I love how you use Frankfurt’s distinction between what we want and what we want to want to cut through the lazy “just quit social media” narratives. The insight about modern tech sustaining anticipation, not satisfaction, is sharp — it surfaces the cognitive tax we don’t talk about nearly enough.
Your argument that autonomy isn’t simply strength of will but a matter of structuring environment so good choice becomes the easy choice really resonates. It brings together philosophy, psychology and technology in a clean way.
One thing I’d add: this crisis of desire isn’t just personal—it’s institutional. We build systems that assume choice is free, but then engineer them for retention, scalability and profit. The result is a mismatch between the second-order self (the person I want to be) and the first-order appetite (the click, the scroll).
Looking forward to hearing where you take this next—especially how we might redesign the architecture of habit, not just treat the symptom. Well done bro!
OOO snap. I was scared when I read the title because I thought this would be similar to the "Harry Frankfurt meets algorithmic autonomy" essay that I pitched to Cosmos a few months back. Thankfully, it is not — and it's still a great essay, with plenty more one could say. This is the gist of what I pitched, in case you know of anyone else who has explored these ideas, or you have recommended reading.
Because algo-driven recommendation systems are behavioral, they are blind to desires that don't show up in our behavior. So they're blind to 2nd order desires (insofar as those dont' show up in our behavior). And if you agree that 2nd order desires are very closely related to our aspirational identities, then it really is FALSE that social media companies "know you better than you know yourself" as they sometimes claim.
There are a few tech/design solutions to this problem. First, most algo-driven rec systems have feedback mechanisms like "see more/see less" or "don't recommend content like this." Those help on the margin for, e.g. cases where the recovering alcoholic keeps getting recommended party-related content b/c they can't help but dwell on it, even though they'd rather not. They can tell the algo, "hey, yeah, no, enough of that bud."
But the more radical innovation would be if we could tell the algo up front (and throughout), "Hey, here's who I am, here's what i'm interested in, here's what I want to see." Even if those interests would have never shown up in your behavior (and so have never been inferred by the algo). With LLMs, we're tantalizingly close to that as a technological possibility. If we could unlock that possibility, it would enable recommendation systems to understand our aspirational identities, not just who we happen to be when our guard is down and we're lazily scrolling.
This is thought provoking with some good points. I'm glad to see a more accurate recounting of dopamine and reward prediction. However, the Frankfurt material is not right, so I find the definitional basis here shakey (there is no "Frankfurt framework" for addiction). In his classic papers, he was not arguing that conflict between 1st and 2nd order desires was constitutive of addiction. He was using addiction as an illustration, not developing a theory or even a definition of addiction. There are better and more complete accounts of addiction using will-related concepts. Nick Heather (and others) on akrasia and addiction would be helpful I think.
Ultimately there is a lot of definitional confusion about addiction. I do think it's important to bring in values, identification, and other morally relevant concepts to these discussions. Too often, biologically reductionist accounts make lazy recourse to some cartoonish notion of "compulsion" as if there are no degrees of control. So I think it's very good to raise the question of what counts as freedom.
Thanks for outlining this! You're right that Frankfurt wasn't offering a full theory of addiction. We’ve tweaked the article to make clear that Frankfurt used addiction as an example of first-order vs second-order desire conflict, and that the piece builds on this (vs applying a definition from Frankfurt, or a sole lens on addiction).
We’ll definitely check out Nick Heather on akrasia and addiction. And agree that cleanly defining addiction is a tricky and multi-faceted issue.
Very grateful for your engagement, and pushback on the Frankfurt over-attribution.
Oh, glad to see this. That's refreshing to see the careful tweaking of the article. It jumped out at me in part because I enjoy the publication (and recognize Law's byline) and think you folks do good work. I'm biased, but I think addiction is one of the most complex and fascinating topics around!
Started my teaching year with "are you addicted to your phone" because students had a no-phone policy, Then we looked at @joewoof and Society Inside's work on addictive design and addition economy structures. Nice to add the Frankfurt lens into that activity...might save and use in Sept 2026, since no-phone policies will be infrastructure, not adjustment.
Addictions come with withdrawal syndromes, and social media addiction is one such: "I'd been making loud noises about getting off of facebook since 2017 or so, finally, after two years of censorship and removed posts about first a very suspicious epidemic fuelled by social media-propagated hysteria - and then for “vaccines” which at the time, to me and others, it was obvious that they could not work to stop infection or prevent spread, along with creating often lethal “side effects”- and about six months after beginning my active use of Substack and reposting links back to my facebook page, to evade the censorship - I got booted off on February 1, 2022. The next two weeks were hell, I was cut off from nearly all family and friends. The same day I considered suicide I had a "What the Fuck?" moment - I've got this weird theory about suicide, it's that it doesn't work. Yeah, you end this lifeline, but you repeat it, over and over, like "Groundhog Day", until you finally work out the problem that you chose to present yourself with - or That Which Is chose to present you with - before you were born into this timeline. There is no way out but *through*...
So I actually met my nextdoor neighbors in person, when my neighbor across the street's wife died, I went over personally to express my condolences and offer of help if he should need it - none of this fake-ass "virtual community" shit. True, the internet can be used to create actual relationships as a starting point - especially with people far away, in places like Kyiv and Odessa, Ukraine and other faraway places - so it can be useful in that way, like the “pen pals” of older times, but not generally.
With our modern dystopia, non-social media personal contact is extremely difficult - but the "connections" you make through censored and mediated social media are evanescent, it's like they don't really exist. I still have no contact with family who are firmly stuck in the closed, walled-off dystopia of social media like facebook, truthsocial, twitter, and the rest. I get enticing emails from facebook and the rest every couple of days - "see what xxxx is saying about you" - but I haven't tried to get back for over three years now, the depression and the disharmony caused by anti-social social media - the Outrage Machine, as I called it back then - are simply too harmful for me to want to go back." https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/no-way-out-but-through
I love how you use Frankfurt’s distinction between what we want and what we want to want to cut through the lazy “just quit social media” narratives. The insight about modern tech sustaining anticipation, not satisfaction, is sharp — it surfaces the cognitive tax we don’t talk about nearly enough.
Your argument that autonomy isn’t simply strength of will but a matter of structuring environment so good choice becomes the easy choice really resonates. It brings together philosophy, psychology and technology in a clean way.
One thing I’d add: this crisis of desire isn’t just personal—it’s institutional. We build systems that assume choice is free, but then engineer them for retention, scalability and profit. The result is a mismatch between the second-order self (the person I want to be) and the first-order appetite (the click, the scroll).
Looking forward to hearing where you take this next—especially how we might redesign the architecture of habit, not just treat the symptom. Well done bro!
OOO snap. I was scared when I read the title because I thought this would be similar to the "Harry Frankfurt meets algorithmic autonomy" essay that I pitched to Cosmos a few months back. Thankfully, it is not — and it's still a great essay, with plenty more one could say. This is the gist of what I pitched, in case you know of anyone else who has explored these ideas, or you have recommended reading.
Because algo-driven recommendation systems are behavioral, they are blind to desires that don't show up in our behavior. So they're blind to 2nd order desires (insofar as those dont' show up in our behavior). And if you agree that 2nd order desires are very closely related to our aspirational identities, then it really is FALSE that social media companies "know you better than you know yourself" as they sometimes claim.
There are a few tech/design solutions to this problem. First, most algo-driven rec systems have feedback mechanisms like "see more/see less" or "don't recommend content like this." Those help on the margin for, e.g. cases where the recovering alcoholic keeps getting recommended party-related content b/c they can't help but dwell on it, even though they'd rather not. They can tell the algo, "hey, yeah, no, enough of that bud."
But the more radical innovation would be if we could tell the algo up front (and throughout), "Hey, here's who I am, here's what i'm interested in, here's what I want to see." Even if those interests would have never shown up in your behavior (and so have never been inferred by the algo). With LLMs, we're tantalizingly close to that as a technological possibility. If we could unlock that possibility, it would enable recommendation systems to understand our aspirational identities, not just who we happen to be when our guard is down and we're lazily scrolling.
This is thought provoking with some good points. I'm glad to see a more accurate recounting of dopamine and reward prediction. However, the Frankfurt material is not right, so I find the definitional basis here shakey (there is no "Frankfurt framework" for addiction). In his classic papers, he was not arguing that conflict between 1st and 2nd order desires was constitutive of addiction. He was using addiction as an illustration, not developing a theory or even a definition of addiction. There are better and more complete accounts of addiction using will-related concepts. Nick Heather (and others) on akrasia and addiction would be helpful I think.
Ultimately there is a lot of definitional confusion about addiction. I do think it's important to bring in values, identification, and other morally relevant concepts to these discussions. Too often, biologically reductionist accounts make lazy recourse to some cartoonish notion of "compulsion" as if there are no degrees of control. So I think it's very good to raise the question of what counts as freedom.
Hi Carl,
Thanks for outlining this! You're right that Frankfurt wasn't offering a full theory of addiction. We’ve tweaked the article to make clear that Frankfurt used addiction as an example of first-order vs second-order desire conflict, and that the piece builds on this (vs applying a definition from Frankfurt, or a sole lens on addiction).
We’ll definitely check out Nick Heather on akrasia and addiction. And agree that cleanly defining addiction is a tricky and multi-faceted issue.
Very grateful for your engagement, and pushback on the Frankfurt over-attribution.
Oh, glad to see this. That's refreshing to see the careful tweaking of the article. It jumped out at me in part because I enjoy the publication (and recognize Law's byline) and think you folks do good work. I'm biased, but I think addiction is one of the most complex and fascinating topics around!
Started my teaching year with "are you addicted to your phone" because students had a no-phone policy, Then we looked at @joewoof and Society Inside's work on addictive design and addition economy structures. Nice to add the Frankfurt lens into that activity...might save and use in Sept 2026, since no-phone policies will be infrastructure, not adjustment.
Addictions come with withdrawal syndromes, and social media addiction is one such: "I'd been making loud noises about getting off of facebook since 2017 or so, finally, after two years of censorship and removed posts about first a very suspicious epidemic fuelled by social media-propagated hysteria - and then for “vaccines” which at the time, to me and others, it was obvious that they could not work to stop infection or prevent spread, along with creating often lethal “side effects”- and about six months after beginning my active use of Substack and reposting links back to my facebook page, to evade the censorship - I got booted off on February 1, 2022. The next two weeks were hell, I was cut off from nearly all family and friends. The same day I considered suicide I had a "What the Fuck?" moment - I've got this weird theory about suicide, it's that it doesn't work. Yeah, you end this lifeline, but you repeat it, over and over, like "Groundhog Day", until you finally work out the problem that you chose to present yourself with - or That Which Is chose to present you with - before you were born into this timeline. There is no way out but *through*...
So I actually met my nextdoor neighbors in person, when my neighbor across the street's wife died, I went over personally to express my condolences and offer of help if he should need it - none of this fake-ass "virtual community" shit. True, the internet can be used to create actual relationships as a starting point - especially with people far away, in places like Kyiv and Odessa, Ukraine and other faraway places - so it can be useful in that way, like the “pen pals” of older times, but not generally.
With our modern dystopia, non-social media personal contact is extremely difficult - but the "connections" you make through censored and mediated social media are evanescent, it's like they don't really exist. I still have no contact with family who are firmly stuck in the closed, walled-off dystopia of social media like facebook, truthsocial, twitter, and the rest. I get enticing emails from facebook and the rest every couple of days - "see what xxxx is saying about you" - but I haven't tried to get back for over three years now, the depression and the disharmony caused by anti-social social media - the Outrage Machine, as I called it back then - are simply too harmful for me to want to go back." https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/no-way-out-but-through