The following video is an excerpt from a podcast, interviewing Andrew Huberman. Huberman has a lot of content out there -- videos and his own podcast -- and is something of an expert on dopamine, and how it affects our mood and behavior.

I want to highlight three things about this video: 

First - Huberman is emblamatic of a new movement of people issuing warnings about the dangers of pornography ... from a purely scientific and secular standpoint. He states that he has no moral compunctions about porn, and elsewhere that he doesn't consider himself a spiritual or religious person. Unlike a spiritual teacher who is focused on the spiritual and moral danger of lust, Huberman focuses on the damage to peoples' brains and sense of well-being.

(To be fair, he's obviously not blind to the horrors of degradation, violence, and human trafficking that is a part of much porn. But as he says, he views it through the lens of biology, not morality.)

SECOND - He's wrong about one thing. There's part of the interview where he makes the point that "none of this is new ... that these desires and problems have always been with us." You'll notice he doesn't go very far to develop this idea ... because in this context, it's not true.

On the one hand, of course various addictions, and sexual obsession have always been around. But technology has totally changed peoples' experience of sexuality today. What we're dealing with today is something new.

For all of human history, sexual arousal and experience was focused on -- and limited to -- a direct, personal interaction. Anything else was just mental fantasy.  But technology has changed that. First came photography, then video, and now near-universal access to high speed Internet and cell phone technology that makes high-definition video available anywhere. Now sexual stimulation -- and a type of "sexual experience" -- is available to anyone, anywhere, for free. A 10 year old boy in the slums of Mexico city has access to more sexual experience and variety in one night than the most sexually prolific kings and tribal chiefs from previous generations would encounter in their entire lifetime. 

So while this interview is spot-on and helpful in almost every regard, Dr. Huberman, is wrong on this point. What we're facing today is ABSOLUTELY new and unprecedented. That's why it's such a crisis.

THIRD - Things OTHER than porn. Huberman also hints at something really interesting and important (which he develops more in other interviews and podcasts). That is, the way that creators of video games and social media also hack our dopamine system. While not presenting the moral and spiritual danger of pornography, we would be wise to be careful about how we engage with these things.

Enjoy the interview!