Learning from Las Vegas: Addiction, Limbic Capitalism, and Pleasure Meccas

In this Gaming Research Colloquium talk, Courtwright (Presidential Professor, Department of History, University of North Florida) discusses three overlapping features of modern history: the global spread of potentially addictive pleasures, limbic capitalism (the production of goods and services that stimulate pleasure and emotional responses in the brain), and the rise of pleasure meccas. He traces the economic, social, technological, and ideological changes that led to the rise of the meccas, and several potential challenges to them.