Ozempic could destroy modern civilisation But would that be such a bad thing?

I’ve been addicted at least three different brands of the vapes that make up the dazzling multicoloured display behind the counter; my attempts to stop vaping have often led me to become addicted to the sweets, chocolates and crisps lining one wall; and my efforts to quit those have led me to become addicted to the fizzy drinks (both the high-sugar and “diet” versions) in the fridge on the other wall. I’ve never been addicted to the caffeinated “energy” drinks that seem to be a speciality of the Dopamine Store (I’m too scared to see what would happen if I tried them); but for a while recently I did become addicted to the duty-free Marlboro Lights they sell illegally under the counter, figuring they might help me quit the vapes I originally started using to help me quit Marlboro Lights.

I don’t qualify for an Ozempic prescription because, despite my frequent late-night sorties into the Dopamine Store, I’m not overweight (I’m addicted to the gym). But it’s not impossible that that one day could change. New research suggests drugs like Ozempic may help reduce not just overeating but alcohol and drug abuse. And many people who take them have reported significant reductions in compulsive behaviours like gambling, shopping and smoking.

Despite these encouraging signs, semaglutide-based drugs don’t appear to be a magic bullet cure for addiction — at least, not yet. But recently I’ve been asking myself: what if they were? What if it turned out that the next generation of Ozempic-like drugs was an antidote not just for overeating but all compulsive behaviours? What would happen to the world we’ve created?

Here’s my theory: very quickly, everything would fall apart. Whole industries would collapse. The economy would hit rock bottom. Individually and collectively, we’d have to figure out how to rehabilitate ourselves.

That’s because we live in a world of what the historian David Courtwright calls “limbic capitalism”: an economic system that drives profit by capturing the part of our brains responsible for emotions, rewards and behaviour — regardless of the havoc it wreaks on our bodies and minds. Notice this is the exact opposite of the way we’re taught capitalism is supposed to work: via a free market of rational individuals making informed decisions.

For a beautiful example of limbic capitalism, take a recent promotion from Pizza Hut, which offered online customers free bets at gambling websites. In other words: as a reward for buying an addictive food via an addictive device, you were able to indulge in a notoriously addictive behaviour on a platform optimised for addiction.

The notion that the gambling industry relies on addiction isn’t just a hunch: a report from the Gambling Commission shows that, without “problem gamblers”, betting companies literally couldn’t turn a profit. Everybody knows the slogan “Please gamble responsibly” is a sick joke: if customers were actually able to adhere to it, the industry would vanish into thin air. They might as well sell heroin in packages bearing the same disclaimer.

But, in terms of both market value and the social harm it causes, gambling is just a street-corner dealer compared with the Mexican cartel of the modern food industry. As the author Johann Hari points out in his recent book Magic Pill, Ozempic and similar drugs are an artificial solution to an artificial problem: a health crisis created by western countries’ transition, since the Seventies, from a diet based on fresh food to one based on industrially manufactured food that confuses your body’s sense of satiety and keeps you eating when you’re full — that turns you, in other words, into an addict. The results can be measured in our expanded waistlines: nearly a third of UK adults are obese (up threefold among women and fivefold among men since 1980) and nearly two thirds are overweight, dramatically increasing their risk of everything from heart attacks and strokes to diabetes and cancer. The corporations responsible for this state of affairs are, quite literally, making a killing.

Still, it wasn’t until each of us started carrying a miniature Dopamine Store around with us at all times that limbic capitalism finally took over the world. The flashing, buzzing little Pavlovian machines in our pockets were designed by people who studied how slot machines overstimulate our brains’ reward centres to keep us hooked. As the psychologist Jonathan Haidt convincingly shows, the evidence that smartphones and social media are causing major societal and psychological harm — particularly among young people — is now too strong to ignore. Some researchers even argue that they’re responsible for a general decline in western countries’ average IQ over the last decade: in other words, smartphones are actually making us dumber.

When, as a full-blown smartphone alarmist, I talk to people about the way our devices turn us into addicts, they usually shrug and tell me that they need their iPhone for important things like work, and staying connected to friends and family. This is absolutely true, and it’s also exactly how addiction works: most alcoholics start going to the pub not for the alcohol but to meet the very real human need for connection and community. But over time, the distinction between the two needs gets blurred, until one cannibalises the other — and the alcoholic ends up drinking alone with the curtains drawn. Our age of hyper-connectivity is also one of loneliness and isolation of epidemic proportions. People in the western world have fewer friends than any previous generation, and studies show Britain may be the loneliest country of all.

For every fundamental human need, limbic capitalism provides a dopamine-fuelled answer. Love? Online dating. Sex? Online porn. Play? Online gaming. Intellectual curiosity? Twitter/X. Aesthetic joy? Instagram. (I’m afraid if you want to know what fundamental human need TikTok is supposed to serve, you’ll have to find a member of Gen Z and see if they understand the meaning of the words “fundamental human need”.)

But, for me, the most insidious aspect of limbic capitalism is the way it can turn even health products into new addictions. This category includes not only a plethora of bogus “diet” foods made of chemicals you could use to clean a drain pipe. There’s also the array of meditation, therapy and sleep apps that promise to help reduce the stress that’s exacerbated by the very device you’re using to access them. You could always try turning off your phone instead, of course ­– but who the hell would ever do that?

Perhaps you’re thinking: sure, it sucks to be an addict in the modern world — but I’m not an addict, and neither are most people. But if you think you’re immune to the effects of limbic capitalism, think again. Modern neuroscience and cognitive psychology teach us that we’re all much less free than we think. As Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman has shown, most of our actions are automatic, triggered by environmental stimuli or past experiences and propelled by unconscious motivations. The behavioural engineers who designed your smartphone and the platforms they carry have no time for metaphysical distinctions between “addicts” and “non-addicts”. To them, we are all walking limbic systems, waiting to be exploited.

Although they’re hardly its most pernicious manifestation, for me the evil genius of limbic capitalism is best symbolised by my recent nemesis: the nicotine vape. Vapes show how even what appears to be a genuine miracle cure for addiction can be hacked to create a new cohort of addicted consumers. When I first tried them 10 years ago, I was amazed to find I could quit cigarettes at a stroke. But before long manufacturers started making single-use vapes full of candy-like flavours in colourful packaging (irresistible to teenagers and, unfortunately, 40-year-old men like me). Now vapes create blood nicotine concentrations at much higher levels than the cigarettes they were meant to replace; I wasn’t joking when I said I have tried taking up Marlboro Lights again to help me quit vaping.

If Ozempic 2.0 does come along, cure all addictions and thereby abolish modern capitalism, will that be such a bad thing? On the one hand, it will presumably cause untold economic destruction. On the upside, it might help solve the teen mental health crisis, raise our IQs, force us to rediscover authentic sources of meaning and connection, and compel us to build a society based on something other than short-term gratification.

Until then, if the Marlboro Lights method doesn’t stop me from scurrying into the Dopamine Store for yet more candyfloss flavoured Elf Bar vapes in 2025 – well, I suppose I could always try taking up heroin again.