Dealers Of The Dopamine "Knowledge".

Dopamine: is an organic chemical of the catecholamine and phenethylamine families that plays several important roles in the brain and body. In popular culture and media dopamine is often seen as the main chemical of pleasure, but the current opinion in pharmacology is that dopamine instead mediates incentive salience which signals the value of a given reward to the organism and motivating action required for attainment. In other words, dopamine appears to mediate desire and motivation more so than pleasure.

Viktor Marahovsky today published a short but an extremely important piece with the title of Dealers of the Dopamine Knowledge. It is in Russian but I strongly suggest English speakers to use GoogleTranslate to read this piece. It will, inevitably, lose the elegance of Marahovsky's writing but will do the decent enough job in conveying a very important thought, which is in parallel to a lot of what I wrote in my book, which, it seems, should see the light of the day much earlier than September 1^st.

I will translate here one small excerpt:

В основе работы массы ресурсов, кормящихся на потребителе «умной информации» – лежит тот же самый принцип «дофаминовой петли», что и в основе работы соцсетей. Обычный человеческий неинтеллектуальный потребитель, подсев на них, теребит свой смартфон в предвкушении просмотров и лайков (ибо дофамин — это не «гормон удовольствия», а скорее «гормон предвкушения»). Потребитель же интеллектуальный подсажен на предвкушение Знания, Дающего Преимущество. Эта жертва бессознательно уверена, что, потребляя бодрые поп-изложения последних открытий-достижений-технологий, она заносится в разряд элитных жителей планеты, превосходящих пресловутые 95%. …Фактически индустрия Актуальных Знаний делает своих потребителей более уязвимыми перед манипуляциями, чем пресловутое «серое большинство». Поскольку последнее по меньшей мере представляет себе круг своей действительной осведомлённости. И не имеет накатанного психологического механизма, позволяющего ему верить в свою способность разом разобраться в вопросе любой сложности.

Translation: In the foundation of the operations of a mass of (internet) resources which feed themselves on a "smart information"—is the same principle of a "Dopamine Noose", as it is in the foundation of the social networks. Average, non-intellectual consumer who gets hooked on them (social networks), nudges his smartphone in anticipation of views and likes (since Dopamin—is not a hormone of a pleasure but of anticipation of a pleasure). An intellectual consumer, however, is hooked on the anticipation of a Knowledge Which Gives an Advantage. This victim is subconsciously convinced that by consuming cheerful pop-narratives about latest discoveries and achievements of technology he (or she) is joining elite inhabitants of the planet, who are superior to other proverbial 95% of population. …In actuality, the industry of Actual Knowledge makes its own consumers much more vulnerable to manipulations than it is the case with the "grey majority". The latter, at least, has a good idea of the range of own actual awareness. It also doesn't have well-established psychological mechanism which allows this majority to believe in own ability to instantly figure out the issue of any complexity. 

BINGO! The new brave world of militant incompetency of (self)chosen is upon us! Does it ring the bell? Hey, how about a lawyer advising on Operational Planning, how about a sociology major discussing advantages of Combat Information Control Systems? How about professional movie-critics working on military doctrines. How about an insurance agent late Tom Clancy…  Well, you know what I am talking about, right?