The hedonic treadmill refers to the process of trying to remain happy, stimulated, and/or satisfied despite habituation continually increasing what is needed to achieve those states. Say you watch the best movie ever then you watch it again. The second time through you enjoy it less than the first. Okay, maybe we try it with the best one hundred movies. Better, but around the sixth pass you seem to be losing interest. Right, one hundred best movies, one hundred best video games, one hundred best foods, one hundred best books, and one hundred best songs. Hm, bored on the third pass this time. Alright, we have generative AI, no repeats, all new content all of the time.
Ennui is one of the weirdest features of the mind; happiness always wandering onto steeper and steeper climbs. Twice the effort gets you half the result. Taken cumulatively that's a hyperbolic function. Infinite effort gets finite results. While it's easy to see that as a general defeater to the achievement of happiness the thing about the hedonic treadmill is that you're only on it if your guiding goal is to be happy. People who pursue happiness specifically find it harder and harder to achieve. Its least ardent seekers are often the most successful. This paradox of intent is the hedonic treadmill.
There is a lot of advice on the cures for the hedonic treadmill from stoic abstinence to epicurean metering. Intermittent rewards seem very effective at circumventing it but most people do not consider a gambling addiction part of the good life. Your answer to the problem of the mill (including that it isn't one) is probably pretty close to your core philosophy of life. Whatever you think of it, as the world gets richer the issue of the hedonic treadmill will most likely loom larger in the coming century.
Or we just wirehead ourselves.
IRON NODER XVI: MORE STUBBORN-HARD THAN HAMMER'D IRON