Human Brains Re-wired in Tech Age, Big Tech Capitalizes on “Hypersensitized” Dopamine Systems

Daniel Taylor
Old Thinker News

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works…”

Facebook has been spotlighted for its censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars, but there is another angle to Big Tech tyranny.

Depression and suicide are at record rates in the west. While there are many driving factors behind this trend, one of them appears to be worsening addictions to tech.

Human development has this far driven us toward interaction with others. We needed to connect with and learn from each other. We need to reproduce.

What happens when our technology becomes more “rewarding” than anything else?

In Japan, where cultural norms allow for rapid adoption of new technology, a population crisis is emerging as young people are no longer having relationships.

The Independent reports:

“Some men claimed they “find women scary” as a poll found that around 31% of people aged 18 to 34 from the island nation say they are virgins.”

One Japanese woman said, “I think a lot of men just cannot be bothered. They can watch porn on the internet and get sexual satisfaction that way.”

We are literally becoming addicted to our technology and the distraction that it brings. Every time we see the glowing red indicator on our Facebook page, our brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine.

Dopamine is a central part of the reward center in the brain. It tells us, “Ok, this act (eating food, sex, achieving a goal) brought pleasure, do it again”.

The Guardian reported on the modern phenomenon of our dopamine systems becoming “hypersensitized”, making normal interactions and natural human activities less engaging:

What’s more, our 21st-century world is so heavily baited with cues and stimuli – from stealthy marketing to junk food, not to mention the nagging lure of online life – that it appears to be rigging our dopamine systems to become “hypersensitised”.

Big Tech has capitalized on this mind-hack.

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Addictive video games may change children's brains in the same way as drugs and alcohol, study reveals

The Telegraph

ortnite and other addictive video games can have a similar effect on children’s brains as drug abuse or alcoholism, MRI scans reveal.

They show the “reward” system in the brains of young heavy users of social media and video games display the same changes in function and structure as those of alcoholics or drug addicts.

A series of studies by California State University found the impulsive part of the brain, known as the amygdala-striatal system, was not only more sensitive but also smaller in excessive users so that it processed the stimuli of social media or games faster.

The findings come as Britain’s children are gripped by the Fortnite video game, with one nine-year-old reportedly admitted to rehab after becoming so addicted she wet herself rather than leave the screen and primary schools urging parents to ban their children from playing them.

On Monday, the Daily Telegraph launched the Duty of Care campaign calling on ministers to make social media and online gaming companies subject to a statutory duty to protect children from harms such as addiction, bullying and grooming when using their services. 

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The Criminalization of Financial Independence

Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds Blog

 

Independent enterprises are a source of political and financial independence--and any independent class is dangerous to the ruling elites.

Just as the "war on drugs" criminalized and destroyed large swaths of African-American and Latino communities, the "war on cash" will further criminalize the few remaining avenues to financial independence and freedom. The introduction of "entitlement" welfare in the 1960s generated a toxic dependency on the state that institutionalized worklessness, a one-two punch that undermined marriage and family in America's working class of all ethnicities.

The "war on drugs" launched in the 1970s turned millions of American males into felons with severely restricted rights and opportunities in mainstream America.

Now we see the same destructive pattern repeating with "disability" being the new "welfare" and "legal" synthetic heroin (oxycotin etc.) being the new street-smack that lays waste to entire communities. Once you're dependent on the state for disability and synthetic smack, you are owned by the government, lock, stock and barrel.

When the temptation to sell your $3 Medicaid prescription for synthetic smack for a quick $1000 becomes too much to resist, bang, you've got a one-way ticket into the Hell of America's criminal "justice" system. Do you see the pattern? Offer the blandishments of "free money" and nearly free synthetic smack, and the vulnerable populace is quickly reduced to a dependent state of worklessness and addiction.

Needless to say, an addicted, ill, workless populace that is herded into the grinder of the criminal justice system isn't going to create any political resistance. They have their hands full just trying to stay alive and avoid being sucked into the voracious maw of the criminalization meat grinder.

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The root of healing from addiction is connection

Jonathan Davis
Sott.net viaUplift

Do Stronger Human Connections Immunise Us Against Emotional Distress?

Right now an exciting new perspective on addiction is emerging. Johann Harri, author of Chasing The Scream, recently captured widespread public interest with his Ted talk Everything You Know About Addiction Is Wrong, where he concluded with this powerful statement:

"The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection."
- Johann Harri

These sentiments are augmented by a growing number of experts, including addiction specialist Dr Gabor Maté, who cites 'emotional loss and trauma' as the core of addiction. Compare this 'emotional loss' to Johan Harri's idea about lack of connection and it is clear they're talking about a similar emotional condition. 

Limbic Resonance

If connection is the opposite of addiction, then an examination of the neuroscience of human connection is in order. Published in 2000, A General Theory Of Love is a collaboration between three professors of psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco. A General Theory Of Love reveals that humans require social connection for optimal brain development, and that babies cared for in a loving environment are psychological and neurologically 'immunised' by love. When things get difficult in adult life, the neural wiring developed from a love-filled childhood leads to increased emotional resilience in adult life. Conversely, those who grow up in an environment where loving care is unstable or absent are less likely to be resilient in the face of emotional distress.

How does this relate to addiction? Gabor Maté observes an extremely high rate of childhood trauma in the addicts he works with and trauma is the extreme opposite of growing up in a consistently safe and loving environment. He asserts that it is extremely common for people with addictions to have a reduced capacity for dealing with emotional distress, hence an increased risk of drug-dependence.

Trauma is well-known to cause interruption to healthy neural wiring, in both the developing and mature brain. A deeper issue here is that people who have suffered trauma, particularly children, can be left with an underlying sense that the world is no longer safe, or that people can no longer be trusted. This erosion (or complete destruction) of a sense of trust, that our family, community and society will keep us safe, results in isolation - leading to the very lack of connection Johann Harri suggests is the opposite of addiction. People who use drugs compulsively do so to avoid the pain of past trauma and to replace the absence of connection in their life. 

Social Solutions To Addiction

The solution to the problem of addiction on a societal level is both simple and fairly easy to implement. If a person is born into a life that is lacking in love and support on a family level, or if due to some other trauma they have become isolated and suffer from addiction, there must be a cultural response to make sure that person knows that they are valued by their society (even if they don't feel valued by their family). Portugal has demonstrated this with a 50% drop in addiction thanks to programs that are specifically designed to re-create connection between the addict and their community.

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See also: The Rise of Narcissism and the Loss of Meaning III

 

North Korea's Got a Big Crystal Meth Problem

Vice News 

North Korean meth is the bomb — at least, according to US officials who tested two batches last year. The packages of sharp, ice-like crystals measured 98 percent and 96 percent for purity respectively. According to an indictment against the suppliers, who were arrested in 2013, the drug was so pure that “people in New York, they went crazy… the places that we put it in the States, New York… Boston, all these places, I mean, they went crazy.”

According to a new report by Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, the North Korean government has used drug manufacture and a host of other nefarious activities to raise funds since the 1970s. The regime defaulted on its international loans in 1976 and Greitens describes how that same year “a dozen members of North Korea’s diplomatic corps, including the North Korean Ambassador to Norway, [were] ejected… for smuggling illicit goods" including "4,000 bottles of booze (mostly Polish vodka) and 140,000 cigarettes" in Sweden, and "400 bottles of liquor, 4.5 million cigarettes and 147 kilos of hashish in Denmark.”

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Heroin, addiction and free will

Mind Hacks

The death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman has sparked some strong and seemingly contradictory responses. What these reactions show is that many people find it hard to think of addiction as being anything except either a choice or a loss of free will.

The fact that addiction could involve an active choice to take drugs but still be utterly irresistible seems difficult for most people to fathom.

Let’s take some reactions from the media. Over at Time, David Sheff wrote that “it wasn’t Hoffman’s fault that he relapsed. It was the fault of a disease”. On the other hand, at Deadspin, Tim Grierson wrote that the drug taking was “thoughtless and irresponsible, leaving behind three children and a partner”.

So does addiction trap people within its claws or do drug users die from their own actions? It’s worth noting that this is a politicised debate. Those who favour a focus on social factors prefer prefer the ‘trap’ idea, those who prefer to emphasise individual responsibility like the ‘your own actions’ approach.

Those who want to tread the middle ground or aim to be diplomatic suggest it’s ‘half and half’ – but actually it’s both at the same time, and these are not, as most people believe, contradictory explanations.

To start, it’s worth thinking about how heroin has its effect at all. Heroin is metabolised to morphine which then binds to opioid receptors in the brain. It seems to be the effects in the nucleus accumbens and limbic system which are associated with the pleasure and reward associated with the drug.

But in terms of motivating actions, it is a remarkably non-specific drug and it doesn’t directly cause specific behaviours.

In fact, there is no drug that makes you hassle people in Soho for a score. There’s no drug that manipulates the neural pathways to make you take the last 40 quid out of your account to buy a bag of gear. No chemical exists that compels your hands to prepare a needle and shoot up.

You are not forced to inject heroin by your brain or by the drug. You do not become an H-zombie or a mindless smack-taking robot. You remain in control of your actions.

But that does not mean that it’s a simple ‘choice’ to do something different, as if it was like choosing one brand of soft drink over another, or like deciding between going to the cinema or staying at home.

Addiction has a massive effect on people’s choices but not so much by altering the control of actions but by changing the value and consequences of those actions.

If that’s not clear, try thinking of it like this. You probably have full mechanical control over your speech: you can talk when you want and you can stay silent when you want. Most people would say you have free will to speak or to not speak. 

But try not speaking for a month and see what the consequences are. Strained relationship? Lost job maybe? Friends who ditch you? You are free to choose your actions but you are not free to choose your outcomes.

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Portsmouth Middle School warns parents about Smartie-snorting epidemic and the risk of nasal maggots

Comment: Has it come to this? You don't know whether to laugh or cry...

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Boing Boing

Parents in Portsmouth, Rhode Island got a letter from the Portsmouth Middle School warning them that students may be snorting and smoking ground-up Smarties candies. The letter warns of risks of cuts, lung infections, nasal passage scarring, nose-wedged maggots (!), and future cigarette and drug use. John McDaid, a writer and local investigative blogger, got a comment from Portsmouth School Committee chair Dave Croston, who stated "I can say only that this behavior raises troubling issue of modeling." 

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Mephedrone, or 'meow meow', as popular as cocaine, drugs survey says

Guardian

Former legal high used by 4.4% of all people aged between 16 and 24, as use of illegal drugs in decline long-term 

 
Mephedrone, the former legal high known as "meow meow", is as popular as cocaine among teenagers and young adults despite being banned last year, according to official figures. Home Office figures drawn from the authoritative British Crime Survey estimate that around 300,000 16 to 24-year-olds, or 4.4% of their age group, used mephedrone in the past 12 months. This is a similar level of popularity to the use of powder cocaine by teenagers and young adults. The BCS survey, drug misuse declared 2010/2011, say that mephedrone and cocaine rank joint second in popularity behind cannabis for this age group. Mephedrone ranks alongside ecstasy in popularity among all drug users aged between 16 and 59, with 1.4% of all adults reporting they had used them in the past year. The results of the annual survey of drug use in England and Wales show that almost 3 million people (8.8% of adults) used illicit drugs in the past year. They also show that one million of them – or 3% – used class-A drugs, with a fall in the use of cocaine accompanied by a rise in the use of methadone. Around 2.2 million people aged 16 to 59 used cannabis last year and the survey also indicates a rise in popularity in ketamine in recent years. The use of illegal drugs among the younger age group of 16 to 24 has, however, undergone a long-term decline, from 29% of the age group reporting they had used an illicit drug in 1996 to 20% in 2010/2011. Home Office minister, James Brokenshire, denied that the alarming figures for the use of mephedrone, which was made illegal in April 2010, demonstrated that the ban had been ineffective. He said the BCS figures covered patterns of use before and after the ban had come into force. He stressed that just because a drug had been sold as a legal high it did not mean it was harmless. But the interviews undertaken by the BCS for this year's report would have took place between April 2010 and March this year. Respondents were however asked about their illicit drug use in the previous 12 months, and so could have related to the period when mephedrone was a legal high.

The Hidden Wisdom Within Addiction

awakeninthenow.com/ via serendipity

I’ve had a number of people in my life who have struggled with various forms of substance addiction. I myself have struggled with it at different times in my life. One of the most significant qualities of substance addiction is the obsessive desire to consume the substance of choice and the longing to change one’s state of consciousness. There is a consistent feeling of aversion to the usual state of consciousness which can involve painful emotions the addict has suppressed and is not prepared to deal with, often related to unresolved past trauma. A dissatisfaction with the usual state of consciousness. This is also present in people who choose to take psychoactive substances to alter their consciousness although in non-addicts there is a lesser degree of aversion to the normal state as well as the absence of the compulsive quality. Almost everyone consumes substances to alter their state of mind, consider not only alcohol, marijuana and psychedelics but also coffee, tea, sugar, etc. So there is nothing particularly unusual about this.

There is no question of the destructiveness of addiction in our society. However there is another element within this process that I’ve recently begun to explore. I’m calling this the hidden wisdom within addiction. The unwavering desire to change one’s state of consciousness out of a profound dissatisfaction with the usual state can be seen as a healthy motivation and possibly as a distorted representation of a spiritual drive to realize freedom. If we consider the normal state of consciousness of the average person in our society it becomes easy to understand why people would be dissatisfied with it. Most of us live in a mind state that can be characterized as subdued madness in my view. The baseline collective consciousness is one that is based in separation/isolation, low-level fear/anxiety, low-level depression, a very limited experience of the world based on a tight set of mental filters and most importantly a disconnect from source or spirit. Is it any wonder that so many people feel such a drive to alter their state of consciousness given the limitations and stifling isolation of everyday consciousness? The desire to expand conscious experience can easily be seen as a powerful urge to grow and evolve.

Our society however does not reward or encourage expansion of consciousness and spiritual growth, in fact it often punishes it. As soon as psychedelics began to be seriously researched in the late 50s and early 60s and their potential as a healing tool was realized they were immediately criminalized. The evidence suggested further study and potentially powerful positive effects from careful intentional use in a wide variety of contexts from the treatment of mental health issues to their use as a spiritual tool. We are conditioned into limited perspectives and beliefs about our world and how life should be lived and most of us to some degree buy into these limitations. Psychoactive substances temporarily dissolve these limitations but they are an imperfect solution because their effects cannot be maintained without continuous or repeated consumption. However they provide a window or a glimpse of other states of consciousness and a reminder that our usual state is only one possible perspective. If the desire behind addiction can be channeled into a spiritual path that is uniquely tailored for the individual’s needs and personality that desire will have another outlet besides addictive use of substances or other behaviors. For many this spiritual alternative may include mind altering substances used with a different intention than what we find in an addictive context. The intention of truly achieving personal freedom rather than escaping from unpleasant experience.

The value of seeing this aspect of addiction is not to condone the destructiveness of it, rather it is to see that there can be a positive underlying motivation that is needing expression. This helps to let go of judgment, blame and shame which are the truly enabling aspects of addiction. If we can see the that there is a wisdom that is trying to be expressed through it we can approach it in a creative way that aims to redirect the expression rather than forcefully stop it out of judgment. It is a common aspect of addiction that when people forcefully stop their addictive use of a substance, the addictive behavior is often transferred to another substance or behavior. It cannot be stopped but it can be transformed. Transformation is only possible with acceptance however. With acceptance the inner battle ceases and we have many more options open to us to grow in a creative way. The prevalence of addiction and the use of psychiatric drugs in our society suggests that we as a society are screaming for true paths to freedom and growth. Those path are available if we can open our minds to what is possible and if we have the courage to face our inner demons.