Thankfully, my family knows I don’t go to Starbucks. The gift cards in question were from employers and coworkers.

This is a highly addictive compound (caffeine) that our ancestors put up with for the energizing effects it gave despite the strong bitter flavor. One that causes strong withdrawal symptoms when you get over reliant on it.

Overstating the case does nothing for your argument.

Caffeine is mildly to moderately addictive. It causes a 10-20% surge in dopamine. Compare this to alcohol (100-200%), nicotine (100-200%), opioids (300-500%), or amphetamines (300-1000%). It's almost nothing by comparison to any other common drug. So while it is potentially habit forming at a psychological level, it is trivial compared to almost anything else. Even refined sugar can be argued to be worse than caffeine (though the argument would be weak).

So let's look at the physical factor. All of the above drugs are physically addictive; we become resistant to them as we grow more receptors over time. Which means when we drop them cold turkey there are unpleasant physical effects. Caffeine causes headaches and fatigue when cut. It's uncomfortable. Alcohol withdrawal symptoms for very strong addiction can be lethal. When not lethal it is at the very least debilitating. We're talking more than a few days of headaches here. Nicotine, like caffeine, isn't particularly lethal but it is far more unpleasant when dropped. Opiods are straight-up lethal or permanently debilitating when dropped cold turkey. Amphetamines are not generally lethal when dropped (outside of suicide) but are psychologically crippling.

Now lets look at the tolerance onset. Nicotine's resistance builds up slowly and is only partial. Even at full addiction it still has its primary effect. Alcohol's tolerance builds up very quickly, especially to the sedative effect. Nicotine's is slower than alcohol but faster than caffeine by far. It's also quite complete; once you develop nicotine tolerance you get no real effect from it, but you get powerful negative effects when you cut it off. Amphetamine resistance is also very rapid in onset.

So let's take a look at this "highly addictive compound" shall we, in summary? It offers the least "reward", the mildest withdrawal symptoms, and the slowest tolerance buildup. And this is the one you're building up as the fantasy powerfully addictive compound? Bullshit. Absolute, pure, unadulterated bullshit. Why would you make up this kind of nonsense?

Not a tasty drink even …

And there we have it. The usual American bullshit of elevating taste to morality. It's not enough to just not like something. It has to be elevated to "you're a bad person if you do".

I happen to find coffee very tasty. I find tea to be even tastier. That "strong bitter flavour" is a very minor component in good coffee and tea. Good coffee also has lovely nutty bitters, sour flavours, and even an umami note. Good teas are so diverse in flavour that some, despite reaching almost to coffee levels of caffeine, come across as floral and sweet, not bitter (i'm looking at Dianhong here). Were I an American I would be instantly claiming this makes me a moral person and anybody who didn't like coffee or tea is obviously a moral inferior.

Thankfully I'm not American. So I'll just claim that your tastes differ from mine.

You should try that instead of being a pseudo-moral prick.

I believe they were referring to the use of AI.

Sorry, I forgot lemmy is weirdly puritan and doesn't like fringe internet memes