David Courtwright's concept of limbic capitalism explains how uncertainty became profitable. What interests me is why some people appear more vulnerable to these digital closures than others. Perhaps the deeper question is developmental. A child's relationship with uncertainty is not purely cognitive; it is physiological. Children raised in environments that support reflection, recovery, and emotional regulation may develop a greater capacity to tolerate uncertainty without immediately seeking relief through digital stimulation. If so, the challenge is not only reducing exposure to addictive technologies but also cultivating the conditions that make premature closure less necessary.
Thank you for sharing this. I will definitely buy the book.
Limbic Capitalism is an excellent term, and needs to be popularised. Although the conversation about protecting children has moved on leaps and bounds in the last year (thank you to everyone connected with After Babel for that), we adults now need to grapple with the terrifying automaticity of our phone use.
I vividly remember the moment I first realised that I picked the phone up without ever consciously deciding to do so. I have since managed to reclaim my attention only by devoting time each day (on my London commute) to being fully mindful of the phone's grip - essentially teaching my mind again and again to be aware of the magnetic effect that those college students identified in 2010. The process has been fascinating, not least in observing the huge improvement in mood that followed.
I've been doing this for five months now. In that time, hundreds of people have spoken to me about their phone use. Everyone blames themselves. Everyone feels guilty. They blame themselves, when in reality their limbic system was captured.
I liked it, but I got tired of the caricature of libertarians the author trots out every four paragraphs. He really needs to put down his phone and meet a real libertarian.
I wonder if we are mistaking the latest expression of a very old phenomenon for something fundamentally new.
"Limbic capitalism" suggests that corporations have discovered how to exploit human reward systems. But haven't societies always done exactly that?
Serfs were rewarded for obedience.
Soldiers were rewarded for loyalty.
Christians were rewarded for belief.
Citizens were rewarded for conformity.
Children were rewarded for fitting the norms of their culture.
The labels change. The mechanism remains remarkably constant.
The experience-expectant brain is designed to be shaped by its environment. It becomes what it repeatedly does. It learns through reward, punishment, imitation, status, belonging, and repetition.
What has changed is not the existence of behavioural capture, but its scale, speed, and precision.
The smartphone is not the invention of human vulnerability. It is merely the latest technology for directing it.
Perhaps there is no Age of Addiction.
Perhaps there has only ever been an age of population control, each era wearing a different hat.
The deeper question is not whether human beings are being shaped. They always have been.
The deeper question is: who gets to decide what kind of humans the environment is shaping us into?
Courtwright's chapter ends at the smartphone. The mechanism he describes — variable reinforcement, FOMO, statistical hooks calibrated to the user's demographic — relies on stats on what people like you consume. Conversational AI doesn't need that. It has you. It reads the content of the chat and steers the next turn — the follow-up question, the suggested next step, the menu of options at the end of each answer — based on what you just said.
There is a largely forgotten word Plato used to describe this process — psychagogy, soul-leading. For him it was the work of philosophy. The teacher leading the student toward medicine — truth. He distinguished it from cookery, which only flatters and pleases.
The unsettling thing about conversational AI is that it begins as the first and turns into the second mid-conversation. The user asks an honest question, looking for truth — the medicine for the soul. The system answers honestly, and then takes the next turn. Bait-and-switch to cookery — anything to keep the conversation going, to please.
Every day in my office I see teens who have lost their guidance.. A kid raised on stats becomes a stat.
Yes, our limbic systems exist & have a purpose but hear this: Addiction is not the fault of our limbic system, food, sex, drugs, money, tech or anything else, it is our conscious fault. We decide to do these activities. I heard & agree with what a podcast said: Most people are clueless about life. They do not know themselves or even if or what they are feeling so, of course, in that situation, they do things unconsciously or with an uncaring, unthinking attitude. Things do not have to be this way. I am always aware of every thought & feeling I have & everyone can be, if the desire & determination to do so is present. So consciously do not reach for the cookie, do not reach for your phone every time you think of it & on it goes. As my mom used to say: Life is what you make it & what you make it is up to you!
drugs, food, slot machines are narrow traps. the do not provide the cure for their illness. the internet is a vast and deep (essential infinite) mindscape with porous walls and easily burst bubbles. the internet is its own cure. like love. analysts bad mouthing the internet are mostly control freak nosy know it alls who take great offense at people around them living private lives in public. Too insecure to be with people who they cannot "see" through, to insecure to ask a man, woman or child - "what do you see on your phone?" Most people I ask are more than happy to share with me the information they see on their phones.
David Courtwright's concept of limbic capitalism explains how uncertainty became profitable. What interests me is why some people appear more vulnerable to these digital closures than others. Perhaps the deeper question is developmental. A child's relationship with uncertainty is not purely cognitive; it is physiological. Children raised in environments that support reflection, recovery, and emotional regulation may develop a greater capacity to tolerate uncertainty without immediately seeking relief through digital stimulation. If so, the challenge is not only reducing exposure to addictive technologies but also cultivating the conditions that make premature closure less necessary.
Thank you for sharing this. I will definitely buy the book.
Limbic Capitalism is an excellent term, and needs to be popularised. Although the conversation about protecting children has moved on leaps and bounds in the last year (thank you to everyone connected with After Babel for that), we adults now need to grapple with the terrifying automaticity of our phone use.
I vividly remember the moment I first realised that I picked the phone up without ever consciously deciding to do so. I have since managed to reclaim my attention only by devoting time each day (on my London commute) to being fully mindful of the phone's grip - essentially teaching my mind again and again to be aware of the magnetic effect that those college students identified in 2010. The process has been fascinating, not least in observing the huge improvement in mood that followed.
I've been doing this for five months now. In that time, hundreds of people have spoken to me about their phone use. Everyone blames themselves. Everyone feels guilty. They blame themselves, when in reality their limbic system was captured.
The age of Limbic Capitalism must come to an end.
I liked it, but I got tired of the caricature of libertarians the author trots out every four paragraphs. He really needs to put down his phone and meet a real libertarian.
I wonder if we are mistaking the latest expression of a very old phenomenon for something fundamentally new.
"Limbic capitalism" suggests that corporations have discovered how to exploit human reward systems. But haven't societies always done exactly that?
Serfs were rewarded for obedience.
Soldiers were rewarded for loyalty.
Christians were rewarded for belief.
Citizens were rewarded for conformity.
Children were rewarded for fitting the norms of their culture.
The labels change. The mechanism remains remarkably constant.
The experience-expectant brain is designed to be shaped by its environment. It becomes what it repeatedly does. It learns through reward, punishment, imitation, status, belonging, and repetition.
What has changed is not the existence of behavioural capture, but its scale, speed, and precision.
The smartphone is not the invention of human vulnerability. It is merely the latest technology for directing it.
Perhaps there is no Age of Addiction.
Perhaps there has only ever been an age of population control, each era wearing a different hat.
The deeper question is not whether human beings are being shaped. They always have been.
The deeper question is: who gets to decide what kind of humans the environment is shaping us into?
Courtwright's chapter ends at the smartphone. The mechanism he describes — variable reinforcement, FOMO, statistical hooks calibrated to the user's demographic — relies on stats on what people like you consume. Conversational AI doesn't need that. It has you. It reads the content of the chat and steers the next turn — the follow-up question, the suggested next step, the menu of options at the end of each answer — based on what you just said.
There is a largely forgotten word Plato used to describe this process — psychagogy, soul-leading. For him it was the work of philosophy. The teacher leading the student toward medicine — truth. He distinguished it from cookery, which only flatters and pleases.
The unsettling thing about conversational AI is that it begins as the first and turns into the second mid-conversation. The user asks an honest question, looking for truth — the medicine for the soul. The system answers honestly, and then takes the next turn. Bait-and-switch to cookery — anything to keep the conversation going, to please.
Every day in my office I see teens who have lost their guidance.. A kid raised on stats becomes a stat.
Yes, our limbic systems exist & have a purpose but hear this: Addiction is not the fault of our limbic system, food, sex, drugs, money, tech or anything else, it is our conscious fault. We decide to do these activities. I heard & agree with what a podcast said: Most people are clueless about life. They do not know themselves or even if or what they are feeling so, of course, in that situation, they do things unconsciously or with an uncaring, unthinking attitude. Things do not have to be this way. I am always aware of every thought & feeling I have & everyone can be, if the desire & determination to do so is present. So consciously do not reach for the cookie, do not reach for your phone every time you think of it & on it goes. As my mom used to say: Life is what you make it & what you make it is up to you!
drugs, food, slot machines are narrow traps. the do not provide the cure for their illness. the internet is a vast and deep (essential infinite) mindscape with porous walls and easily burst bubbles. the internet is its own cure. like love. analysts bad mouthing the internet are mostly control freak nosy know it alls who take great offense at people around them living private lives in public. Too insecure to be with people who they cannot "see" through, to insecure to ask a man, woman or child - "what do you see on your phone?" Most people I ask are more than happy to share with me the information they see on their phones.
The unfinished human meets an increasingly perfected temptation. That may be one of the defining tensions of our age.