Even the biggest creators/authors are starting to use AI lazily. Wild, nobody is immune to the slopfest.

never squander a good crisis.

99% will read this and keep doomscrolling. *Actually* breaking the cycle requires foolproof systems to keep your dopamine-monkey-mind at bay. Get them in my free newsletter here ↓

99% will read this and keep doomscrolling. *Actually* breaking the cycle requires foolproof systems to keep your dopamine-monkey-mind at bay. Get them in my free newsletter here ↓

Joseph Campbell on the art of destimulation:

People think Europe is big because it contains so many countries. In reality its tiny compared to the rest of the world

99% will read this and keep doomscrolling. *Actually* breaking the cycle requires foolproof systems to keep your dopamine-monkey-mind at bay. Get them in my free newsletter here ↓

The science wasn't clear. The industry systematically lied. Today?. We know social media is designed to be addictive. We feel our attention spans & intellect shrinking. We watch ourselves compulsively scrolling for hours. Yet we keep opening the apps anyway.

• Social media correlates with increased anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders. The most disturbing part for me is this:. We're not just victims. We're willing participants in our own destruction. In the 1950s, people *genuinely* didn't know cigarettes caused cancer.

IMO, Big Tech's legal reckoning is heading down this same inevitable path. The evidence of harm is already overwhelming across all age groups:. • Americans check their phone 144 times per day.• Adults spend 10+ hours daily on screens

This is the exact same pattern from the 1990s when 46 state attorneys general sued Big Tobacco for deceiving the public about health risks. The result?. The infamous 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. $206 billion in payments. Strict marketing restrictions.

Lawsuits are already starting, following an eerily familiar pattern. Seattle Public Schools sued TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat in 2023 for "exploiting the vulnerable brains of youth.". School districts in Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey followed.

Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook's former VP of Growth is even more blunt:. "The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we have created are destroying how society works. You are being programmed.". They deliberately designed platforms to be addictive. They absolutely know it.

Sean Parker, Facebook's 1st president, admitted they designed it to exploit "a vulnerability in human psychology":. "The inventors, creators — it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."

Tobacco executives knew cigarettes were addictive 40 years before admitting it publicly. A 1963 internal memo stated: "We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug.". Tech executives are following this exact script.

Big Tobacco engineered nicotine levels for maximum physical addiction. Big Tech engineers algorithms for maximum psychological engagement. Both industries deliberately exploit brain chemistry. Both prioritize profits over people's wellbeing. The haunting part?.

When U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released his landmark report linking cigarettes to lung cancer. Same urgency, same industry denial. The parallels become genuinely chilling when you map them out:

In 2023, he issued an advisory linking social media to mental health decline. In 2024, he called for tobacco-style warning labels on social platforms. His exact words: "The evidence is clear that social media can have profound risk of harm.". This directly mirrors 1964:

Fix the algorithm or protect engagement. They choose engagement. Bury the research. Keep the addictive features running. The product changes. The playbook stays exactly the same. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy sees it too:

They choose profits. Launch a massive disinformation campaign. Target everyone with sophisticated marketing. Now more recently, its 2018. Facebook execs sit in a boardroom, staring at internal research showing their platforms fuel anxiety and depression. They have two choices: