form him, but no one chooses addiction.
He also says in an older article "After a few therapy sessions, doctor appointments, and even a brain scan, I found my answer—dopamine deficiency. There’s no cure, but there’s treatment."
I have been working in nutritional genetics and with my own Asperger's, OCD and Schizoaffcetive Disorder for the last 20 years. I can assure you here is no way to be diagnosed with a dopamine deficiency (and no brain scan for it either). I could see if he had gene testing that found mutations in DDC or somewhere else that inhibited Dopamine production, but he is just a kid, grasping at straws. I know this because I was him at 33. I do not fault him for it, I praise him. Because at least he is thinking about it
It turns out I have a mutation in my CBS gene which limits the rate P5P (B6) binds to the enzyme (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs773734233) which. creates a functional B6 deficiency with several down stream effects. I made several assumption that were wrong in the past, but they all led me to my treatment, and saved my mind and also my life.
he is blaming the individuals for their addiction, this is immoral. Blame the dealers of dopamine who know exactly what they are doing and public health for doing nothing about it.