Excessive prosperity is one phrase for it. Another is kleptocracy, politics have been co-opted by money and those who have it now control 99% of US society.

Those who have no prosperity are often the ones gambling, not the rich. When SS checks come in, our local casino fills with chain smoking seniors pulling levers on the slot with all their retirement security. It’s a sad addiction.

So to avoid the suffering of gambling we need to simply suffer and toil so much in day to day existence that we don't have the capacity to engage with anything else?

I think part of the issue is how connected we all are. At one point you could be a company that did interesting things in a small market and everything was fine because it was hard for competitors to expand globally. Now you cannot stay in business if you are not expanding to large volumes and squeezing the supply chain. Think of companies like United Rentals that bought every small rental company.

The 70's were an economic horror show, Richard Nixon, and a legitimate fear of nuclear war; the 40's were a global war. Weird take.

Well, that kept you folks together atleast, and kept you focused on things that were not betting.

Notice that whenever anything happens in the US, especially on the negative side, the first question that pops up is usually "How will this affect the stock market?".

And "the economy" is so frequently conflated with the stock market.

Eh?

Theres too many moving parts in your very short paragraph, to actual engage with without any substantial engagement being minced into woodchips, I fear.

Theres many things that have happened since the 40s, just to name ONE thing that has resulted in this - we have much better psychological technology than we did ever before. Skinnerian conditioning, reward schedules, their results - we never had that.

MS Excel alone would mean we better ways for the statistically inclined to zero in on more attractive addictions, just through better data analysis.

Just consider how common place and obvious A/B testing is. How do you think humanity will fare on average, against industrial strength siren songs?

In the din of industrial strength siren songs, you may have not noticed the rot that is accumulating in the society. MS Excel exists only because you have some data that you think you should care about and you can't fit in your mind. As an individual, you shouldn't need that much data to handle.

The accumulated social rot is not compensated by Excel sheets or any gadget toys, you call as tech.

> Addictions are a symptom of having an excessive amount of free time, floating money and lack of fear of reprisal from family and society and lack of basic wisdom.

Sure, or any of the other million reasons people get addicted, like despair, or other healthier activities being too expensive. Super weird take.

Explain why there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's.

You don't think they had alcoholics? Why?

What are you talking about, alcoholism is a classic rampant poverty addiction?

The assertion is that

>there were hardly any addicts among peasant communities in rural third world countries back in the 70's or 80's.

Are you sure the assertion is wrong?

How do you know?

"I grew up in a rural setting in the third world," would be a great answer.

From what I saw, there was no "alcohol" as you know it. Most peasant families consumed something called toddy that came from palm trees and date palms. It's a family drink and it's nowhere close to what you call as addiction.

Palm wine addicts have existed since pre history. Or banana beer, or other forms of wine, etc. But distilleries existed virtually everywhere by the 70s.

But even putting that aside, gluttons, drunkards, and gamblers are certainly ancient and well attested, certainly in the western (abrahamic/hellenic) tradition. Perhaps there are some societies without this but it not poverty or want or lack of abundance that provides relief.

don't forget college major... plastics