But diets as a form of categorical self-binding are threatened when the category changes over time as a result of market forces.

Economist Mark Aguiar and his colleagues wrote in an article aptly titled “Leisure Luxuries and the Labor Supply of Young Men,” “Younger men, ages 21 to 30, exhibited a larger decline in work hours over the last fifteen years than older men or women. Since 2004, time-use data show that younger men distinctly shifted their leisure to video gaming

This is not to say that high-dopamine substances literally contain dopamine. Rather, they trigger the release of dopamine in our brain’s reward pathway.

neuroscientists have determined that pleasure and pain are processed in overlapping brain regions and work via an opponent-process mechanism.

pursuing pain is harder than pursuing pleasure. It goes against our innate reflex to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. It adds to our cognitive load: We have to remember that we will feel pleasure after pain, and we’re remarkably amnestic about this sort of thing. I know I have to relearn the lessons of pain every morning as I force myself to get out

Neuroscientist Nora Volkow and colleagues have shown that heavy, prolonged consumption of high-dopamine substances eventually leads to a dopamine deficit state.

With intermittent exposure to pain, our natural hedonic set point gets weighted to the side of pleasure, such that we become less vulnerable to pain and more able to feel pleasure over time.

One of the biggest risk factors for getting addicted to any drug is easy access to that drug. When it’s easier to get a drug, we’re more likely to try it. In trying it, we’re more likely to get addicted to it.

Club goods are threatened by free riders who attempt to benefit from the group without sufficient participation in that community, similar to the more colloquial terms freeloaders or moochers.