A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “addiction”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott Alexander examines the surprisingly broad effects of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, exploring their mechanisms and speculating on why they seem to impact so many different conditions.
Scott Alexander addresses comments on his fetish and AI post, defending his comparison of gender debates to addiction and discussing various theories on fetish formation and their implications for AI.
Scott Alexander examines the Buddhist concept of jhana, a blissful meditative state, through Nick Cammarata's experiences, exploring its implications for understanding pleasure and reinforcement.
Scott proposes the concept of 'microaddictions', comparing eating habits and other enjoyable activities to drug addiction patterns, challenging traditional views on addiction.
A review of 'Addiction By Design' examines how gambling machines are engineered for addiction and draws parallels to other digital technologies.
Scott Alexander critiques Bryan Caplan's constraints vs preferences model of mental illness, proposing instead a goals vs urges framework that better explains both mental and physical health issues.
Scott Alexander argues that pseudoaddiction is a real and important concept, despite being widely denounced as pharma propaganda in the context of the opioid crisis.
Scott Alexander discusses new research suggesting ketamine's antidepressant effects may be linked to the opioid system, exploring the implications and potential future directions for depression treatment.
Scott Alexander challenges the popular interpretation of the Rat Park study, arguing that addiction is not solely caused by poor environments and emphasizing genetic factors in addiction susceptibility.
Scott Alexander shares interesting links on diverse topics including Russian life comparisons, AI developments, scientific discoveries, cultural evolution, and various research findings, with brief commentary on each.
Scott Alexander explores the complexities and inconsistencies of drug tolerance in psychiatry, highlighting how different drugs can produce varying tolerance effects across individuals.
Scott Alexander presents results from a survey of 850 people rating various nootropics, showing a range of perceived effectiveness and exploring addiction potential for some substances.
Scott Alexander explores the hidden prevalence of misery in society, using his psychiatric experience and statistical analysis to argue that suffering is more widespread than commonly perceived.
Scott Alexander explores the ethics of tattling and promise-keeping, arguing for the importance of trustworthy promises even when they conflict with moral imperatives.
Scott Alexander compares his inability to allocate time for work tasks despite blogging regularly to heroin addicts' inability to allocate money for medication despite buying drugs.
Scott Alexander criticizes a study on e-cigarette effectiveness for quitting smoking, explaining potential sampling bias that could skew the results.
Scott Alexander argues that e-cigarettes are likely replacing regular cigarettes rather than non-smoking, making them beneficial for public health despite government attempts to ban them.
A review of David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest', exploring its themes, structure, and critique of postmodern society through comparison with 'Illuminatus' and analysis of its complex narrative.
Scott presents a framework of 'liking,' 'wanting,' and 'approving' to explain behavior, then shows how people use low-effort approving-influenced actions (like making public commitments) to influence harder behaviors through strategic self-manipulation.
Scott explains how the brain presents socially acceptable desires as genuine values (ego syntonic) and unacceptable ones as external compulsions (ego dystonic) to improve social signaling, with willpower representing the balance between these forces.
Scott explains time and effort discounting through examples like candy placement affecting consumption, argues that hyperbolic discounting creates preference reversals, and suggests these are better understood as reward functions rather than true preferences.