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The magic genie has appeared to grant you your wish. What small thing do you wish for that would have the biggest positive impact on the world? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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[โ€“] 1 point 2 years ago (4 children)

Hmm, is there any positive side to addiction? Most human emotions were at least adaptive once upon a time. I guess some very talented people are said to have an addiction-like focus on their trades.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 2 years ago

    I don't know if any positive effects of how addiction-prone our brains are remains - I can imagine it being good for survival when resources are scarce but we don't live in a world where that's really the case anymore

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Habits can be adaptive, but addictions are more about external drugs hacking the brain. And highly refined and addictive drugs didn't really exist in the ancestral environment. (Alcohol was first refined ~9000 years ago, which isn't enough time to evolve an anti-addiction mechanism.)

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 2 years ago

    That's true. There would have been things like khat they could have chewed on, but khat isn't very addictive. In the new world there was coca leaves, but we haven't been in the new world nearly as long and I'm not sure how addictive they even are without being concentrated.

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