Abundance
Abundance is the ultimate cheat code for human body and mind. I think that our body has this mechanism that works like reinforcement learning where actions that brought more rewards are preferred to the others.
But, since this mechanism is either naive or slow in evolving, there are ways to cheat it. The formula is to give excess reward (or things that cause it) when a certain action is taken.
The reward that our brain gives to our body, let’s say, comes in the form of dopamine, and there are ways to cause excessive amounts of it.
Now, what can cause excessive amounts of it:
– sugar. Sugar is good to some extent, it is a great source of energy that our body needs. But, it takes long till our brain learns to negatively reward excess sugar. I don’t need to explain why excess sugar is bad.
– drugs. I am pretty sure there is an extent to which drugs can be used beneficially, at least like a painkiller. But still, it is hard for our brains to get the aftermath of much drugs.
– information and approval. Information is crucial on our survival chances. It can make us smarter, richer, it can bring status safety, etc. But, our brains are slow in punishing hours of social networking, watching reels, and more. This is how social media cheat us to keep us online: sending notifications, recommendations, emails. Approval in the form of likes and comments is the digital sugar.
– and more.
I guess, a good rule of thumb is to pay attention to the way and scale of what we consume is generated. If I assume that our brains are so slow that they still live in the stone age, then it doesn’t make sense to consume more sugar than a person can find naturally (1 L coke has more than that).
Same with cocaine. Producing 6-7 kg from 1 ha is a full time job for one person for some months. Making it almost impossible to have it regularly.
One could not consume hours of video even 100 years ago. Our ancestors were only observing nature and were listening to fortune-tellers.
In general, technology is scaling production faster than our bodies evolve. Anything that we consume can be used to cheat our bodies and to affect the small everyday decisions we make. And this is how abundance is used to cheat our bodies and brains.