I prefer the term "skinner box".

Yes, many pleasurable experiences deliver dopamine—it's a perfectly fine brain function. What's problematic are products that take advantage of this very specific bug in our psychology to trick us into performing a repetitive action for no long-term fulfillment.

how do you measure long-term fulfillment, dopamine?

So your problem is things that trick us into short term dopamine hits, and you want more things that trick us into long term dopamine hits.

I suppose i understand.

> how do you measure long-term fulfillment?

"I'll know it when I see it."

I realize that's a bit of a cop-out answer, but I also believe it's the correct one. It really isn't that difficult to figure out whether your product is exploitive.

What goals are you optimizing for? If the answer is: "I want people to spend as much time looking at my product as possible," that's going to lead you to bad places. If, however, you explicitly want to help people do X as efficiently as possible, as be done with it, you're probably on the right track.

If you're making an entertainment product, the calculous is a bit different, but still similar. Are you telling a compelling story that will teach us something about the world, or exercise our minds in new ways?

You can't start with a subjective assessment and then act like its objective and applies to others.

also, I'll know it when i see it is the same as saying I'll know it when i get a hit of dopamine -which was my substituted answer.

Edit; can't respond so will here..

>experiencing stories, learning new skills..doesn't take advantage of this very specific slot machine bug

But it does, it just does it in a way you approve of, which i think is fine, except when you think others should value what you value..

It absolutely is subjective. Two people may reasonably come to different conclusions on whether a given product is exploitive, particularly along the edges. Such is life. That doesn't make the analysis useless.

Dopamine is fine, it just isn't enough by itself. Playing a slot machine for days on end feels crappy in hindsight, even for the addicts who can't stop themselves from continuing to play. I'm concerned about how much of modern life is effectively becoming a normalized slot machine.

If you want to call experiencing stories, learning new skills, and forging new connections "long term dopamine", fine, maybe that's what it is. However, it doesn't take advantage of this very specific slot machine bug in our minds in order to become compulsive.

Just be careful to draw the distinction between a dopamine hit as a reward for genuine effort and one delivered deliberately to reinforce an action...

Actually all reward systems work the same. There is no distinction between reward that is deemed good and bad for society.

I don't think parent is saying the mechanism is different, just that we need to distinguish the effects.

Pokies/slot machines?

so, a headsoup approved dopamine rewards system? Which is of course different from all other types, 'because'.

Writing. Drawing. Painting. Sculpting. In general, the delay between the effort necessary to make the art and any sort of attentional award is decoupling.

So, in these things listed, the difference is that they are 'attention sucking, [delayed] dopamine delivery systems' for you (certainly not for everyone). i suppose that is very very slightly different;

But have you considered that you may have failed the first criteria, something that you like? People who actually like these things tend to get a dopamine hit by doing them rather than just by finishing them...