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Why everything is becoming a game
All the easier to control you
In little over a year, the Chinese shopping app Temu has exploded in popularity thanks to its “play to pay” model: as users browse deals they’re presented with puzzles to solve, roulette wheels to spin, and challenges to complete, which reward them with credit and special offers. Influenced by techno-dystopian writers like Aldous Huxley and Jacques Ellul, Kaczynski believed the Industrial Revolution had turned society into a cold process of production and consumption that was gradually crushing everything humans valued most: freedom, happiness, purpose, meaning, and the ecosystem. This can lead to what the evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleischman calls “counterfeit fitness”: the constant, momentary “wins” that come with playing digital games give us a false sense of progression and accomplishment, a neurochemical high that feels like victory but is not, and which, if it becomes a habit, risks placating our ambitions to pursue true fulfilment.
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