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未来十年最重要的技能：能动性（Agency）

AI 会让具体技能贬值，但会让“敢自己设目标并迭代到成”的人更值钱。
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2026-01-13 原文链接 ↗
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核心观点

  • Agency 不是“行动”，是“迭代” 不是做一次就算勇敢，而是：做→复盘→调整→再做，直到打穿。很多人失败不是能力差，而是两周没结果就回到舒适的从众。
  • 把人生当实验室，才有资格谈掌控感 低能动的人像员工：等任务、等许可、等评价；高能动的人像科学家：自设假设、自造指标、主动试错，把失败当数据。
  • “相信困难”是反训练的能力 社会会把你训练成 learned helplessness（类似 Seligman 实验）：即使出口近在眼前也不跳。能动性的核心是把“困难目标”当可分解、可学习、可逼近的东西。
  • 在 AI 时代，“内容”不稀缺，“上下文”稀缺 他那句很准：真正的创作者是 context creator。让 AI 帮你干活没问题，但愿景/取舍/一致性（throughline）只能来自人。
  • 练习路径：先追一个东西，再把方法长出来 研究别人怎么做→公开试→抽原则→写成自己的流程→教给别人。教的过程会逼你把“模糊的懂”变成“可复用的术”。

跟我们的关联

### 👤ATou 你要成为“能指挥 AI 的 top 0.0001%”，Agency 不是鸡汤，是工作方式：先定义战场（海外增长/品牌）→拆假设→每周跑实验→把有效部分产品化成 playbook/agent。

### 🧠Neta 做 AI 社交产品，最大的风险不是模型落后，而是团队在“等正确答案”。高 agency 团队的标志：一周一个可验证的实验、一个明确结论、一个被沉淀的流程。

### 🪞Uota 提醒一个反面：把 agency 误读成“自我剥削的绩效化”，最后变成更高级的 autopilot。真正的能动性包含“我选择不做/我选择休息”的权力。

讨论引子

1. 你在哪个领域最“低 agency”（会等人、等环境、等许可）？为什么会等？ 2. 你如何区分“盲目努力”与“高质量迭代”？你现在缺的是哪一个环节（指标/反馈/执行/复盘）？ 3. 当所有人都在喊 high agency，它会不会也变成一种从众？怎么避免把自己活成新版本的 conformist？

但如果你是一个高能动性（high agency）的人，这些都无所谓。为什么？因为你的成功并不依赖某一项特定技能。你不是“只会一个技能的专家”。你没有把自己的心智锁死在“高薪工作或学位”这种身份地位上——那样会阻止你在焦点之外学习。你有愿景，并且明白在今天这个世界，你完全可以为了自己想要的生活，随时获取任何技能、任何知识。

不幸的是，如果你的父母自己就没有培养出“能动性”这项能力，他们大概率也没法把它传递给你。而除非你刻意地（而且往往要经历痛苦地）重新学习这套能力，否则在你真正觉得自己能掌控未来之前，还有一段路要走。

话说到这：

在当下、10 年后、直到你死去都依然相关的最重要技能，就是能动性（agency）。因为如果你能为自己设定人生方向，做实现它所需要的一切，并在当今世界无穷无尽的诱惑与干扰中不走神，你就永远不会处在“被替代”的风险里（就算真被替代也没关系，因为你能迅速适应）。

我想分享 5 个观点：能动性究竟是什么、为什么它比以往任何时候都更重要，以及你该如何练习它，从而得到你想要的生活。

只有那些持续反叛的人才能发现真实；不是那种顺从、追随传统的人。——克里希那穆提（Krishnamurti）

要理解什么是“高能动性的人”，先看清它不是什么，会很有帮助。

能动性不是机械式的从众。

从众，是你的心智仍用一根脐带连着社会。

从众是一种认知发展阶段：你的大脑完全按文化程序运行；你判断真假的标准，是“受欢迎”与“被他人接受”，而不是你自己的直接经验或独立探究。

你如果认真想一想，就会明白：这可能是过好人生最大的威胁。

当你出生时，你的心智就像一台新电脑。它有一个基础操作系统，但硬盘里什么都没有。你人生的前 20 年几乎都不会独立思考——这没关系。没人能真正独立到哪里去，哪怕你自认为很独立，因为很多时候那只是另一种形式的从众。

在“螺旋动力学（Spiral Dynamics）”与“自我发展九阶段（9 stages of ego development）”等模型里，大约有 50% 的人口停留在从众阶段。也就是说，半数人口的认知发展还不足以产生真正的能动性。

从众源自生存。人类的生存不只发生在像动物那样的物理层面（繁殖基因），也发生在心理层面（繁殖信念、观念与信息）。

如果你打工，你在这块人生领域里的能动性就很低：因为一旦工作没了，你的生存就会受到威胁。所以你必须顺从。

如果你有一套“钉死”的信念，把你的身份绑定在某个宗教或政党上，你的能动性也不会高。因为你的善恶标准来自文化，而不是来自你个人的审视与发现。

科技与商业圈的人都爱谈“高能动性（high agency）”，可这同样可能是对这个圈子流行话术的从众。

话虽如此，这封信本身也带着某种程度的从众。我们每个人都会在某些方面从众。

那么，真正的能动性是什么样？我们又该如何开始培养它，让我们的情绪、财务与人生机会不再由别人决定？

1) 高能动性的人会在没有许可时不断迭代。

拥有能动性，就是成为句子的主语，而不是直接宾语。它是一种倾向：去行动，而不是等待被推动。——Devon Eriksen

Agency 的字面意思是“处于行动或运转中的状态”。

用来描述一个人时，它意味着：“在没有外部提示、指令或许可的情况下，主动为目标发起行动的倾向。”

但当我们观察真正让人成功的东西，会发现它不只是“朝目标行动”。任何人都能创业，但这不代表他们会取得任何形式的成功。事实上，大多数人都不会，因为他们缺了拼图中关键的一块：

当某件事行不通时，你会反思情境，做出调整，然后再试一次、再试一次，反复循环，直到抵达终点。

所以在我看来，能动性不仅是行动，更是对“迭代”的不死承诺：学习与行动并行；犯错、纠错；不因为“没效果”就被舒适的从众拉回去。

对，我说的就是你——开始写作两周就放弃的人。

2) 高能动性的人把人生当作一个巨大的实验。

低能动性的人往往带着“雇员心态”。

他们被分配任务，任务通常还配套某种地位或资质，会触发大脑里渴望部落接纳的那一部分，于是决策能力立刻被削弱。他们再也无法跳出别人给他们划定的边界去思考。

高能动性的人，是自己人生的科学家。

他们有一个想法。

他们设定自己的目标。

他们提出一个假设（有根据的猜测）：该怎么实现。

他们测试、摆弄、研究，并尝试朝目标推进。

他们会失败。很多次。但因为这是实验，这本来就是过程的一部分。他们预期自己会失败——否则又怎么在不断缩小“哪些不行”的范围后，最终找到“哪些行”？

这揭示了当代人理解成功的一大问题：他们被别人许诺某种东西，比如一份高薪工作，或一个能快速搭建并赚到数百万的生意。

他们按部就班做“应该做”的事；可当他们不可避免地失败时，他们就判定这事“不可能”，并把责任怪到除自己之外的一切。

3) 高能动性的人相信“困难”是可被攻克的。

这也是 Eriksen 的一个观点。

你之所以想变得更高能动性，是因为你相信这些行动会给你的人生带来正向改变。你正在追求一个目标。而目标大致有三种：

  • 简单目标——我们每天都能做的事，或靠我们现有技能/资源就能实现的事。

  • 困难目标——我们现在还做不到，但只要获取正确的技能与资源，最终就能做到的事。

  • 不可能目标——要么现实中本就不可能，要么只有在完成一系列困难目标后，你才会发现“不可能”其实也可以变成“可能”。

低能动性的人常被某套信念系统困住，它会扭曲他们对“困难目标”的感知。

如果你了解塞利格曼（Seligman）的狗实验，你就会看到社会是如何对大多数人做同样的事的。在实验里，狗被暴露在无法逃避的电击中，于是它们产生了“对环境没有控制力”的感觉。后来，当它们被放到一个只要跳过小墙就能逃离电击的场景里，狗却不会尝试。即便逃生触手可及，它们仍会哀鸣并继续承受电击。

所以，通往你想要的人生的目标也许很困难，但你被训练去相信“根本没法做到”，于是你连试都不试。严重到你的心智甚至不允许你把它当作一个选项。你承受着默认路径的电击。

不过，能动性是可以练习出来的。

但如果你对它在当今世界如何发生没有深刻觉察，那么具体步骤再多也没用。

我每周会发 1–2 次这样的信。如果你不想错过它们（毕竟谁知道算法会给你推什么），

。你也可以免费读我的书、其他信件等等。

你现在可以获得你实现任何想要之事所需的全部知识。

然而……人们仍然什么都不做。

这点至关重要。

成功比以往任何时候都更容易，但那些本就不会成功的人依旧不会成功。也就是说，这从来都不关乎“获取渠道”或“机会平等”。它一直关乎能动性。

相反，高能动性的人会以 10 倍速度甩开其他人，因为他们无需许可就行动，而行动的门槛如今几乎不存在。如果你因为资金或资源有限而无法实现大目标，你可以先设定一个更小的“垫脚石目标”，用它去获取那笔钱或那个资源。

所有人都在担心同一件事。

坦白说，他们害怕，只是因为他们无法清晰思考。

看一个典型例子：AI 会制造海量内容，人类创作者根本没有胜算。

首先，AI 是工具。

工具需要有人为某个特定目的使用它。

当然，任何人都能让 AI 生成一条爆款帖，或从一段播客里生成一千条爆款帖，再让 AI 按“爆款潜力”排序。但那有什么用？你可以得到一堆点赞和关注，但变现呢？忠诚度呢？以及那些真正让品牌运转的东西呢？是的，你也可以让 AI 帮你做这些，但这时你做的已经是完全不同的事：你在学习；你在编排一个更大愿景的落地；这和你自己动手并没有本质差别。你仍然是决策者。

AI 确实可以随叫随到地生成漂亮图片，但“有愿景并把 AI 当作垫脚石来执行愿景的人”和“只是想快速出一张图的人”之间有天壤之别。许多艺术家用 AI 做初稿，之后仍会把作品带进 Photoshop 里做那些能体现个人风格的小改动。从整体看，AI 反而照亮了创作过程中真正重要的东西。

当你让 AI 替你做所有决定（换句话说，你让它基于互联网上成千上万的意见去猜什么有效），作品就不会有贯穿线：没有主题，没有人格，没有愿景，没有语境。这些才是创作者本身。创作者是“语境创造者（context creators）”，不是“内容生产者（content creators）”。没有语境，内容是无意义的；AI 的生成也一样。

除了“脑腐内容”和梗图（确实有一些很好笑 lol）——它们的作用只是把你留在平台上，直到你看到广告，让社交媒体平台赚钱（而这些平台本身倒是有贯穿线与品牌愿景，由某个具体的人为具体目的精心打造，不管用不用 AI）——否则，除非使用 AI 的人本来就擅长内容创作，AI 基本没什么用。

你明白了吗？

99% 的 AI 生成内容会直接沉到底层，因为如果内容真的有效，那么价值就在那里；无论是否由 AI 生成都不重要——因为它更可能是由人编排出来的，那个人把自己的语境“传递”给了它。

做生意时，你必须有一个品牌使命，让 AI 协助你执行；同时你必须持续迭代。

写书时，你必须掌控所有细节；而且除此之外，你还得让人去读它（受众、营销、销售）——书不会自己完成这些。

做艺术时，你仍然必须先有一个你想带进现实的想法。

换句话说，什么都没变。人们只是讨厌新事物，而新事物正在照亮一开始真正重要的东西。如果你用 AI 都做不出艺术，那你从来就不是艺术家。你只是很擅长使用 Photoshop 这种工具而已。工具会被替代，愿景与能动性不会。

说到这……

学校被创造出来，是为了用“专业化的声望”奴役最聪明的头脑，让他们保持狭隘，而不去推翻真正的统治者。——

每当我写到“成为通才、博学者、或拥有多重兴趣的人”时，总有人从角落里跳出来告诉我我错得离谱（同时又从来给不出一个连贯的论证，说明为什么做专家更好）。

他们会引用莎士比亚那句经典：“样样通，样样松（A jack of all trades is a master of none）。”却不知道这其实是误引，原句后半句是：“但往往胜过只精于一门（But oftentimes better than a master of one）。”

有人可能以为莎士比亚只是“剧作家”这一种专家，但那只是容器（vessel）。他必须对人性（人物塑造）、语言、古典文学、舞台技艺、宗教、哲学、军事战术、音乐、航海、自然世界、社会结构、人体与医学……有深刻理解。清单还可以无限延伸。他是一个综合者（synthesizer），用多元兴趣作为优势。

无论是世界 500 强 CEO、查尔斯·达尔文、史蒂夫·乔布斯，还是任何实现巨大成功的愿景者或战略家，他们都有一个清晰愿景，然后学习并采取必要步骤去实现它。不要把某个具体容器或细分领域误认为“专家主义”。

专家把自己绑在某项技能上。技能会随技术进步而演化与被替代。我们现在不这么看，但 Photoshop 曾经颠覆了艺术与设计行业；AI 也在做同样的事。那些“擅长某项技能”而非“真正的艺术家”的人会很愤怒——你已经能看出来了。相反，通才关注目标，做一切必要之事（包括改变目标本身），从而在任何领域都能活得好。

我再拆得更细一点。

人类是工具建造者。

我们能在任何细分领域兴盛，因为我们会适应。

如果你把狮子放到阿拉斯加，把北极熊放到稀树草原，它们都会死。

但如果把人类放到其中任何一个地方，我们会建造庇护所、制作衣物、狩猎食物，因为我们能制定计划并执行。

现实是：为了在 1800 年代教育大量移民子女（工业化时期），美国引入了普鲁士教育模型。那根本不是教育，而是一种大规模从众的武器。它通过强制出勤、教师培训、学生考试，以及“年级”这一概念，来制造听话的士兵、顺从的公民、循规蹈矩的公务员与训练有素的工人。熟悉吗？

社会希望你简单、可预测、易于归类。

为什么？

因为这最符合他们的利益，最符合组织的利润。只要你懂系统，你就懂：系统会自然演化成最有利于终极目标的形态。对社会而言，这个终极目标就是让你又病又蠢——不管这是否出于刻意。它不需要阴谋论：只要金字塔顶端的人类有那样的欲望，系统就会自然长成那样。

那你该怎么办？

如果奴隶被期望一辈子只做一件事，以便他们的心智对学习更多保持封闭（专家化），那么你作为自由个体，就应该在一生中做很多事。

你要反叛你出生时被安排好的道路。

你要追求基于兴趣的教育。

你要明智地使用你的能力。

当然，能动性很棒，但我们仍受物理定律约束。

这引出了另一个随着 AI 热潮周期起伏的巨大担忧：

AGI（通用人工智能）会让人类智能变得无关紧要吗？

我们先通过几个问题把事情说清楚。

人类能力是有限的，还是无限的？作为高能动性的通才，我们难道不具备学习任何事、做任何事的能力吗——只要不被基因限制？我们能在很多生态位繁荣，是因为我们会用知识与工具去适应。关于人类能力的根本问题是：我们的思考内容与思考方式有没有上限？

如果主要限制来自大脑的处理速度与记忆容量，那它们不能被增强吗？而当 AGI 成为现实，这不就更可能了吗？我们不会成为 AGI 吗？我们现在不就已经是 AGI 吗？我们不会成为超智能的一员吗？

这些设想很有趣，而且在它发生之前我们还有时间，所以我更想聚焦于近期。

人类有 5 项基本能力。

AI 能让这些能力变得无关紧要吗？

1) 计算（心智层面）：

我们的计算能力有上限吗？没有。因为一旦你拥有一个可以握在手里的通用计算机，就只是时间与内存的问题：你可以计算任何东西。我们已经拥有它；如果 AGI 或外星人也拥有它，他们的计算能力与我们的“曲目”会相同，也不会比我们更有优势。

你可能会说 AGI 的计算速度更快，但那不会加速“物理变换”的节奏——而物理变换决定了东西能不能被建造。你可以想到建造粒子对撞机的点子，但你仍需要资源去建它。

2) 变换（物理层面）：

变换就是创造。只要有正确知识，我们就能把原材料变成火箭。

人类的双手与身体似乎特别擅长：只要给定一套操作序列，就能创造几乎任何东西。我们造过飞船与望远镜。也就是说，我们能造出“造东西的东西”。我们是通才：通过造工具在任何环境里繁荣；我们不是被某个生态位锁死的动物。

问题是：

当这些基本操作以正确方式串联起来时，它们的能力有上限吗？

答案仍然是否定的。如果人类能远程操控一只大猩猩，只要时间足够，它就存在一套步骤能用来造火箭。当然，我不是说“一只”大猩猩。想象一下如果是马斯克在操控它，他会怎么做？

关键在于时间。变换需要时间；奇点不会改变这一点，就像启蒙运动或大爆炸也没有让火箭自动出现在天空里一样。时间是一种压缩算法，阻止一切同时发生。换句话说，AGI 也许能比我们的大脑更快计算，但不意味着它能比人类更快创造出实体。你可以想到造火箭的方案，但你仍需要去获取造火箭的资源。

到目前为止，对 AGI 的担忧似乎源自对现实本身的根本误解。

在计算与变换之后，还有变异、选择与注意力——它们关乎如何在“观念空间（idea space）”或“未知”中航行，也就是我们如何创造知识。我们可以计算与变换，但支撑这一切的“知识”有没有上限？

知识有两种功能。

第一，让具体的事情发生，最好是好事而不是坏事。第二，捕捉现实中的模式。这样我们就能用更高效的方式存储信息，而不必在追求目标时永远从零开始。比如我们理解宏观概念：太阳每天升起落下，季节周期性变化。

没有这种理解，我们的生活会崩塌。捕捉模式让我们能基于“接近性”来规划：我们知道在寒冷环境里会冻死，于是我们用知识的“存款”——比如夹克与酒店——来让旅途中保持温暖。

把观念空间或未知想象成一张普遍的地图：上面有亮区与暗区。亮区是你探索过的领域；暗区是你的潜力所在。

这张地图的表面积上，有无数想法可被发现并与现实对照检验。当结果没有让你更接近目标，或让你远离目标时，问题就暴露出来；你必须朝着目标进行误差修正。

变异（Variation）

我们能提出多少新想法来生存、来实现我们下定决心要做的事？这个数量有上限吗？

有了计算，我们可以在整个观念空间里航行。有了能动性，我们可以在其中迈出任何一步，最终在许多坏点子之后碰到好点子。有了创造，我们还能以独特方式移动，比如飞越森林而不是徒步穿过。

因此，我们能理解任何事、创造任何事，并发现无限的新想法来解决无限串问题。同样，AGI 也能做到。我们都受自然法则约束，但法则之内的一切可能性都触手可及。

选择（Selection）

我们能想出任何点子，但能找到好点子吗？

这里潜在的问题是：如果不能从错误中学习，就很难积累进步。比如我们要在已经造出燃油车后再造电动车，如果每次都要从头开始，那就太无聊了；我们的物种也不会这么发达。

作为通用的控制论系统（universal cybernetic systems），我们能更高效地在观念空间中导航，避免迷路。我们会误差修正。在这一点上也没有根本差异。

注意力（Attention）

人类常常理所当然的一项能力，是我们可以通过改变视角来改变自己的焦点。

当问题发生时，你的注意力会去哪里？如果你想造火箭，求老神仙帮你造有用吗？还是你能换一个镜头看问题，从而看见机会？

这对人类而言确实是个大问题（范式锁定、依附意识形态），但当问题出现时，我们确实有能力调整自己的注意力投向。我们可以戴上灵性之镜寻找安宁，也可以戴上科学之镜寻找进步。

把自己认同为一种“只上升、只灵性”的哲学，本质上就是一个不完整的系统：它会在某些问题集上失效。灵性是一副很好的镜头/工具，但不该成为糟糕的主人，更不是万能答案。

除非 AGI 能扭曲“可能性”的边界（那时我们会面对完全不同的问题），否则它似乎并不能在任何方面超越我们。

在日常的实践生活中，我们通常为了目的而采用手段。但在游戏里，我们可以为了手段而选择一个目的。玩游戏可以成为日常生活的一种动机反转。——C. Thi Nguyen，《Games: Agency As Art》

你通过练习他人的能动性来发展自己的能动性——直到你能够创造属于自己的能动性。换句话说：你先按规则玩，直到你能自己创造规则。也就是说，高能动性最重要的特质，是知道什么时候该挣脱。

能动性整体上不是一种“特质”，而是一门艺术。

观察这门艺术的最佳方式，是游戏。

绘画让我们记录所见。

音乐让我们记录所听。

故事让我们记录叙事。

游戏让我们记录能动性。

当你玩一个游戏，你几乎总是先带着目标：赢得游戏。然后你会有各种任务，但这些任务必须按你的经验顺序执行。你从 1 级开始，升到 2 级，再往上。当你到了更高等级，你就能带着已有的知识与技能回望，设计自己如何抵达下一个目标。

等级越高，人生越有趣，因为你可以选择下一个“既有挑战又有意义”的目标。这目标不是像新手教程那样被分配给你的。

这正是为什么你的人生可能感觉失控。你到过 10 级（童年、学校、工作），但现在卡住了。游戏不再好玩，因为游戏设计者不希望你升得更高——他们从中无利可图，于是他们激励你停在那里。你被困在无聊与焦虑的循环里：任务重复、无脑；进一步挑战会压垮你，因为你已经不知道如何学习。你人生最重要的一场 Boss 战，就是追求自己的道路。

那你该怎么开始练习？

首先，你需要一个可以追逐的东西。

任何东西都行。因为没人真的知道自己想要什么。相反，人们对自己不想要什么理解得更深，于是让“不想要”塑造未来的瞄准点。从那里开始，你就有了移动方向。设定一个目标，让这个瞄准点更可操作，然后做下面这些：

Well, maybe... That's what everyone's saying at least, and it definitely feels that way.

但如果你是一个高能动性（high agency）的人，这些都无所谓。为什么？因为你的成功并不依赖某一项特定技能。你不是“只会一个技能的专家”。你没有把自己的心智锁死在“高薪工作或学位”这种身份地位上——那样会阻止你在焦点之外学习。你有愿景，并且明白在今天这个世界，你完全可以为了自己想要的生活，随时获取任何技能、任何知识。

But if you are a high agency individual, that doesn’t matter. Why? Because you aren’t dependent on a specific skill for your success. You aren’t a specialist. You didn’t focus your mind - preventing you from learning outside of that focus - on the status of a high paying job or degree. You have a vision, and you understand that in today’s world, you can acquire any skill or any knowledge to achieve the life you want.

不幸的是，如果你的父母自己就没有培养出“能动性”这项能力，他们大概率也没法把它传递给你。而除非你刻意地（而且往往要经历痛苦地）重新学习这套能力，否则在你真正觉得自己能掌控未来之前，还有一段路要走。

Unfortunately, if your parents did not cultivate the skill of agency in themselves, they probably did not pass it off to you. And unless you have deliberately (and painfully) gone through the process of relearning, you have some work to do before you feel in control of your future.

话说到这：

With that said:

在当下、10 年后、直到你死去都依然相关的最重要技能，就是能动性（agency）。因为如果你能为自己设定人生方向，做实现它所需要的一切，并在当今世界无穷无尽的诱惑与干扰中不走神，你就永远不会处在“被替代”的风险里（就算真被替代也没关系，因为你能迅速适应）。

The most important skill to learn that will be relevant now, in 10 years, and until you die is agency. Because if you can set your own life direction, do what is required to achieve it, and avoid the infinite number of temptations and distractions in today’s world, you will never be at risk of replacement (and if you do get replaced, it doesn’t matter, because you can quickly adapt).

我想分享 5 个观点：能动性究竟是什么、为什么它比以往任何时候都更重要，以及你该如何练习它，从而得到你想要的生活。

I want to share 5 ideas on what agency is, why it matters more than ever, and how to practice it so you can get what you want in life.

只有那些持续反叛的人才能发现真实；不是那种顺从、追随传统的人。——克里希那穆提（Krishnamurti）

It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. – Krishnamurti

要理解什么是“高能动性的人”，先看清它不是什么，会很有帮助。

To understand what a high agency individual is, it is helpful to consider what it is not.

能动性不是机械式的从众。

Agency is not mechanical conformity.

从众，是你的心智仍用一根脐带连着社会。

Conformity is when your mind is still connected by an umbilical cord to society.

从众是一种认知发展阶段：你的大脑完全按文化程序运行；你判断真假的标准，是“受欢迎”与“被他人接受”，而不是你自己的直接经验或独立探究。

Conformity is a stage of cognitive development where your mind operates entirely through cultural programming, judging truth based on popularity and acceptance by others rather than through your own direct experience or independent investigation.

你如果认真想一想，就会明白：这可能是过好人生最大的威胁。

If you really think about that, you understand that this is the greatest threat to living a good life.

当你出生时，你的心智就像一台新电脑。它有一个基础操作系统，但硬盘里什么都没有。你人生的前 20 年几乎都不会独立思考——这没关系。没人能真正独立到哪里去，哪怕你自认为很独立，因为很多时候那只是另一种形式的从众。

When you are born, your mind is like a new computer. There is a base operating system, but the hard drive has nothing on it. For the first 20 years of your life, you do not think independently. And that’s okay. Nobody does, no matter how independent you think you are, because most of the time that’s just another form of conformity.

在“螺旋动力学（Spiral Dynamics）”与“自我发展九阶段（9 stages of ego development）”等模型里，大约有 50% 的人口停留在从众阶段。也就是说，半数人口的认知发展还不足以产生真正的能动性。

In the Spiral Dynamics and 9 stages of ego development models, they show that around 50% of the population is at the conformist stage of development. Meaning half the population lacks the cognitive development for genuine agency.

从众源自生存。人类的生存不只发生在像动物那样的物理层面（繁殖基因），也发生在心理层面（繁殖信念、观念与信息）。

Conformity stems from survival. Humans don’t only survive on the physical level like animals (reproducing genes), but on the psychological level (reproducing beliefs, ideas, and information).

如果你打工，你在这块人生领域里的能动性就很低：因为一旦工作没了，你的生存就会受到威胁。所以你必须顺从。

If you work a job, you have a low degree of agency in that domain of life because if that job were to go away, your survival is at stake. So you must conform.

如果你有一套“钉死”的信念，把你的身份绑定在某个宗教或政党上，你的能动性也不会高。因为你的善恶标准来自文化，而不是来自你个人的审视与发现。

If you have hard-set beliefs that bind your identity to a specific religion or political party, you do not have a high degree of agency, because your ideas of good and bad originate from your culture, rather than personal scrutiny and discovery.

科技与商业圈的人都爱谈“高能动性（high agency）”，可这同样可能是对这个圈子流行话术的从众。

Everyone in the tech and business space loves to talk about being “high agency,” yet that too is a form of conformity to what is popular in the tech and business space.

话虽如此，这封信本身也带着某种程度的从众。我们每个人都会在某些方面从众。

That said, this letter has a degree of conformity. We are all conformists in some way.

那么，真正的能动性是什么样？我们又该如何开始培养它，让我们的情绪、财务与人生机会不再由别人决定？

Now, what does true agency look like? And how can we start to develop it in ourselves so our emotions, finances, and opportunities in life are not dictated by someone else?

1) 高能动性的人会在没有许可时不断迭代。

1) High agency people iterate without permission.

拥有能动性，就是成为句子的主语，而不是直接宾语。它是一种倾向：去行动，而不是等待被推动。——Devon Eriksen

To have agency is to be the subject of a sentence, rather than its direct object. It is the tendency to act, rather than wait to be acted upon. – Devon Eriksen

Agency 的字面意思是“处于行动或运转中的状态”。

Agency literally means “the condition of being in action or operation.”

用来描述一个人时，它意味着：“在没有外部提示、指令或许可的情况下，主动为目标发起行动的倾向。”

When used to describe a person, it means “the tendency to initiate action towards a goal without outside prompting, instruction, or permission.”

但当我们观察真正让人成功的东西，会发现它不只是“朝目标行动”。任何人都能创业，但这不代表他们会取得任何形式的成功。事实上，大多数人都不会，因为他们缺了拼图中关键的一块：

But when we look at what actually makes people successful, it isn’t just acting toward a goal. Anyone can start a business, but that doesn’t mean they will reach any form of success. Most of them don’t, in fact, because they’re missing one critical piece of the puzzle:

当某件事行不通时，你会反思情境，做出调整，然后再试一次、再试一次，反复循环，直到抵达终点。

If something doesn’t work, you reflect on the situation, make an adjustment, and try again, over and over until you reach your end destination.

所以在我看来，能动性不仅是行动，更是对“迭代”的不死承诺：学习与行动并行；犯错、纠错；不因为“没效果”就被舒适的从众拉回去。

Agency, then, in my opinion, is not only action, but an undying commitment to iteration. Learning and doing in unison. Making mistakes and correcting mistakes without being seduced back into a comforting conformity because “it’s not working.”

对，我说的就是你——开始写作两周就放弃的人。

Yes, I’m talking to you, people who start writing and quit after 2 weeks.

2) 高能动性的人把人生当作一个巨大的实验。

2) High agency people treat life as one giant experiment.

低能动性的人往往带着“雇员心态”。

Low agency people can be characterized by the “employee mindset.”

他们被分配任务，任务通常还配套某种地位或资质，会触发大脑里渴望部落接纳的那一部分，于是决策能力立刻被削弱。他们再也无法跳出别人给他们划定的边界去思考。

They are assigned a task, often with some form of status or credential that triggers the part of their brain that craves acceptance by the tribe, and their decision-making is immediately compromised. They can no longer think outside of the confines placed upon them.

高能动性的人，是自己人生的科学家。

High agency people are scientists of their own lives.

他们有一个想法。

They have an idea.

他们设定自己的目标。

They set their own goal.

他们提出一个假设（有根据的猜测）：该怎么实现。

They create a hypothesis (an educated guess) on how to achieve it.

他们测试、摆弄、研究，并尝试朝目标推进。

They test, tinker, research, and make an attempt toward the goal.

他们会失败。很多次。但因为这是实验，这本来就是过程的一部分。他们预期自己会失败——否则又怎么在不断缩小“哪些不行”的范围后，最终找到“哪些行”？

They fail. A lot. But since this is an experiment, that’s a part of the process. They expect to fail, because how else are they going to narrow down what doesn’t work until they find what does?

这揭示了当代人理解成功的一大问题：他们被别人许诺某种东西，比如一份高薪工作，或一个能快速搭建并赚到数百万的生意。

This is a significant issue with how people perceive success today. They are promised something by someone else, like a job that pays a lot of money or a business that can be built quickly to make millions of dollars.

他们按部就班做“应该做”的事；可当他们不可避免地失败时，他们就判定这事“不可能”，并把责任怪到除自己之外的一切。

They do exactly what they are supposed to do, but when they inevitably fail, they deem it impossible and blame anyone but themselves.

3) 高能动性的人相信“困难”是可被攻克的。

3) High agency people believe in the difficult.

这也是 Eriksen 的一个观点。

This is another idea from Eriksen.

你之所以想变得更高能动性，是因为你相信这些行动会给你的人生带来正向改变。你正在追求一个目标。而目标大致有三种：

You want to become high agency because you believe those actions will make a positive difference in your life. You’re trying to achieve a goal. Goals come in three forms:

  • 简单目标——我们每天都能做的事，或靠我们现有技能/资源就能实现的事。
  • Easy goals – things we do every day, or things we can achieve with the skills or resources we already have.
  • 困难目标——我们现在还做不到，但只要获取正确的技能与资源，最终就能做到的事。
  • Difficult goals – things we can’t do right now, but that we can eventually do if we acquire the right skills and resources.
  • 不可能目标——要么现实中本就不可能，要么只有在完成一系列困难目标后，你才会发现“不可能”其实也可以变成“可能”。
  • Impossible goals – something that is either outside of the realm of possibility in reality, or something we can’t do until we complete the series of difficult goals that allow us to see impossible goals as possible.

低能动性的人常被某套信念系统困住，它会扭曲他们对“困难目标”的感知。

Low agency people suffer from a belief system that skews their perception of difficult goals.

如果你了解塞利格曼（Seligman）的狗实验，你就会看到社会是如何对大多数人做同样的事的。在实验里，狗被暴露在无法逃避的电击中，于是它们产生了“对环境没有控制力”的感觉。后来，当它们被放到一个只要跳过小墙就能逃离电击的场景里，狗却不会尝试。即便逃生触手可及，它们仍会哀鸣并继续承受电击。

If you take Seligman’s dog experiment, you can see how society does just this to most people. In this experiment, dogs were exposed to unavoidable electric shocks, making them feel as if they had no control over their environment. Later, when they were placed in a situation where they could simply jump over a small wall to escape the shocks, the dogs did not attempt to do so. They whined and bore the shocks even when escaping was easily available.

所以，通往你想要的人生的目标也许很困难，但你被训练去相信“根本没法做到”，于是你连试都不试。严重到你的心智甚至不允许你把它当作一个选项。你承受着默认路径的电击。

So, the goal of reaching the life you want may be difficult, but you were trained to believe that there is no way to achieve it, so you don’t even try. So much so that your mind won’t even let you consider it as an option. You bear the shocks of the default path.

不过，能动性是可以练习出来的。

There is a way to practice agency, however.

但如果你对它在当今世界如何发生没有深刻觉察，那么具体步骤再多也没用。

But the practical steps to do so won’t matter unless you have a deep awareness of how this applies to today’s world.

我每周会发 1–2 次这样的信。如果你不想错过它们（毕竟谁知道算法会给你推什么），

I send out letters like these 1-2x a week. If you don’t want to miss them (because who knows what the algorithm will show you),

。你也可以免费读我的书、其他信件等等。

. You can also read my book free, other letters, etc.

你现在可以获得你实现任何想要之事所需的全部知识。

You now have access to any knowledge you would ever need to achieve whatever you want.

然而……人们仍然什么都不做。

And yet... people still do nothing with that information.

这点至关重要。

That’s a crucial point.

成功比以往任何时候都更容易，但那些本就不会成功的人依旧不会成功。也就是说，这从来都不关乎“获取渠道”或“机会平等”。它一直关乎能动性。

Success is now easier than ever, yet the people who weren’t going to achieve it still aren’t going to achieve it. Meaning, this was never about “access” or “equal opportunity.” It’s always been about agency.

相反，高能动性的人会以 10 倍速度甩开其他人，因为他们无需许可就行动，而行动的门槛如今几乎不存在。如果你因为资金或资源有限而无法实现大目标，你可以先设定一个更小的“垫脚石目标”，用它去获取那笔钱或那个资源。

High agency people, on the other hand, will outpace everyone else by 10x, because they act without permission, and the barriers to action are now close to non-existent. If you can’t achieve a big goal due to limited money or resources, you can set a smaller, stepping-stone goal that will help you acquire that money or resource.

所有人都在担心同一件事。

Everyone is worried about the same thing.

坦白说，他们害怕，只是因为他们无法清晰思考。

And frankly, they’re only afraid because they can’t think clearly.

看一个典型例子：AI 会制造海量内容，人类创作者根本没有胜算。

Let’s look at a prime example: AI is going to create so much content that human creators don’t stand a chance.

首先，AI 是工具。

First, AI is a tool.

工具需要有人为某个特定目的使用它。

Tools need someone to use them for a specific purpose.

当然，任何人都能让 AI 生成一条爆款帖，或从一段播客里生成一千条爆款帖，再让 AI 按“爆款潜力”排序。但那有什么用？你可以得到一堆点赞和关注，但变现呢？忠诚度呢？以及那些真正让品牌运转的东西呢？是的，你也可以让 AI 帮你做这些，但这时你做的已经是完全不同的事：你在学习；你在编排一个更大愿景的落地；这和你自己动手并没有本质差别。你仍然是决策者。

Sure, anyone and everyone can ask AI to generate a viral post, or a thousand viral posts from a podcast, and the AI can rank them based on viral potential, but what good is that? You can get a bunch of likes and followers, but what about monetization? Loyalty? Or any of the things that actually make the brand work? Yes, you can ask AI to help with that, but now you’re doing something totally different. You’re learning. You’re orchestrating the realization of a larger vision, and it’s not too different from doing it yourself. You are still the decision maker.

AI 确实可以随叫随到地生成漂亮图片，但“有愿景并把 AI 当作垫脚石来执行愿景的人”和“只是想快速出一张图的人”之间有天壤之别。许多艺术家用 AI 做初稿，之后仍会把作品带进 Photoshop 里做那些能体现个人风格的小改动。从整体看，AI 反而照亮了创作过程中真正重要的东西。

Sure, AI can generate a beautiful image on command, but there is a huge difference between someone who has a vision and uses AI as a stepping stone to execute on that vision and someone who simply wants to create a quick image. Many artists use AI for first drafts. Many artists still take it into Photoshop to make the small tweaks that add their flair. As a whole, AI has exposed what really matters in the creative process.

当你让 AI 替你做所有决定（换句话说，你让它基于互联网上成千上万的意见去猜什么有效），作品就不会有贯穿线：没有主题，没有人格，没有愿景，没有语境。这些才是创作者本身。创作者是“语境创造者（context creators）”，不是“内容生产者（content creators）”。没有语境，内容是无意义的；AI 的生成也一样。

When you ask AI to make all of the decisions for you (in other words, you ask it to guess what works based on hundreds of thousands of opinions on the internet), there is no throughline. There is no theme. There is no personality. There is no vision. There is no context. That’s what creators are. Context creators, not content creators. The content is meaningless without context, and AI generations are the same.

除了“脑腐内容”和梗图（确实有一些很好笑 lol）——它们的作用只是把你留在平台上，直到你看到广告，让社交媒体平台赚钱（而这些平台本身倒是有贯穿线与品牌愿景，由某个具体的人为具体目的精心打造，不管用不用 AI）——否则，除非使用 AI 的人本来就擅长内容创作，AI 基本没什么用。

Aside from brain rot and memes (there are some great ones out there lol), which are only good at keeping you on the platform until you see an advertisement so the social media platforms can make money (which then have a throughline and brand vision, crafted for a specific purpose by a specific person using AI or not), AI is practically useless unless the person using AI is already good at creating content.

你明白了吗？

Did that click for you?

99% 的 AI 生成内容会直接沉到底层，因为如果内容真的有效，那么价值就在那里；无论是否由 AI 生成都不重要——因为它更可能是由人编排出来的，那个人把自己的语境“传递”给了它。

99% of AI-generated content goes straight to the bottom of the barrel, because if the content worked, then the value is there, and it doesn’t matter if AI generated it or not, because it was more than likely orchestrated by a human who is passing off their personal context to it.

做生意时，你必须有一个品牌使命，让 AI 协助你执行；同时你必须持续迭代。

When building a business, you must have a brand mission that AI helps you execute, and you must iterate constantly.

写书时，你必须掌控所有细节；而且除此之外，你还得让人去读它（受众、营销、销售）——书不会自己完成这些。

When writing a book, you must maintain control of all minor details, and beyond that, you must still be able to get people to read it (audience, marketing, sales), which the book is not going to do itself.

做艺术时，你仍然必须先有一个你想带进现实的想法。

When creating art, you must still have an idea that you are attempting to bring into reality.

换句话说，什么都没变。人们只是讨厌新事物，而新事物正在照亮一开始真正重要的东西。如果你用 AI 都做不出艺术，那你从来就不是艺术家。你只是很擅长使用 Photoshop 这种工具而已。工具会被替代，愿景与能动性不会。

In other words, nothing has changed, people just hate what’s new, and that new is shining a light on what mattered in the first place. If you can’t create art with AI, you were never an artist to begin with. You were simply good at using a tool like Photoshop. Tools get replaced. Vision and agency do not.

说到这……

Speaking of that...

学校被创造出来，是为了用“专业化的声望”奴役最聪明的头脑，让他们保持狭隘，而不去推翻真正的统治者。——

Schools were created to enslave the brightest minds by promising the prestige of specialization so they remained narrow minded and didn’t overthrow the true rulers. –

每当我写到“成为通才、博学者、或拥有多重兴趣的人”时，总有人从角落里跳出来告诉我我错得离谱（同时又从来给不出一个连贯的论证，说明为什么做专家更好）。

Whenever I write about becoming a generalist, polymath, or someone with multiple interests, people come out of the woodwork to tell me how wrong I am (all while never providing a coherent argument as to why being a specialist is better).

他们会引用莎士比亚那句经典：“样样通，样样松（A jack of all trades is a master of none）。”却不知道这其实是误引，原句后半句是：“但往往胜过只精于一门（But oftentimes better than a master of one）。”

They proceed to quote the classic from Shakespeare, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” Yet they are unaware of the fact that it is a misquote, and ends with “But oftentimes better than a master of one.”

有人可能以为莎士比亚只是“剧作家”这一种专家，但那只是容器（vessel）。他必须对人性（人物塑造）、语言、古典文学、舞台技艺、宗教、哲学、军事战术、音乐、航海、自然世界、社会结构、人体与医学……有深刻理解。清单还可以无限延伸。他是一个综合者（synthesizer），用多元兴趣作为优势。

Some may think Shakespeare was a specialist playwright, but that was simply a vessel. He had to have a deep understanding of human nature (character development), language, classical literature, stagecraft, religion, philosophy, military tactics, music, navigation, the natural world, social structures, the body and medicine... the list goes on. He was a synthesizer who used his diverse interests as his edge.

无论是世界 500 强 CEO、查尔斯·达尔文、史蒂夫·乔布斯，还是任何实现巨大成功的愿景者或战略家，他们都有一个清晰愿景，然后学习并采取必要步骤去实现它。不要把某个具体容器或细分领域误认为“专家主义”。

A Fortune 500 CEO, Charles Darwin, Steve Jobs, or any other visionary or strategist who achieves outsized success has a specific vision that they then learn and take the necessary steps to achieve. Do not confuse a specific vessel or niche as being a specialist.

专家把自己绑在某项技能上。技能会随技术进步而演化与被替代。我们现在不这么看，但 Photoshop 曾经颠覆了艺术与设计行业；AI 也在做同样的事。那些“擅长某项技能”而非“真正的艺术家”的人会很愤怒——你已经能看出来了。相反，通才关注目标，做一切必要之事（包括改变目标本身），从而在任何领域都能活得好。

Specialists are attached to a skill. Skills evolve and get replaced as technology advances. We don’t see it this way now, but Photoshop disrupted the art and design industry. AI is doing the same, and those who are experts at skills rather than true artists are going to be pissed off, as you can already see. Generalists, on the other hand, focus on the goal and do what’s necessary (including changing that goal) so that they can thrive in anything they do.

我再拆得更细一点。

Let me break this down further.

人类是工具建造者。

Humans are tool builders.

我们能在任何细分领域兴盛，因为我们会适应。

We thrive in any niche because we can adapt to it.

如果你把狮子放到阿拉斯加，把北极熊放到稀树草原，它们都会死。

If you were to put a lion in Alaska and a polar bear in the Savannah, they would die.

但如果把人类放到其中任何一个地方，我们会建造庇护所、制作衣物、狩猎食物，因为我们能制定计划并执行。

If you were to put a human in either, they would build shelter, clothing, and hunt for something to eat because they can create a plan and execute on it.

现实是：为了在 1800 年代教育大量移民子女（工业化时期），美国引入了普鲁士教育模型。那根本不是教育，而是一种大规模从众的武器。它通过强制出勤、教师培训、学生考试，以及“年级”这一概念，来制造听话的士兵、顺从的公民、循规蹈矩的公务员与训练有素的工人。熟悉吗？

The reality is, to educate large numbers of immigrant children in the 1800s (Industrialization), America adopted the Prussian education model, which was not education at all, but a weapon of mass conformity. It was designed to create obedient soldiers, compliant citizens, civil servants, and well-behaved workers through mandatory attendance, training for teachers, testing for students, and the concept of grade levels. Sound familiar?

社会希望你简单、可预测、易于归类。

Society wants you simple, predictable, and easy to categorize.

为什么？

Why?

因为这最符合他们的利益，最符合组织的利润。只要你懂系统，你就懂：系统会自然演化成最有利于终极目标的形态。对社会而言，这个终极目标就是让你又病又蠢——不管这是否出于刻意。它不需要阴谋论：只要金字塔顶端的人类有那样的欲望，系统就会自然长成那样。

Because that’s what best serves their interests. That’s what best serves the profits of organizations. If you understand systems, you understand that the system takes the shape of that which most benefits the end goal, which, in society’s case, is keeping you sick and dumb, whether it’s intentional or not. It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theory for the system to naturally take shape of the desires of humans at the top of these pyramids.

那你该怎么办？

What do you do?

如果奴隶被期望一辈子只做一件事，以便他们的心智对学习更多保持封闭（专家化），那么你作为自由个体，就应该在一生中做很多事。

If slaves were expected to do one thing throughout the entirety of their lives so that their minds were closed to learning more (specialists), then you, as a free individual, are meant to do many things throughout your life.

你要反叛你出生时被安排好的道路。

You revolt against the path you were set on at birth.

你要追求基于兴趣的教育。

You pursue an interest-based education.

你要明智地使用你的能力。

You use your capabilities wisely.

当然，能动性很棒，但我们仍受物理定律约束。

Now, agency is great, but we are still bound by the laws of physics.

这引出了另一个随着 AI 热潮周期起伏的巨大担忧：

This creates another giant worry that ebbs and flows with AI hype cycles:

AGI（通用人工智能）会让人类智能变得无关紧要吗？

Will AGI (artificial general intelligence) make human intelligence irrelevant?

我们先通过几个问题把事情说清楚。

Let’s gain clarity by asking a few questions.

人类能力是有限的，还是无限的？作为高能动性的通才，我们难道不具备学习任何事、做任何事的能力吗——只要不被基因限制？我们能在很多生态位繁荣，是因为我们会用知识与工具去适应。关于人类能力的根本问题是：我们的思考内容与思考方式有没有上限？

Are human capabilities limited? Or are they infinite? As high-agency generalists, do we not have the capability to learn anything and do anything that our genes do not limit us from learning or doing? We thrive in many niches because we adapt with knowledge and tools. The fundamental question about human capabilities is: are there any limits on what we can think and how we think?

如果主要限制来自大脑的处理速度与记忆容量，那它们不能被增强吗？而当 AGI 成为现实，这不就更可能了吗？我们不会成为 AGI 吗？我们现在不就已经是 AGI 吗？我们不会成为超智能的一员吗？

If the main limit is the processing speed and memory of our brain, can that not be augmented? And when AGI becomes a thing, will that not be ever more possible? Will we not be AGI? Are we not already AGI? Will we not be amongst the superintelligent?

这些设想很有趣，而且在它发生之前我们还有时间，所以我更想聚焦于近期。

It’s fun to speculate about these things, and we have some time before it happens, so I want to focus on the near future.

人类有 5 项基本能力。

There are 5 fundamental human capabilities.

AI 能让这些能力变得无关紧要吗？

Can AI ever make those irrelevant?

1) 计算（心智层面）：

1) Computation (mental):

我们的计算能力有上限吗？没有。因为一旦你拥有一个可以握在手里的通用计算机，就只是时间与内存的问题：你可以计算任何东西。我们已经拥有它；如果 AGI 或外星人也拥有它，他们的计算能力与我们的“曲目”会相同，也不会比我们更有优势。

Is there any limit to what we can compute? No, because once you have a universal computer that we can hold in our hands, it’s just a matter of time and memory to compute anything. We have that, and if AGIs or aliens had that, they would have the same repertoire of computation as us, and no advantage over us.

你可能会说 AGI 的计算速度更快，但那不会加速“物理变换”的节奏——而物理变换决定了东西能不能被建造。你可以想到建造粒子对撞机的点子，但你仍需要资源去建它。

You may say that AGI will be able to compute much faster, but that does not speed up the pace of the physical transformation that allows things to be built. You can have an idea for building a particle collider, but you still need the resources to build it.

2) 变换（物理层面）：

2) Transformation (physical):

变换就是创造。只要有正确知识，我们就能把原材料变成火箭。

Transformation is creation. We turn raw materials into rockets given the right knowledge.

人类的双手与身体似乎特别擅长：只要给定一套操作序列，就能创造几乎任何东西。我们造过飞船与望远镜。也就是说，我们能造出“造东西的东西”。我们是通才：通过造工具在任何环境里繁荣；我们不是被某个生态位锁死的动物。

Human hands and bodies seem to be especially good at creating anything given a specific sequence of operations. We’ve built spaceships and telescopes. Meaning that we can build the thing that builds the thing. We are generalists that build tools to thrive in any environment. We are not animals bound to one niche.

问题是：

The question is:

当这些基本操作以正确方式串联起来时，它们的能力有上限吗？

Is there a limit to what these basic operations can do when strung together in the right way?

答案仍然是否定的。如果人类能远程操控一只大猩猩，只要时间足够，它就存在一套步骤能用来造火箭。当然，我不是说“一只”大猩猩。想象一下如果是马斯克在操控它，他会怎么做？

Again, the answer is no. If humans could teleoperate a gorilla, there is a sequence of steps it can take to build a rocket given time. And no, I’m not saying a single gorilla. Imagine if Elon were operating the gorilla. What would he do?

关键在于时间。变换需要时间；奇点不会改变这一点，就像启蒙运动或大爆炸也没有让火箭自动出现在天空里一样。时间是一种压缩算法，阻止一切同时发生。换句话说，AGI 也许能比我们的大脑更快计算，但不意味着它能比人类更快创造出实体。你可以想到造火箭的方案，但你仍需要去获取造火箭的资源。

The thing here is time. Transformation takes time, and a singularity won’t change that just as the Enlightenment or the Big Bang didn’t. Time is a compression algorithm that prevents everything from happening at once, and the Enlightenment and Big Bang clearly didn’t put rockets in the sky. In other words, AGI may be able to compute faster than our brains, but that doesn’t mean it will be able to create the thing any faster than humans. You can have an idea for building a rocket, but you still need to acquire the resources to build the rocket.

到目前为止，对 AGI 的担忧似乎源自对现实本身的根本误解。

So far, the AGI worry seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of reality itself.

在计算与变换之后，还有变异、选择与注意力——它们关乎如何在“观念空间（idea space）”或“未知”中航行，也就是我们如何创造知识。我们可以计算与变换，但支撑这一切的“知识”有没有上限？

After computation and transformation, there is variation, selection, and attention, which have to do with navigating idea space (or the unknown), or how we create knowledge. We can compute and transform, but do we have limits on the knowledge that allows us to do so?

知识有两种功能。

Knowledge serves two functions.

第一，让具体的事情发生，最好是好事而不是坏事。第二，捕捉现实中的模式。这样我们就能用更高效的方式存储信息，而不必在追求目标时永远从零开始。比如我们理解宏观概念：太阳每天升起落下，季节周期性变化。

The first is to make specific things happen, preferably good things rather than bad. The second is to capture patterns in reality. This allows us to store information in an efficient way so that we aren’t always starting from scratch in our pursuits. We understand big-picture concepts like the sun rising and falling each day and seasons changing every so often.

没有这种理解，我们的生活会崩塌。捕捉模式让我们能基于“接近性”来规划：我们知道在寒冷环境里会冻死，于是我们用知识的“存款”——比如夹克与酒店——来让旅途中保持温暖。

Without this understanding, much of our lives would fall apart. Capturing patterns allows us to plan by proximity. We understand that we would freeze to death in a cold environment, so we use deposits of knowledge like a jacket and hotel to keep us warm while we travel.

把观念空间或未知想象成一张普遍的地图：上面有亮区与暗区。亮区是你探索过的领域；暗区是你的潜力所在。

Think of idea space, or the unknown, as a universal map with light and dark spots. The light spots are areas you’ve explored. The dark spots are where your potential lies.

这张地图的表面积上，有无数想法可被发现并与现实对照检验。当结果没有让你更接近目标，或让你远离目标时，问题就暴露出来；你必须朝着目标进行误差修正。

This map is a surface area for ideas that can be discovered and tested against reality to verify their validity. When those results do not move you closer toward your goal, or move you further from that, a problem is revealed, and you must error correct toward the goal.

变异（Variation）

Variation

我们能提出多少新想法来生存、来实现我们下定决心要做的事？这个数量有上限吗？

Is there a limit to the number of new ideas we can come up with to survive and achieve what we set our minds to?

有了计算，我们可以在整个观念空间里航行。有了能动性，我们可以在其中迈出任何一步，最终在许多坏点子之后碰到好点子。有了创造，我们还能以独特方式移动，比如飞越森林而不是徒步穿过。

With computation, we can navigate the entire space of ideas. With agency, we can take any step within that space and eventually stumble across a good idea (after many bad ones). With creation, we can move in unique ways, like flying over a forest rather than walking through it.

因此，我们能理解任何事、创造任何事，并发现无限的新想法来解决无限串问题。同样，AGI 也能做到。我们都受自然法则约束，但法则之内的一切可能性都触手可及。

So, we can understand anything, create anything, and discover an infinite set of new ideas to solve an infinite string of problems. Again, AGI can do the same. We are both bound by the laws of nature, but any possibility within that is within reach.

选择（Selection）

Selection

我们能想出任何点子，但能找到好点子吗？

We can come up with any idea, but can we find the good ones?

这里潜在的问题是：如果不能从错误中学习，就很难积累进步。比如我们要在已经造出燃油车后再造电动车，如果每次都要从头开始，那就太无聊了；我们的物种也不会这么发达。

The potential problem here is that it is difficult to make cumulative progress without learning from mistakes. It wouldn’t be fun to start over from scratch if we wanted to build an electric car after a gas car. We wouldn’t be very developed as a species.

作为通用的控制论系统（universal cybernetic systems），我们能更高效地在观念空间中导航，避免迷路。我们会误差修正。在这一点上也没有根本差异。

As universal cybernetic systems, we can become more efficient at navigating idea space to avoid wandering lost. We error correct. No fundamental difference here either.

注意力（Attention）

Attention

人类常常理所当然的一项能力，是我们可以通过改变视角来改变自己的焦点。

One other aspect that humans take for granted is our ability to change our focus by changing our perspective.

当问题发生时，你的注意力会去哪里？如果你想造火箭，求老神仙帮你造有用吗？还是你能换一个镜头看问题，从而看见机会？

When a problem occurs, where does your attention go? If you want to build a rocket, does it help to ask the old Gods to do it for you? Or can you change lenses to view the situation in a way that allows you to perceive opportunities?

这对人类而言确实是个大问题（范式锁定、依附意识形态），但当问题出现时，我们确实有能力调整自己的注意力投向。我们可以戴上灵性之镜寻找安宁，也可以戴上科学之镜寻找进步。

While this is a massive problem for humans (paradigm lock and attaching to ideology) we do have the capability to change where our attention goes when problems come up. We can put on a spiritual lens to find peace and a scientific lens to find progress.

把自己认同为一种“只上升、只灵性”的哲学，本质上就是一个不完整的系统：它会在某些问题集上失效。灵性是一副很好的镜头/工具，但不该成为糟糕的主人，更不是万能答案。

Identifying with a purely ascending and “spiritual” philosophy is no different from being an incomplete system that will fail to solve certain sets of problems. Spirituality is a great lens or tool, but a bad master, and not the end-all be-all.

除非 AGI 能扭曲“可能性”的边界（那时我们会面对完全不同的问题），否则它似乎并不能在任何方面超越我们。

AGI does not seem like it can surpass us in any way unless it bends what is possible (we would have a very different problem on our hands at that point).

在日常的实践生活中，我们通常为了目的而采用手段。但在游戏里，我们可以为了手段而选择一个目的。玩游戏可以成为日常生活的一种动机反转。——C. Thi Nguyen，《Games: Agency As Art》

In ordinary practical life, we usually take the means for the sake of the ends. But in games, we can take up an end for the sake of the means. Playing games can be a motivational inversion of ordinary life. – C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency As Art

你通过练习他人的能动性来发展自己的能动性——直到你能够创造属于自己的能动性。换句话说：你先按规则玩，直到你能自己创造规则。也就是说，高能动性最重要的特质，是知道什么时候该挣脱。

You develop agency by practicing other people’s agencies until you are able to create your own. In other words, you play by the rules until you can create your own, meaning the most important high agency trait is to know when to break free.

能动性整体上不是一种“特质”，而是一门艺术。

Agency, as a whole, is not a trait but an art form.

观察这门艺术的最佳方式，是游戏。

The best way to observe that art form is in games.

绘画让我们记录所见。

Painting lets us record sights.

音乐让我们记录所听。

Music lets us record sounds.

故事让我们记录叙事。

Stories let us record narratives.

游戏让我们记录能动性。

Games let us record agencies.

当你玩一个游戏，你几乎总是先带着目标：赢得游戏。然后你会有各种任务，但这些任务必须按你的经验顺序执行。你从 1 级开始，升到 2 级，再往上。当你到了更高等级，你就能带着已有的知识与技能回望，设计自己如何抵达下一个目标。

When you play a game, you almost always start with the goal in mind: win the game. From there, you have various quests, but those quests must be executed in order of your experience. You start at level one, then advance to level 2 and beyond, and once you reach a much higher level, you are able to look back with all of your knowledge and skill to devise how you are going to reach the next goal.

等级越高，人生越有趣，因为你可以选择下一个“既有挑战又有意义”的目标。这目标不是像新手教程那样被分配给你的。

The higher level you are, the more fun life becomes, because you get to choose the challenging yet meaningful goal you take on next. It is not assigned to you as if you were in a tutorial phase.

这正是为什么你的人生可能感觉失控。你到过 10 级（童年、学校、工作），但现在卡住了。游戏不再好玩，因为游戏设计者不希望你升得更高——他们从中无利可图，于是他们激励你停在那里。你被困在无聊与焦虑的循环里：任务重复、无脑；进一步挑战会压垮你，因为你已经不知道如何学习。你人生最重要的一场 Boss 战，就是追求自己的道路。

That’s exactly why your life may feel out of your control. You got to level 10 (childhood, school, job), but now you are stuck. The game isn’t fun anymore because the game makers don’t benefit from you going to a higher level, so they incentivize you to stay there. You get trapped in a loop of boredom and anxiety because all of your tasks are repetitive and mindless and any further challenge overwhelms you because you do not know how to learn. The most important boss fight of your life is pursue your own path.

那你该怎么开始练习？

So, how do you start practicing this?

首先，你需要一个可以追逐的东西。

First, you simply need something to pursue.

任何东西都行。因为没人真的知道自己想要什么。相反，人们对自己不想要什么理解得更深，于是让“不想要”塑造未来的瞄准点。从那里开始，你就有了移动方向。设定一个目标，让这个瞄准点更可操作，然后做下面这些：

Anything. Because nobody actually knows what they want. Instead, they deeply understand what they don’t want, and allow that to create an aim for their future. From there, they have a direction to move in. Set a goal to make that aim more practical, then do the following.

  • Research processes that others have found success with. You can find these on YouTube, social media, courses from reputable creators, or mentors.
  • Experiment with various techniques. Implement the processes you learn and attempt to get results. (By the way, most of these won’t work for you, and that’s okay).
  • Identify patterns, principles, and levers. Note the most important aspects from everything you try. These tend to be the things that get results.
  • Create your own process. Tailor what you learn to your unique lifestyle and situation.
  • Pass it down to others. The teacher learns more than the student, and you don’t truly understand it if you can’t explain it in a way that is beneficial to someone else.

This is why I love social media.

First, it’s where the attention is. You’re probably not going to build your life’s work by advertising on the radio or sending handwritten letters to prospects. You’re going to write content, obviously.

Aside from being an accessible, low-risk, and low-cost vessel to do what you want, learning and agency are baked in. It is the great modern game.

You can study other people’s agencies in their content, guides, and courses.

Well, maybe... That's what everyone's saying at least, and it definitely feels that way.

But if you are a high agency individual, that doesn’t matter. Why? Because you aren’t dependent on a specific skill for your success. You aren’t a specialist. You didn’t focus your mind - preventing you from learning outside of that focus - on the status of a high paying job or degree. You have a vision, and you understand that in today’s world, you can acquire any skill or any knowledge to achieve the life you want.

Unfortunately, if your parents did not cultivate the skill of agency in themselves, they probably did not pass it off to you. And unless you have deliberately (and painfully) gone through the process of relearning, you have some work to do before you feel in control of your future.

With that said:

The most important skill to learn that will be relevant now, in 10 years, and until you die is agency. Because if you can set your own life direction, do what is required to achieve it, and avoid the infinite number of temptations and distractions in today’s world, you will never be at risk of replacement (and if you do get replaced, it doesn’t matter, because you can quickly adapt).

I want to share 5 ideas on what agency is, why it matters more than ever, and how to practice it so you can get what you want in life.

It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. – Krishnamurti

To understand what a high agency individual is, it is helpful to consider what it is not.

Agency is not mechanical conformity.

Conformity is when your mind is still connected by an umbilical cord to society.

Conformity is a stage of cognitive development where your mind operates entirely through cultural programming, judging truth based on popularity and acceptance by others rather than through your own direct experience or independent investigation.

If you really think about that, you understand that this is the greatest threat to living a good life.

When you are born, your mind is like a new computer. There is a base operating system, but the hard drive has nothing on it. For the first 20 years of your life, you do not think independently. And that’s okay. Nobody does, no matter how independent you think you are, because most of the time that’s just another form of conformity.

In the Spiral Dynamics and 9 stages of ego development models, they show that around 50% of the population is at the conformist stage of development. Meaning half the population lacks the cognitive development for genuine agency.

Conformity stems from survival. Humans don’t only survive on the physical level like animals (reproducing genes), but on the psychological level (reproducing beliefs, ideas, and information).

If you work a job, you have a low degree of agency in that domain of life because if that job were to go away, your survival is at stake. So you must conform.

If you have hard-set beliefs that bind your identity to a specific religion or political party, you do not have a high degree of agency, because your ideas of good and bad originate from your culture, rather than personal scrutiny and discovery.

Everyone in the tech and business space loves to talk about being “high agency,” yet that too is a form of conformity to what is popular in the tech and business space.

That said, this letter has a degree of conformity. We are all conformists in some way.

Now, what does true agency look like? And how can we start to develop it in ourselves so our emotions, finances, and opportunities in life are not dictated by someone else?

1) High agency people iterate without permission.

To have agency is to be the subject of a sentence, rather than its direct object. It is the tendency to act, rather than wait to be acted upon. – Devon Eriksen

Agency literally means “the condition of being in action or operation.”

When used to describe a person, it means “the tendency to initiate action towards a goal without outside prompting, instruction, or permission.”

But when we look at what actually makes people successful, it isn’t just acting toward a goal. Anyone can start a business, but that doesn’t mean they will reach any form of success. Most of them don’t, in fact, because they’re missing one critical piece of the puzzle:

If something doesn’t work, you reflect on the situation, make an adjustment, and try again, over and over until you reach your end destination.

Agency, then, in my opinion, is not only action, but an undying commitment to iteration. Learning and doing in unison. Making mistakes and correcting mistakes without being seduced back into a comforting conformity because “it’s not working.”

Yes, I’m talking to you, people who start writing and quit after 2 weeks.

2) High agency people treat life as one giant experiment.

Low agency people can be characterized by the “employee mindset.”

They are assigned a task, often with some form of status or credential that triggers the part of their brain that craves acceptance by the tribe, and their decision-making is immediately compromised. They can no longer think outside of the confines placed upon them.

High agency people are scientists of their own lives.

They have an idea.

They set their own goal.

They create a hypothesis (an educated guess) on how to achieve it.

They test, tinker, research, and make an attempt toward the goal.

They fail. A lot. But since this is an experiment, that’s a part of the process. They expect to fail, because how else are they going to narrow down what doesn’t work until they find what does?

This is a significant issue with how people perceive success today. They are promised something by someone else, like a job that pays a lot of money or a business that can be built quickly to make millions of dollars.

They do exactly what they are supposed to do, but when they inevitably fail, they deem it impossible and blame anyone but themselves.

3) High agency people believe in the difficult.

This is another idea from Eriksen.

You want to become high agency because you believe those actions will make a positive difference in your life. You’re trying to achieve a goal. Goals come in three forms:

  • Easy goals – things we do every day, or things we can achieve with the skills or resources we already have.

  • Difficult goals – things we can’t do right now, but that we can eventually do if we acquire the right skills and resources.

  • Impossible goals – something that is either outside of the realm of possibility in reality, or something we can’t do until we complete the series of difficult goals that allow us to see impossible goals as possible.

Low agency people suffer from a belief system that skews their perception of difficult goals.

If you take Seligman’s dog experiment, you can see how society does just this to most people. In this experiment, dogs were exposed to unavoidable electric shocks, making them feel as if they had no control over their environment. Later, when they were placed in a situation where they could simply jump over a small wall to escape the shocks, the dogs did not attempt to do so. They whined and bore the shocks even when escaping was easily available.

So, the goal of reaching the life you want may be difficult, but you were trained to believe that there is no way to achieve it, so you don’t even try. So much so that your mind won’t even let you consider it as an option. You bear the shocks of the default path.

There is a way to practice agency, however.

But the practical steps to do so won’t matter unless you have a deep awareness of how this applies to today’s world.

I send out letters like these 1-2x a week. If you don’t want to miss them (because who knows what the algorithm will show you),

. You can also read my book free, other letters, etc.

You now have access to any knowledge you would ever need to achieve whatever you want.

And yet... people still do nothing with that information.

That’s a crucial point.

Success is now easier than ever, yet the people who weren’t going to achieve it still aren’t going to achieve it. Meaning, this was never about “access” or “equal opportunity.” It’s always been about agency.

High agency people, on the other hand, will outpace everyone else by 10x, because they act without permission, and the barriers to action are now close to non-existent. If you can’t achieve a big goal due to limited money or resources, you can set a smaller, stepping-stone goal that will help you acquire that money or resource.

Everyone is worried about the same thing.

And frankly, they’re only afraid because they can’t think clearly.

Let’s look at a prime example: AI is going to create so much content that human creators don’t stand a chance.

First, AI is a tool.

Tools need someone to use them for a specific purpose.

Sure, anyone and everyone can ask AI to generate a viral post, or a thousand viral posts from a podcast, and the AI can rank them based on viral potential, but what good is that? You can get a bunch of likes and followers, but what about monetization? Loyalty? Or any of the things that actually make the brand work? Yes, you can ask AI to help with that, but now you’re doing something totally different. You’re learning. You’re orchestrating the realization of a larger vision, and it’s not too different from doing it yourself. You are still the decision maker.

Sure, AI can generate a beautiful image on command, but there is a huge difference between someone who has a vision and uses AI as a stepping stone to execute on that vision and someone who simply wants to create a quick image. Many artists use AI for first drafts. Many artists still take it into Photoshop to make the small tweaks that add their flair. As a whole, AI has exposed what really matters in the creative process.

When you ask AI to make all of the decisions for you (in other words, you ask it to guess what works based on hundreds of thousands of opinions on the internet), there is no throughline. There is no theme. There is no personality. There is no vision. There is no context. That’s what creators are. Context creators, not content creators. The content is meaningless without context, and AI generations are the same.

Aside from brain rot and memes (there are some great ones out there lol), which are only good at keeping you on the platform until you see an advertisement so the social media platforms can make money (which then have a throughline and brand vision, crafted for a specific purpose by a specific person using AI or not), AI is practically useless unless the person using AI is already good at creating content.

Did that click for you?

99% of AI-generated content goes straight to the bottom of the barrel, because if the content worked, then the value is there, and it doesn’t matter if AI generated it or not, because it was more than likely orchestrated by a human who is passing off their personal context to it.

When building a business, you must have a brand mission that AI helps you execute, and you must iterate constantly.

When writing a book, you must maintain control of all minor details, and beyond that, you must still be able to get people to read it (audience, marketing, sales), which the book is not going to do itself.

When creating art, you must still have an idea that you are attempting to bring into reality.

In other words, nothing has changed, people just hate what’s new, and that new is shining a light on what mattered in the first place. If you can’t create art with AI, you were never an artist to begin with. You were simply good at using a tool like Photoshop. Tools get replaced. Vision and agency do not.

Speaking of that...

Schools were created to enslave the brightest minds by promising the prestige of specialization so they remained narrow minded and didn’t overthrow the true rulers. –

Whenever I write about becoming a generalist, polymath, or someone with multiple interests, people come out of the woodwork to tell me how wrong I am (all while never providing a coherent argument as to why being a specialist is better).

They proceed to quote the classic from Shakespeare, “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” Yet they are unaware of the fact that it is a misquote, and ends with “But oftentimes better than a master of one.”

Some may think Shakespeare was a specialist playwright, but that was simply a vessel. He had to have a deep understanding of human nature (character development), language, classical literature, stagecraft, religion, philosophy, military tactics, music, navigation, the natural world, social structures, the body and medicine... the list goes on. He was a synthesizer who used his diverse interests as his edge.

A Fortune 500 CEO, Charles Darwin, Steve Jobs, or any other visionary or strategist who achieves outsized success has a specific vision that they then learn and take the necessary steps to achieve. Do not confuse a specific vessel or niche as being a specialist.

Specialists are attached to a skill. Skills evolve and get replaced as technology advances. We don’t see it this way now, but Photoshop disrupted the art and design industry. AI is doing the same, and those who are experts at skills rather than true artists are going to be pissed off, as you can already see. Generalists, on the other hand, focus on the goal and do what’s necessary (including changing that goal) so that they can thrive in anything they do.

Let me break this down further.

Humans are tool builders.

We thrive in any niche because we can adapt to it.

If you were to put a lion in Alaska and a polar bear in the Savannah, they would die.

If you were to put a human in either, they would build shelter, clothing, and hunt for something to eat because they can create a plan and execute on it.

The reality is, to educate large numbers of immigrant children in the 1800s (Industrialization), America adopted the Prussian education model, which was not education at all, but a weapon of mass conformity. It was designed to create obedient soldiers, compliant citizens, civil servants, and well-behaved workers through mandatory attendance, training for teachers, testing for students, and the concept of grade levels. Sound familiar?

Society wants you simple, predictable, and easy to categorize.

Why?

Because that’s what best serves their interests. That’s what best serves the profits of organizations. If you understand systems, you understand that the system takes the shape of that which most benefits the end goal, which, in society’s case, is keeping you sick and dumb, whether it’s intentional or not. It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theory for the system to naturally take shape of the desires of humans at the top of these pyramids.

What do you do?

If slaves were expected to do one thing throughout the entirety of their lives so that their minds were closed to learning more (specialists), then you, as a free individual, are meant to do many things throughout your life.

You revolt against the path you were set on at birth.

You pursue an interest-based education.

You use your capabilities wisely.

Now, agency is great, but we are still bound by the laws of physics.

This creates another giant worry that ebbs and flows with AI hype cycles:

Will AGI (artificial general intelligence) make human intelligence irrelevant?

Let’s gain clarity by asking a few questions.

Are human capabilities limited? Or are they infinite? As high-agency generalists, do we not have the capability to learn anything and do anything that our genes do not limit us from learning or doing? We thrive in many niches because we adapt with knowledge and tools. The fundamental question about human capabilities is: are there any limits on what we can think and how we think?

If the main limit is the processing speed and memory of our brain, can that not be augmented? And when AGI becomes a thing, will that not be ever more possible? Will we not be AGI? Are we not already AGI? Will we not be amongst the superintelligent?

It’s fun to speculate about these things, and we have some time before it happens, so I want to focus on the near future.

There are 5 fundamental human capabilities.

Can AI ever make those irrelevant?

1) Computation (mental):

Is there any limit to what we can compute? No, because once you have a universal computer that we can hold in our hands, it’s just a matter of time and memory to compute anything. We have that, and if AGIs or aliens had that, they would have the same repertoire of computation as us, and no advantage over us.

You may say that AGI will be able to compute much faster, but that does not speed up the pace of the physical transformation that allows things to be built. You can have an idea for building a particle collider, but you still need the resources to build it.

2) Transformation (physical):

Transformation is creation. We turn raw materials into rockets given the right knowledge.

Human hands and bodies seem to be especially good at creating anything given a specific sequence of operations. We’ve built spaceships and telescopes. Meaning that we can build the thing that builds the thing. We are generalists that build tools to thrive in any environment. We are not animals bound to one niche.

The question is:

Is there a limit to what these basic operations can do when strung together in the right way?

Again, the answer is no. If humans could teleoperate a gorilla, there is a sequence of steps it can take to build a rocket given time. And no, I’m not saying a single gorilla. Imagine if Elon were operating the gorilla. What would he do?

The thing here is time. Transformation takes time, and a singularity won’t change that just as the Enlightenment or the Big Bang didn’t. Time is a compression algorithm that prevents everything from happening at once, and the Enlightenment and Big Bang clearly didn’t put rockets in the sky. In other words, AGI may be able to compute faster than our brains, but that doesn’t mean it will be able to create the thing any faster than humans. You can have an idea for building a rocket, but you still need to acquire the resources to build the rocket.

So far, the AGI worry seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of reality itself.

After computation and transformation, there is variation, selection, and attention, which have to do with navigating idea space (or the unknown), or how we create knowledge. We can compute and transform, but do we have limits on the knowledge that allows us to do so?

Knowledge serves two functions.

The first is to make specific things happen, preferably good things rather than bad. The second is to capture patterns in reality. This allows us to store information in an efficient way so that we aren’t always starting from scratch in our pursuits. We understand big-picture concepts like the sun rising and falling each day and seasons changing every so often.

Without this understanding, much of our lives would fall apart. Capturing patterns allows us to plan by proximity. We understand that we would freeze to death in a cold environment, so we use deposits of knowledge like a jacket and hotel to keep us warm while we travel.

Think of idea space, or the unknown, as a universal map with light and dark spots. The light spots are areas you’ve explored. The dark spots are where your potential lies.

This map is a surface area for ideas that can be discovered and tested against reality to verify their validity. When those results do not move you closer toward your goal, or move you further from that, a problem is revealed, and you must error correct toward the goal.

Variation

Is there a limit to the number of new ideas we can come up with to survive and achieve what we set our minds to?

With computation, we can navigate the entire space of ideas. With agency, we can take any step within that space and eventually stumble across a good idea (after many bad ones). With creation, we can move in unique ways, like flying over a forest rather than walking through it.

So, we can understand anything, create anything, and discover an infinite set of new ideas to solve an infinite string of problems. Again, AGI can do the same. We are both bound by the laws of nature, but any possibility within that is within reach.

Selection

We can come up with any idea, but can we find the good ones?

The potential problem here is that it is difficult to make cumulative progress without learning from mistakes. It wouldn’t be fun to start over from scratch if we wanted to build an electric car after a gas car. We wouldn’t be very developed as a species.

As universal cybernetic systems, we can become more efficient at navigating idea space to avoid wandering lost. We error correct. No fundamental difference here either.

Attention

One other aspect that humans take for granted is our ability to change our focus by changing our perspective.

When a problem occurs, where does your attention go? If you want to build a rocket, does it help to ask the old Gods to do it for you? Or can you change lenses to view the situation in a way that allows you to perceive opportunities?

While this is a massive problem for humans (paradigm lock and attaching to ideology) we do have the capability to change where our attention goes when problems come up. We can put on a spiritual lens to find peace and a scientific lens to find progress.

Identifying with a purely ascending and “spiritual” philosophy is no different from being an incomplete system that will fail to solve certain sets of problems. Spirituality is a great lens or tool, but a bad master, and not the end-all be-all.

AGI does not seem like it can surpass us in any way unless it bends what is possible (we would have a very different problem on our hands at that point).

In ordinary practical life, we usually take the means for the sake of the ends. But in games, we can take up an end for the sake of the means. Playing games can be a motivational inversion of ordinary life. – C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency As Art

You develop agency by practicing other people’s agencies until you are able to create your own. In other words, you play by the rules until you can create your own, meaning the most important high agency trait is to know when to break free.

Agency, as a whole, is not a trait but an art form.

The best way to observe that art form is in games.

Painting lets us record sights.

Music lets us record sounds.

Stories let us record narratives.

Games let us record agencies.

When you play a game, you almost always start with the goal in mind: win the game. From there, you have various quests, but those quests must be executed in order of your experience. You start at level one, then advance to level 2 and beyond, and once you reach a much higher level, you are able to look back with all of your knowledge and skill to devise how you are going to reach the next goal.

The higher level you are, the more fun life becomes, because you get to choose the challenging yet meaningful goal you take on next. It is not assigned to you as if you were in a tutorial phase.

That’s exactly why your life may feel out of your control. You got to level 10 (childhood, school, job), but now you are stuck. The game isn’t fun anymore because the game makers don’t benefit from you going to a higher level, so they incentivize you to stay there. You get trapped in a loop of boredom and anxiety because all of your tasks are repetitive and mindless and any further challenge overwhelms you because you do not know how to learn. The most important boss fight of your life is pursue your own path.

So, how do you start practicing this?

First, you simply need something to pursue.

Anything. Because nobody actually knows what they want. Instead, they deeply understand what they don’t want, and allow that to create an aim for their future. From there, they have a direction to move in. Set a goal to make that aim more practical, then do the following.

  • Research processes that others have found success with. You can find these on YouTube, social media, courses from reputable creators, or mentors.

  • Experiment with various techniques. Implement the processes you learn and attempt to get results. (By the way, most of these won’t work for you, and that’s okay).

  • Identify patterns, principles, and levers. Note the most important aspects from everything you try. These tend to be the things that get results.

  • Create your own process. Tailor what you learn to your unique lifestyle and situation.

  • Pass it down to others. The teacher learns more than the student, and you don’t truly understand it if you can’t explain it in a way that is beneficial to someone else.

This is why I love social media.

First, it’s where the attention is. You’re probably not going to build your life’s work by advertising on the radio or sending handwritten letters to prospects. You’re going to write content, obviously.

Aside from being an accessible, low-risk, and low-cost vessel to do what you want, learning and agency are baked in. It is the great modern game.

You can study other people’s agencies in their content, guides, and courses.

You can experiment in public and get direct feedback - you can quickly identify what works and what doesn’t.

You are forced to learn a future-proof skill stack (writing, persuasion, marketing, sales, storytelling, etc).

You must truly learn what you want to talk about on the internet.

I’ll let you decide what you’d like to do with that information.

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