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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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I'd rather they be playing outside and getting exercise, playing with friends, reading, doing creative stuff. The latter two are lower-friction than they've ever been, though the first two (especially playing with friends) are higher than they used to be, partly because of cultural changes, partly because of modern car-centric suburban development patterns, though I won't get on my soapbox about that right now.

I do think that reducing the friction on the alternatives is good. But I disagree that we should do this first, because the problem of easily accessible and endless over-stimulating video is a really big problem and not that hard of a problem to at least put a serious dent in with a bit of effort, in my opinion. And reducing friction can only get you so far, when the friction for the thing you're competing with is non-existent.

And of course, different people can work on solving different problems.

Though of course, the demand for dopamine rush can quickly shift to something like video games. For that, I'd love to see an age rating for games and TV shows that includes a score for their addictiveness, so parents can make informed choices.