How does human-centred design lead to addiction? This normative research project explores how designers of technology are complicit in the co-production of addictive user behaviour, unconsciously shifting the burden of responsibility by deferring to the desirability of “what people want.” These unconscious designers are themselves ideologically “addicted” to the promises of the technological fix, creating surface solutions that reinforce a status quo that commoditizes users of technology for profit. By foregrounding the technocratic intolerance of uncertainty and the need for existential responsibility, this research proposes how designers must consciously take an ethical stance to their practice in order to manifest empowering technologies that are respectful of the human condition.