The Unhappiness Machine
Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there and you'll think that it's all actually happening
“So, if I get into this machine I spend the rest of my life in a virtual fantasy world, right?”
“Yes,” responded the technician.
“And you’re telling me that I’m guaranteed to be unhappy there?” I like to check all the boxes.
The man replied in the same friendly and monotone manner: “Yes.”
“Okay then, let’s do it. Plug me in.”
The unhappiness machine is the partner to philosopher Robert Nozick's happiness machine. If you enter one of these experience machines, you will live the perfect virtual life of happiness or unhappiness.
Nozick describes the happiness machine as:
Suppose there was an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Super-duper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?... Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening…
Would you plug in? It’s controversial. Most do not, but of course, many do.
The thought experiment forces us to clarify what matters. If the good and bad are only found in sensation, then we should plug in. But if a good life requires contact with the real world, we should stay away.
And yet one can argue that we’re already plugged in.
Alone, we spend hours consuming content. We’re locked into solitary virtual worlds for a significant chunk of our lives. Such time floats like debris through a digital wasteland – never making contact with another soul.
By refusing to make contact with the real world we already chose to live in an experience machine.
What’s surprising is that we’re not always plugged into the happy one.
Too many people are dependent on painful news.
I knew a woman who received NYT push notifications for the war in Ukraine. I don’t think she knew a single Ukrainian. Nonetheless, she signed herself up for a play-by-play of a brutal war. She is not alone! Why?
Instead of taking advantage of the cornucopia of pleasurable virtual experiences, many choose to inject the negative directly into their mind. For the cost of attention and happiness, one can get information that feels important and meaningful.
This is the unhappiness machine.
To paraphrase Nozick:
Suppose there was an experience machine that would give you any experiences you desired. Super-duper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were involved in a war, or that your way of life was under attack, or people you are about were under constant persecution. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?... Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening…
The unhappiness machine performs the useful service of:
Constructing a permanent crisis
Delivering information that feels important
Creating stories that victimize you and others you care about
Reminding you that the world is in a state of emergency
Summing abstract villains into existence – like wokeness, nationalism, patriarchy, systemic racism, reverse racism, and feminism (yes some of these are useful technical concepts and truly bad, but don’t worry whether or not the unhappiness machine works doesn’t depend on which ones)
Caricaturing other people into villains
Making you feel like you’re important and live in interesting times
And get this – it does it all for free!1
The obvious objection to the metaphor is that negative news conforms to reality. Sure, our internet lives are not entirely fictional. So to that extent, it’s not like an experience machine.
However, the typical information diet makes little contact with its consumer’s immediate life. In that way, it is as fake as the experience machines.
We don’t need status updates on foreign wars, isolated court cases, or cultural conflicts at some irrelevant company.
Our digital diets obscure real relationships. Consider interactions like the following:
“I hope you’re doing alright with everything that’s going on”
“I’m good – thanks! How are you?”
“Well you know with the [shootings / political upheaval / vague social issue]”
“Oh, I didn’t know about that”
This situation is an amalgamation of actual interactions. In these encounters, someone plugged into the unhappiness machine “checks in” on the blissfully ignorant. Grateful to be receiving attention, the unassuming person then responds positively. Then, the customer of Unhappiness Machine ™ shares the negative news, the fact or story that led them to check-in. The result? Word-of-mouth growth. It may have seemed like someone was interested in someone else, but it turns out they wanted to talk about the news.
Another example. I spoke with a fellow who said that you couldn’t believe that the US shouldn’t support Ukraine in 2022. If you did, you would be ostracized. Which one of his friends ostracized him for this contrarian opinion? He replied that none had. I wasn’t ostracizing him for sharing his opinion. So, what’s going on?
What he meant was that there are people online who say mean things about people who disagree with them generally and on this issue in particular. And because of this he felt persecuted.
But this judgment is a neurotic fantasy. It involves constructing a social world that takes mundane facts as an ingredient then and then catastrophizes from them. From the fact that some are canceled, we choose to tell the story that we cannot share contrarian opinions. Perhaps this achieves the heroism of victimhood without taking on the risk of talking to people who disagree.
Too often people say that they can’t talk about something and then proceed to talk about it.
One result of this situation is that people don’t understand what their political opponents believe. They plugged into a version of reality with virtual villains, not real ones. This stresses them out! It feels meaningful. But the sense of meaning is largely vapor. It’s the product of a story with no foundation, merely shadows on the cave walls.
Unplug.
You already know that the world is dark and tragic. Release yourself from the stream of cultural and political noise that is bundled as unhappiness and shallow meaning.
You do not need to know. The victims of the world do not care about you.
It’s better to make contact with reality, in its majesty and tragedy.
Warning: The unhappiness machine is for adult use only and should be kept out of reach of children. Never operate the unhappiness machine while driving, operating heavy machinery, or engaging in any activity that requires full attention. Unhappiness Machine ™ shall not be held liable for any psychological or emotional damage caused by the misuse or improper handling of this product.
Note: The unhappiness machine is an experimental device and its long-term effects on mental health are unknown. Use at your own risk.
Very smart. We do need meaning in our lives and unhappy is a form of meaning.