How many people have a preexisting tendency towards overuse of these substances that is kept in check by the need to get up on time for work and be reasonably productive and presentable at work?
This implies that rich people who don’t (or don’t need to) work for their living will spend much more time on drugs, alcohol and porn, because they can afford to. Is that the case?
Probably some of them do (at least in the popular imagination); I do not know if this can be checked.
Maybe it is possible estimate drug consumption in a geographical area by enviromental data, for example the amount of cocaine retrieved in the water, and attempt to infer a correlation with income. But I do not know if there is sufficient data available.
Depression and alcoholism are the opposite of “things you spend more time on, when you’re rich enough not to work”. People who work for a living aren’t kept from alcoholism because they don’t have time to drink, or can’t afford even cheap alcohol. (In fact, sufferers of alcoholism, like other drug addictions, notoriously spend too much time and money on their addictions even when they can’t afford to do so and keep working.)
There’s a kind of spectrum between “I really want to do X but I must spend time working; if I worked less I would X more”, and “I’m going to do X even though it harms my ability to work and is not sustainable, because it’s just that valuable/attractive in the short term.” A very simple model would say the only difference is in the short-term subjective value of X.
But more complex models tend to cash this out as different things: biological vs. psychological causes of addiction; seeking highs, vs. avoiding lows; upstream vs. downstream of conscious behavior.
They are not things you would like to spend more time on, when you’re rich enough not to work.
People who work for a living aren’t kept from alcoholism because they don’t have time to drink, or can’t afford even cheap alcohol.
This is sure; but someone could be kept from alcoholism because he knows he must be sober to live. This comment suggests that some very rich people who lacks this motivation do effectively become drink-addicted.
After thinking this over, this effect may be due to hangovers. I don’t drink myself, so I don’t really know this firsthand, but in stories there’s always someone saying “I shouldn’t drink more tonight, I have work / school tomorrow.”
Or even more prosaically, “I shouldn’t drink more tonight, I need to drive home (and I’m not a rich person who always takes a cab or has a chauffeur)”.
This implies that rich people who don’t (or don’t need to) work for their living will spend much more time on drugs, alcohol and porn, because they can afford to. Is that the case?
Probably some of them do (at least in the popular imagination); I do not know if this can be checked.
Maybe it is possible estimate drug consumption in a geographical area by enviromental data, for example the amount of cocaine retrieved in the water, and attempt to infer a correlation with income. But I do not know if there is sufficient data available.
Surely not everyone would be like Ogodei Khan.
The final paragraph of this comment seems relevant: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-fussell-on-class#comment-1350041
Depression and alcoholism are the opposite of “things you spend more time on, when you’re rich enough not to work”. People who work for a living aren’t kept from alcoholism because they don’t have time to drink, or can’t afford even cheap alcohol. (In fact, sufferers of alcoholism, like other drug addictions, notoriously spend too much time and money on their addictions even when they can’t afford to do so and keep working.)
There’s a kind of spectrum between “I really want to do X but I must spend time working; if I worked less I would X more”, and “I’m going to do X even though it harms my ability to work and is not sustainable, because it’s just that valuable/attractive in the short term.” A very simple model would say the only difference is in the short-term subjective value of X.
But more complex models tend to cash this out as different things: biological vs. psychological causes of addiction; seeking highs, vs. avoiding lows; upstream vs. downstream of conscious behavior.
They are not things you would like to spend more time on, when you’re rich enough not to work.
This is sure; but someone could be kept from alcoholism because he knows he must be sober to live. This comment suggests that some very rich people who lacks this motivation do effectively become drink-addicted.
After thinking this over, this effect may be due to hangovers. I don’t drink myself, so I don’t really know this firsthand, but in stories there’s always someone saying “I shouldn’t drink more tonight, I have work / school tomorrow.”
Or even more prosaically, “I shouldn’t drink more tonight, I need to drive home (and I’m not a rich person who always takes a cab or has a chauffeur)”.