The Age of Addiction

How Bad Habits Became Big Business

De: David T. Courtwright

Narrado por: Qarie Marshall

We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are hooking our kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously and deliberately rewire our brains? Nothing, David Courtwright says, unless we understand the history and character of the global enterprises that create and cater to our bad habits.

The Age of Addiction chronicles the triumph of “limbic capitalism”, the growing network of competitive businesses targeting the brain pathways responsible for feeling, motivation, and long-term memory. We see its success in Steve Wynn’s groundbreaking casinos and Purdue Pharma’s pain pills, in McDonald’s engineered burgers and Tencent video games from China. All capitalize on the ancient quest to discover, cultivate, and refine new and habituating pleasures.

Courtwright holds out hope that limbic capitalism can be contained by organized opposition from across the political spectrum. Progressives, nationalists, and traditionalists have worked together against the purveyors of addiction before. They could do it again.

©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC

The ubiquity of addiction & how corporations are engineering for it in all their products

I liked the narrator and appreciated the lack of jargon…I disliked the lack of effective responses to addictions

Good overview of historical causes of addiction.

A good overview of the causes and contibuation of addition and the economics of addiction promotion.

Phenomenal

The story is a little rushed, but what Courtwright has to say is one of the most important stories we can talk about regarding human nature, capitalism and current global challenges. Knowing this information means being a much better prepared person in the 21st century, whatever your goals and duties.

Boring narration

This is why most books should be read by their writers because they are passionate about the subject. The guy reading this book is as bore as I am listening to it. The writer made the subject sound interesting in an interview so I was interested, but he’s not doing the reading here.