The tech that the sociopaths built is an addictive control machine.

LLMs are not addictive control machines. Social media engagement farming and native advertising/propaganda machines are addictive control machines. We consistently get the marketing functions fudged up with the utility of the thing itself. Like blaming violence on video games or talking about addictive qualities of children's cartoons.

I don’t care whether the person selling the cigarettes to my kid has read Fanon and volunteers at the homeless center

Cigarettes are actually a great example of engineered addiction. Historically, tobacco products had a mild addicting affect resulting from their short-term immediate stimulative benefits combined with the reliance on nicotine. But it wasn't until the boom in marketing of the 1920s followed by the industrial scale experimentation of the formula in the 1940s that the addictive nature of the product surged.

The end result was an enormous increase in per-capita consumption, leaping from 54 cigarettes per person per year in 1900 to 4,345 cigarettes per person per year in 1963.

The quantitative surge in consumption radically changed the health consequences of cigarette use.

You could do similar analysis on everything from alcohol consumption to LSD. From TV to TikTok. At some point you have to draw a line between the utilitarian value of the thing versus the mass market distribution and profit-driven consumption behaviors. Otherwise, you just end up with 1920s Prohibition and a thriving black market that undercuts the policies you intended.

And then you get Joe Kennedy. Is that what you want for your country? More Kennedys?