Found in 1 comment on Hacker News
kylemathews · 2010-07-27 · Original thread
The OP seems related to Clay Shirky's argument about "cognitive surpluses" See http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Surplus-Creativity-Generosit...

His argument is roughly that strongly addictive behaviors arise to soak up spare time created by technological advances, e.g. gin halls in the 17th century england as a response to the industrial revolution and TV/Radio/Etc in response to the dramatic drop in hours worked per week in the 20th century.

Hopefully our society will create new ways to use time in productive ways (a challenge especially appropriate to those of us on HN) pulling many, otherwise unsuspecting, away from worthless addictive pursuits.

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