I’m allergic to philosophical debates, so I’m going to try and keep this discussion of freedom as practical as possible.

Some things I’ve noticed:

• When you threaten to ban soda, people lose their minds
• When you offer people a mood-altering hormone that will make them not want soda, they shove money in your mouthDid I mention it’s also a once-weekly injection that costs $2k/month and whose long-term effects are unknown?

Isn’t that…weird? At the end of the day it’s the same result either way: you are no longer drinking soda. But the first scenario seems a bit more straightforward? Fewer needles, anyway, and more money in your pocket.

A possible counterargument: in the ban-soda scenario you feel deprived—every time you’re at the grocery store you shake your fist at the gleaming refrigerator section that’s now filled with…kombucha?…and curse the politicians that have robbed you of the sublime pleasure of Mountain Dew.

But that’s kinda crazy, right? Do you think Amish people walk around dreaming about soda? Or, like, uncontacted Amazonian tribes? What about people who died before 1886The auspicious year Coca-Cola was born.—were their lives missing the pure bliss of bottled sugar water?

So it seems like we can look at, let’s say, the Amish and agree that their lives are not lacking in some crucial soda domain. The fact that they don’t drink soda seems good—they don’t miss it and they’re healthier for it.

But then for some reason if we talk about banning soda in our society, we really lose our cool. We are compelled to use terms like Orwellian or nanny state or fascist or communist or whatever verbal grenade is at the top of your political discourse pile.

Here’s a better argument:

• Soda bans are universal
• Mood-altering hormone use is personal

Fair! So maybe the ideal society has no laws regulating the sale of guilty pleasures, but it’s also nailed this whole mood-altering hormone thing.

So like, now you can buy cocaine at CVS! But it’s on the shelf right next to a svelte autoinjector for 5ml of NocaineA powerful you-actually-don’t-want-cocaine hormone. Now everybody’s happy: you have the option of buying the cocaine, but luckily you’re smart enough to buy the Nocaine instead.

Pretty quickly it becomes clear that the cocaine on the shelf is really just there to drive sales of Nocaine. Nobody really wants to be a cocaine addict, but since it’s available at CVS it’s pretty hard to avoid the allure! So now we’re all forced to take Nocaine.

This seems like a bad society, right? I mean, it’s a great society to be in the pharmaceutical industry! You get to be in a fun arms race with yourself where you make more and more addictive substances just so you can make more and more potent mind-altering drugs to make those substances less addictive.

But I think you’ll agree it’s not so swell for everyone else. Now you’re spending all your money on injectable hormones and worrying that maybe the next breakthrough in addictive substances will snare you before you can afford the hormone that guards against it.

I think it will be obvious to everyone in that society—even the freedom-loving folks—that something has gone seriously wrong. And of course our society seems to agree:

• Banning cocaine is okay
• Banning marijuana, gambling,
• Banning soda, video games, or social media is definitely not okay

• easy dopamine hits dysregulate our limbic system
• this encourages us to look for quick hits
• quick hits usually involve self centered activities

The argument

• all your problems are dopamine problems
  • left brained society makes you think your problems are quantitative and provides isolated solutions that don’t solve the underlying problem
  • e.g. gamified CBT, sodas with fiber — the solution is always substituting one kind of dopamine with another
• better solutions
  • regulation
  • meditation
    • evidence is thing for meditation-as-dopamine-fasting argument
    • but more evidence that meditating improves how your brain responds to dopamine (RPE?)—specifically mindfulness meditation
    • seems like MBCBT for addiction studies could be relevant here?
• why don’t more people do it?
  • dopamine driven people have a tough time getting motivated by something that does not increase status/money/evolutionary advantage
  • they also have a tough time with rewards that aren’t quantitative or immediate
  • our constant search for dopamine means our baseline feels unsatisfying — so we hate the feeling of confronting it head on
  • hard to compete with other activities in a high dopamine society
  • actually, it has similar post-study persistence to other “obviously good” lifestyle changes like exercise (but exercise has tangible, self centered benefits and can be done socially)

A century of quick hits: a reading map + remedies

1. Blaise Pascal — Pensées (1657–58) Proto-diagnosis of distraction: our urge to avoid stillness (“diversion”) keeps us from meaningful reflection.Remedies: cultivate solitude; sit quietly without stimulus; examine your life (Pascal’s “diversion” argument).
   • testing
   • again
2. Ivan Illich — Tools for Conviviality (1973)When tools start using us: industrial-scale systems can erode autonomy; we need “convivial tools” that empower—within limits.Remedies: prefer simple, human-scaled tech; set responsible limits; redesign your toolset toward agency (pen & paper, offline craft, community tech).
   • Interesting ideal—although he dislikes some tools for different reasons besides “dopamine hits”
   • But maybe aligned in that we agree on this: just because a tool makes something easier does not mean it makes us happier
3. Aldous Huxley — Brave New World (1932, fiction; thematically central)Pleasure as social control: instant, state-provided bliss (“soma”) dulls thought, depth, and freedom.Remedies (inferred): embrace discomfort and meaning over sedation; protect free thought and deep relationships.
   • A classic of the genre
   • A good demonstration of why the dopamine-rich life is unsatisfying
   • But the cause of dopamine saturation is different: I’m concerned with capitalism/technology driving us to faster and faster hits—Huxely is concerned with societal control
4. Neil Postman — Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) From typography to TV to spectacle: when media become entertainment by default, public discourse (and attention) thins. Remedies: restore “serious” mediums and formats (long-form reading, live dialogue); change the medium, not just the message. (Still strikingly relevant.)
   • A look at a very specific form of dopamine hit—not sure of its wider relevance to my concerns
5. Neil Postman — Technopoly (1992) When culture surrenders to technology: efficiency and metrics colonize meaning. Remedies: adopt cultural “filters” before adopting tools; articulate non-technological values; practice techno-selectionism (accept some tech, reject others).
6. Deirdre Barrett — Supernormal Stimuli (2010)Exaggerated cues hijack ancient drives: ultra-palatable food, porn, viral media—engineered to outcompete natural rewards.Remedies: remove “supernormal” versions; choose natural, slower alternatives; redesign your environment (pantry, home screen) to favor default good choices.
   • This seems very relevant to my concerns!
7. Cal Newport — Digital Minimalism (2019)Use tech on purpose, not by default: a philosophy + playbook for intentional digital life.Remedies: 30-day digital declutter; re-add only high-value tools; schedule solitude; invest in high-quality leisure and real-world community.
   • digital tools can sometimes have quick dopamine hits? So orthogonally related
8. Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long — The Molecule of More (2018)
9. Robert Wright — Why Buddhism is True (2017)
   • Similar to dopamine vs. h&n argument above, but doesn’t use these terms and provides a non-biological explanation for why meditation works (you recognize the dopamine-fueled thoughts and ignore them, vs. recalibrating your dopamine system via meditation)