If engineering addiction for children is illegal, it should obviously be illegal to target adults too?

creaturemachine 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I suggest you read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. As much as it is damaging to adults, it's much more so to children in early development all the way through puberty.

https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/

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Spooky23 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That’s the thing that is so ridiculous. Why is it magically OK to drive harmful compulsive behavior on your 18th birthday.

The interns at work talk incessantly about gambling. It’s just weird and wrong.

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pixl97 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The answer to that is 'it depends'. We know certain substances like alcohol and tobacco can be/are addictive and yet the product still sells with warnings.

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elevatortrim 5 hours ago | parent [-]

In the case of alcohol and tobacoo, I do not think these products are engineered for addiction, they are engineered for taste and addiction is a side-effect. If they could be produced to have the same short-term (< a few hours) effects while avoiding the long term effects (addiction), the companies would (hopefully) choose to do that. I do not imagine these companies to build these products in a way that maximises their addiction.

social media platforms however, ...

	▲	pixl97 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>obacoo, I do not think these products are engineered for addiction, Cigarettes were 100% engineered for addiction. >I do not imagine these companies to build these products in a way that maximises their addiction. Holy hell, you need to go watch the big tobacco trials of the past to see the CEOs knew exactly what they were doing. And then how much they spent on outright buying scientists to say bullshit so they could drag the matter on for years. Tobacco set the stage for companies to use doubt of every kind to hide their intentional actions.

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bitmasher9 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s a good point, but crimes against children are a higher priority because children are more vulnerable and the law exists in part to protect our most vulnerable.