Source: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The normalization of addictive digital platforms through incremental regulatory capture reveals that modern consumer industries have perfected what tobacco companies pioneered: converting public health concerns into acceptable externalities by the time society mobilizes to act. This signals a structural vulnerability in how late-stage capitalism absorbs and neutralizes moral opposition—the real product isn’t engagement or nicotine, it’s the institutionalization of harm as a feature rather than a bug.