Capitalism is turning us into addicts | How Big Business shapes our habits and desires.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Think, for example, of all the apps and platforms specifically designed to hijack our attention with pings and dopamine hits while harvesting our data.

I spoke to Courtwright about the problems this has created, why the battle against limbic capitalism is seemingly endless, and if he thinks we’re destined to live in a consumerist dystopia.

But what’s happened in the last 100 years or so is that more of these commercial strategies come from highly organized corporations that do very sophisticated research and find more ways to market these addictive goods and services.

So again, the demand, “I’ve got to eat something,” was always there, but what the processed food industry does, because it’s so competitive, is create products that will provide the calories and nutrients in ways that act like mood-altering drugs.

Sure, everyone needs to eat, but not everyone needs to tweet or buy 13 pairs of sunglasses or own a closet of products that add nothing to their life apart from marking their identity and status for other people.

And we have tax policy, we have potential structural limitations, we have lawsuits and big class action cases that pose serious problems for American limbic capitalists.

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We already live in a consumerist dystopia