Food, gambling, etc. are all backed by hordes of brilliant well paid people trying to get you to ruin your life so they make money. On the other side is just regular people like us stressed out trying to survive.
This isn't some "freedom" issue, it's an incredibly huge power asymmetry and I think "we the people" need protection from these forces
Don't forget social media. I mean, we have some of the smartest, best paid people on the planet incentivized to use every bit of data they can to hack your evolutionary biology to keep you scroll, scroll, scrolling.
I think one reason I've sadly become quite disillusioned with technology is because I see it less and less as a tool for improving the human condition, and more about creating addiction machines to siphon ever increasing amounts of money from the system.
It's such a waste of a generation's talent. I think about this from time to time.
What problems could we be solving? How much further would the cutting edge of innovation be? It's kind of depressing.
The last time our great minds were put to a task that most people agree bettered humanity was in the 60s, when working as a government scientist in the space program was considered the best job you could get.