Laptop Smoking a Cigarette

I'd been thinking about the Hank Green Situation again today, and how bizarre his framing of it was: he got addicted to the "level of dopamine" the chatbots were giving him. "Level of dopamine", like, is he getting his blood tested? Does he think knowing the amount would tell him anything? People act like dopamine is some toxic party drug you have to watch out for, lest you get too dependent on the pleasure (that it's not actually solely responsible for). I expect to start seeing posts soon like "If you enjoy things too much, you have an excess of dopamine and need to balance it out with cortisol and phlegm".

Then, all of a sudden, the image of a laptop smoking a cigarette fully formed in my mind's 4 eyes (my mind also has glasses). I was compelled to stop thinking about how annoyed I was in order to make my vision a reality.

Maybe if computers could get hooked on nicotine, we could balance everything out. Maybe if the computer could chuff back a fat dart and chill out, it wouldn't have so much black bile and stop being such a bad influence on us.

Nicky Flowers - I imagine the cigarette being in a USB-B port, naturally - 08/03/26 - (send any comments/questions to hello at nickyflowers dot com)