redmattred

The book the article mentions is worth a read if this period of history in the northeast interests you:

Cutover Capitalism: The Industrialization of the Northern Forest

> vocally _not_ adopting agentic software development flows

I suspect that the vendors out there who have not adopted AI development and are losing market share to competitor who has are not vocal about not being an adopter, they are just complacent.

Tools for Conviviality (Ivan Illich) has this idea about the two watersheds of new technology.

During the first watershed, it solves an actual problem + improves the lives of those who adopt it.

During the second watershed, it gets institutionalized and the technology shifts into something that requires people serve it rather than serving those it’s intended to help.

His examples are all old technologies like modern medicine, non party line wired phones, the radio, etc. but the ideas fit the shape of the technological advances we’re seeing in our lifetimes as well.

Venkatesh Rao had this idea about matching the type of work you choose at a given time to the mood state you are currently in (or finding cues to shift yourself into the mood state that best matches the kind of work you need to be doing).

Pick a few personas to develop that match different aspects of your personality and map to different mood states you might be in. Not so much defining roles, but different work styles that you work in. Write prompts for each of them.

Keep a task list your agent has access to. Feed it your personas as well.

Have an agent pick one task and to frame the work through the lens of each of your personas and to ask it to ask you to choose which one you would like to pick.

Schedule it to run each morning and trust your gut with whichever one you pick.

You have now put yourself on the opposite end of the prompt response loop and the agent is prompting you for a response.

You'll be in a flow state in no time.

This is great. Well done.

What is the ideal coop structure for a tech business you have in mind?

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

This is great. Some good nostalgia vibes.

The fact that it’s not exhaustive and is a reflection of the creator’s taste is a feature, not a bug.

And both of those problems are yours, not your neighbor’s.

To your neighbor, doing it badly is still doing the thing.

People sometimes do things because they enjoy doing them, even if they aren’t particularly good at them.