Limbic Capitalism

 Four years ago (five?) David Courtwright introduced the idea of limbic capitalism, which is to say the use of addictive tendencies in the brain's limbic region to sell shit. 

Paul Krugman notes today that this is better understood now, especially with regards to children and social media. There is usually a lag between our understanding a thing is bad and our political efforts to limit exposure to that vice. In some case, Krugman mentions alcohol, we fail to truly limit that vice, but we have more success with children. We can resist paternalism broadly, while accepting that it has a place with the young. The overwhelming evidence of harm being done by social media on children - especially girls - is a call to action.

The problem with the patrimonial kakistocracy that we are entering was made clear with the Kid Online Safety Act, which passed the Senate 91-3. It was killed in the House under an avalanche of Facebook money. Basically, we have a situation where a few companies enrich themselves by getting children addicted to social media, and they will bribe the relevant figures of Trumpistan to get what they want.

That's a great example of how patrimonial corruption degrades our lives. Online gambling is another. It's a vice that immiserates those who can least afford to squander their money on prop bets in the Jaguars-Titans game. At the very least, advertising for online gambling could and should be banned. We did it with cigarettes decades before we managed to truly corral the evil of tobacco. 

It is precisely because there is an obvious solution to an obvious problem - social media is bad for kids; gambling is an addiction - that we might expect our elected officials to act. That's the 91-3 vote. It is precisely this sort of obvious reform that will die at the hands of the patrimonial kakistocracy.