stop using the word 'dopamine' if you don't know biochemistry/pharmacology because i guarantee you don't know how it works
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hopeamine
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everywhere you hear yourself or someone else refer to "dopamine" (e.g. "gotta make good tweets for that sweet sweet dopamine" or whatever), try substituting "hope"
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the top-level tweet here is a good example of what i called "command" in a recent thread. basically pessimistic about this sort of thing. people use "dopamine" for a reason - it refers to real phenomenology they don't have a better word for
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1. “command” - tell people to do the right thing and they’ll do the right thing. this might work on impressionable young people, or people who are desperate, but i am pessimistic about it overall. if commands were enough we’d be done by now
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namely the phenomenology of a "shot of reward" from seeing e.g. numbers go up on social media or in a video game. that's an important phenomenological feature of our time and "dopamine" was the closest word available at hand for it!
but it doesn't necessarily need to have anything to do with neurotransmitters. what people are referring to is the phenomenology which is why i suggested a replacement that is imo faithful to the phenomenology
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I think it’s essential to the phenomenology that the “dopamine” is seen as something both internal and external to the person, which is why we reach for a scientistic vocabulary of molecular entities that are inside us but that we don’t control
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