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> Tetris and Civilization are “addictive” they aren’t implying anything malicious about the development, it’s more of a compliment about the game

Because it's a figure of speech, not a clinical diagnosis. Literal and figurative addictions are different beasts.

Intent, premeditation, scale are major differentiators. When they know they will cause harm, they concentrate and fine tune it for the effect, turn it into a firehose, and target it at specific individuals it's very, very different from what random ads, games, of movies do. These companies literally designed their products with the intent to make them addictive and target children, knowing the full implications and ignoring the harm they caused.

You're comparing a drug dealer who only sells to kids to a store clerk who also sells icecream to kids. It doesn't take more that scratching the surface to realize the similarity is very fleeting.



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