James' World 2

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Most of us are a little bit addicted to a lot of things — Instagram, our email, whatever show we watched way too late last night. It’s human to crave more of what we like, and for the most part, pretty harmless. But sometimes it seems like the entire world is stacked against moderation. That’s what led Michael Easter, a science journalist, professor, and author of the forthcoming book Scarcity Brain, to investigate a tendency known as “the scarcity loop” — a pattern that leads humans (and many other animals) to repeat excessive behaviors that can harm us in the long run.

Here, Easter discusses how the scarcity loop relates to money, shopping, and other tripwires embedded in modern consumption. It’s not all bad — as Easter puts it, easy access to things you want is a fortunate problem to have. The key to reining it in is being aware of it in the first place — and knowing when to walk away.

How did you learn about the scarcity loop, to begin with?
I started learning about the scarcity loop because I’m really interested in bad habits. My background is in science journalism, and writing about health and wellness. People always focus on building good new habits, but I’ve noticed that if you haven’t fixed your worst habits, you still have your foot on the brake. Basically, bad habits hurt people more than good habits help people. And there’s no better place to see this than Las Vegas, which happens to be where I live. This town is built on getting people to do excessive behaviors that often hurt them in the long run. Slot machines are the weirdest. They’re everywhere and people play them around the clock. I started digging into what makes slot machines so appealing, and that eventually led me to interview the guy who designed them. He’s the person who introduced me to the scarcity loop.

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Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

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