The whole point of consumer culture is to incentivize people to buy things or frequent social media sites for the purpose of surrendering personal data. There is no sacred boundary separating consumption from addiction. The more consumption the better. This is the ultimate goal of profit-maximizing corporations. Consumerism has expanded in the social media era to making people into screen addicts whose web travels boost the profits of tech czars to stratospheric levels. Algorithms are designed to make you a screen addict, not a well educated citizen.
Pathological liar Trump was a godsend to social media, enticing friends and foes to stay online. Only upon the 1/6/21 Capitol insurrection did his falsehoods require punitive banishment. The larger truth governing social media is feeding the masses, the various tribes with which people identify themselves. To feed people what they crave, to trigger them into tribal quarrels, is the pathway to Big Tech profit maximization. Zuckerberg met with with Trump. Nuff said. Trump was his premiere cash cow.
Amidst the current outrage at the billionaire Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, who targeted Americans with OxyContin– reportedly a conspiracy to create unwitting opioid addicts who as victims of despicable marketing or fraud have killed themselves by the tens of thousands year after year. The cost of doing business for Big Pharma vultures is the “collateral damage” of O.D. deaths. As with many meds legal or illegal, the line between legitimate use and abuse is blurry. The Sacklers are rich criminals, but at the same time, the dangers of addiction to pain pills have been well known for decades. The opioid debacle is the fault of many people, not just the Sacklers. People’s love for pills anaesthetized them to their potential dangers. The desire for pain pills exceeds the desire to face their dangers. Otherwise, no opioid epidemic would emerge or last so many years.
Raw unadulterated capitalism is based on the primordial dialectic of supply and demand. People in pain want relief. The Sackler family understood Americans’ proclivities to pop pain pills to promote their profit margins. The Purdue shareholders made a killing by means of the indiscriminate use of OxyContin.
The morality infotainment narrative highlights the immorality of Purdue Pharma. The larger issue absent from mainstream media is the consumer-addiction ethos permeating current society. Addiction to junk food, buying clothes, new tech devices, or anything else is successful consumerism. Addictions boost profits.
The law of supply and demand necessitates both legal and illegal suppliers of mind altering substances. The culture of addiction is just a tiny step beyond ethical consumption. How do we protect people from pursuing happiness in pill-form? The only practical antidote to slow suicide by opioids is education and therapy. Legislation against Purdue Pharma is no match for the colossal craving of opioid bliss. The underlying premise of legal pill pushers is the helpless consumer who is unable to assess his or her own personal safety. The capitalist ethos of pleasing consumers for profit created our current culture of opioid addicts and screen addicts. Does the individual addicted to pain pills or his Iphone consider his or her participation in this scheme? Will lamenting the profiteers cure us or will assuming responsibility as a consumer save us? Who has our best interests at heart?