思考与写作paulgraham.com编辑精选
上瘾性的加速
The Acceleration of Addictiveness
2010 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是 Paul Graham 2010 年的随笔，核心观点是：随着技术进步，越来越多的事物（从糖和垃圾食品到电子游戏、互联网）被做得越来越容易上瘾，而"成瘾性的加速"是现代社会中一个被低估的风险。他借社会对吸烟逐渐形成"抗体"的例子，担心新成瘾物出现得太快，集体的防御机制跟不上。
为什么经久不衰：十几年前的文章，却精准预言了以"参与度"为目标的注意力经济；它提出的问题——个人如何抵抗被精心设计的成瘾——至今仍是科技行业绕不开的伦理议题。
HN 评论精选
真正被收割的是心理脆弱的少数人，而数据驱动的设计让这件事既容易又暴利。
我尤其担心成瘾性在某些特定人群中的加速。《魔兽世界》（或 Farmville）不是冰毒……但这个轻描淡写的说法背后有个核心事实：有些人就是对诱惑说不出口。也许他们受教育程度低，也许基因上易成瘾，也许临床抑郁——总之心理"免疫系统"较弱。而对公司来说，雇极精明的工程师和营销人员去设计"地狱版斯金纳箱"、从中榨钱，正变得容易得多（A/B 测试！端到端分析！拿用户朋友的照片当行动号召！）也暴利得多（虚拟商品！）。如果你是一家"下一个 Zynga"的创始人，某天跑数据发现 80% 的收入来自 2% 的用户——这些人因为离不开你的服务，连用户聚会都参加不了——你会怎么办？
patio11查看英文原文
I worry about the acceleration of addiction in particular subgroups of the population. WoW (or Farmville), for example, is not crystal meth... but that flippant observation is a response to a core truth that some people just have a lot of trouble saying no. Maybe they're poorly educated, maybe they're genetically predisposed to addiction, maybe they're clinically depressed, for whatever the reason they've got a weakened psychic immune system. It gets dramatically easier (A/B testing! end to end analytics! using their own friends' pictures as your call to action!) and stupendously more profitable (virtual goods!) over time to pay extraordinarily savvy engineers and marketers to design the Skinner's Box From Hell and extract money from them. And what do you do if you're a startup founder at the next Zynga and discover, running the numbers one day, that 80% of your revenue comes from 2% of the population who cannot attend the user meetups because they can't bear to be separated from your service for that long?
质疑文章核心前提：成瘾性本身不等于坏，作者并未论证新成瘾为何有害。
让我唱个反调。为什么这种"新"成瘾是错的？说它"坏"到底指什么？PG 费尽心思把自己和冰毒之类的真成瘾拉开距离，却始终没明确解释新的"成瘾"为何有害，只是含糊地把它和酒精挂钩。我不认为一件事"容易上瘾"本身就足以判定它坏——我对空气的依赖远甚于瘾君子对毒品的依赖，可我不觉得空气成瘾是种残疾。也许他对、它确实坏，但这是一个需要讨论和论证的基本假设，不能整个吞下。它在道德上坏吗？危险吗？生产力损失的说法有科学依据吗、到什么程度？和酒精的类比成立多少？它改变情绪吗？显著影响决策吗？这些重要问题都被跳过了。我的看法是，我们只是比 50 或 100 年前有更多空闲时间，Farmville 来填补空白而已。能把它引向有产出的事吗？也许，但人也会倦怠。
drewcrawford查看英文原文
Let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Why is this "new" addiction wrong? What does it mean to say it is bad? pg is taking great pains to distance himself from real addiction, like crystal meth. Yet he never explicitly explains anywhere why the new "addiction" is actually bad, other than trying to loosely associate it with alcohol. I don't think that the "addictiveness" of a thing alone is enough to call it bad. I'm way more addicted to air than a meth addict is addicted to his fix, and I don't consider air addiction a disability. Now perhaps he's right and it really is bad--but I think this is a fundamental assumption that needs to be discussed and argued, not swallowed whole. * Is it morally bad? * Is it dangerous? * Can the claims of loss of productivity be scientifically substantiated? To what extent? * To what extent is the comparison to alcohol valid? Is it mood-altering? Does it significantly affect decisionmaking? I think these are important questions that we have somehow skipped in this discussion. My personal take is that we simply have a lot more free time now than we did 50 or 100 years ago, where we needed to spend more time feeding and clothing ourselves, and so Farmville arises to fill the empty space. Could this be redirected into something productive? Maybe? But people also burn out and have inefficiencies, so I'm not sure you could extract much more productivity unless we returned to hand-to-mouth.
以"参与度"为核心的产品设计等于给认知摄入配成瘾配方，从业者有伦理责任。
如今相当一部分设计/产品工作都围绕"参与度"展开，这种趋势的不可避免性不容低估。想象一下，如果药物、食物都是围绕参与度来设计的——我们已经有词形容它了，就是成瘾。我不理解为什么我们防备身体摄入的成瘾，却对认知摄入不表现出同等担忧，明明心智不比身体次要。我知道实际解法是做个更自觉的用户，但我觉得我们这行负有道德责任。
krrishd查看英文原文
Given that a significant chunk of design/product nowadays is centered around 'engagement', the inevitability of this can't be understated. Imagine if our medication, food, etc were designed around engagement. We already have a term for that, and it's addiction. I don't understand why we guard our physical intake from 'addiction', but don't show anywhere as much concern re: our cognitive intake despite our mind not mattering any less than our body. I know the practical solution here is being a more conscientious user, but I feel like there's ethical culpability on our profession.
网络成瘾无形且难与正常使用区分，难以形成像对糖或烟那样的社会规避规范。
对糖，我们已经进入认识其危害的阶段，子孙后代无疑会形成不滥用的社会规范。但互联网难得多：我认为"回避"的习惯不可能在没有普遍危险意识的情况下形成。而 Paul 提到的其他物质的危险都是身体上的——得绝症，或明显不健康。网络成瘾却是无形的，它伪装成这个人只是比同龄人慢一点、懒一点。而且对还没成瘾的人来说，不买一包烟轻而易举。可区分成瘾性网络和普通网络很难，避开前者、同时继续用后者更难。这里的社会避害规范能长成什么样子？
euyyn查看英文原文
For sugar, we've started the phase of awareness of its harmfulness, and no doubt our children or grandchildren will have social norms not to abuse it. But for the internet it's much more difficult: I don't think the habit of avoidance can be born without first general awareness of its danger. And the danger in all other substances Paul mentions is a physical one: you get terminally ill, or visibly unhealthy. But internet addiction is invisible; it masks itself as the person being just slower than their peers, or lazier. Moreover, not buying a pack of cigarettes is trivially easy for someone that's not addicted yet. As is not getting drunk every day. But distinguishing the addictive internet from the non-addictive is hard, and avoiding the former while still using the latter is even harder. What shape can a social habit of avoidance take here?
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