---
date: '2024-02-07'
description: considered to be a study of action theory
id: agency
modified: 2026-06-05 15:08:23 GMT-04:00
tags:
  - pattern
  - philosophy
title: Agency
transclude:
  title: false
created: '2024-02-07'
published: '2024-02-07'
pageLayout: default
slug: thoughts/Agency
permalink: https://aarnphm.xyz/thoughts/Agency.md
generator:
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full: https://aarnphm.xyz/llms-full.txt
---
> The ability and freedom to [[thoughts/action theory|act]] in their immediate environment.
>
> Everyone talks about having agency, but when it comes to falling in love, we have none (that’s why it is called falling)

[[thoughts/Chaos|Chaos]] allows for agency, but too much [[thoughts/Entropy|entropy]] can create problems.

<div class="w-140"></div>

## Self-determination theory

see <https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory/>

## having a shit blog has made me feel abundant

_from <https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/having-a-shit-blog-has-made-me-feel>_

## agency as machine

see [Direct Manipulation vs Interface Agents](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/267505.267514)

Agency as an extension of end-users rather than the systems itself

![[thoughts/images/complex-takes-away-agency.webp]]

> Instruments of _superagency_

## fragments

excerpt from _<https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/agentic-fragments>_ and _<https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/agency>_

> Their way of appropriating the world was fundamentally different from mine: everything around them was something they could take apart and put back together. If they didn’t like how the light fell in their living room, they moved the windows. If they needed a lathe, they disassembled a hammer drill and turned it into a lathe. Their world was filled with affordances that I didn’t see. Where I saw a sweater, she saw a thread temporarily shaped as one—it could just as well be a scarf, a pair of socks, a hat, or six gloves. She saw more degrees of freedom than I did, and acted on it.

## seven ways to become unstoppably agentic

_<https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Tnpp3cyEHMGthjGAf/seven-ways-to-become-unstoppably-agentic>_

> 1. Figure out what you need, figure out who can help you get it, ask them

Just have a low bar for asking with help is a <mark>learnable mindset</mark>. Though this is hard because:

- You actually don’t _know what you want/need_.
- It’s hard to be creative about solutions and imagine how another person would help solve it
- It can be <span class="marker marker-h2">intimidating</span> to ask the person
- You make yourself _vulnerable to rejection_, which can feel crushing and bad.

> If this was easy, what would it look like?
>
> What is the bottleneck here and what can I do to solve it?
>
> What’s weighing on my mind?

> 2. concrete strategy to thrive on rejections

Note down rejections, for _maximise the rejection_

- evidence that you are properly exploring the space
- if you apply more, then you will _likely get more acceptances_ as well as rejections.
- lowers the expected cost of applying and _asking for things_
- fun??
  - re: true, in a sense you are playing with boundaries of yourself. To then update your world model about yourself.
- be more resilient towards [[thoughts/love|romantic]] rejection

> 3. Increase your surface area for _serendipity_

- low bar for reaching out to people (i.e: sending cold emails on Twitter)
- having low bar for _sharing what you’re doing_ online.

> 4. Get into the habit of sending cold email/twitter

_godsend for people with high potential_

re: see also [Guzey’s advice on what to do with your life](https://guzey.com/personal/what-should-you-do-with-your-life/) and this [practice in action](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A3JGj2t6QpFhsEp3mP-WIu0xaAzgscP675x7Z60si-w/edit?tab=t.0)

> 5. Seek forgiveness rather than permission

It’s easy to have an implicit assumption that you need permission to do anything that feel unfamiliar

<mark>Instead, JUST DO THINGS</mark>

> 6. To get smart, ask _[dumb](https://blog.comma.ai/dumb-questions/) question_

Being unafraid to look stupid is a truly formidable quality. This post on [understanding](https://nabeelqu.substack.com/p/understanding) frames it nicely:

> I concluded that what we call ‘intelligence’ is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about ‘raw intellect’.
>
> Intelligent people simply aren’t willing to accept answers that they don’t understand — no matter how many other people try to convince them of it, or how many other people believe it, if they aren’t able to convince them selves of it, they won’t accept it.

> People who have not experienced the thing are unlikely to be generating truth.

re: I assume they meant by asking logical dumb question. There is truly, a dumb question

> 7. Consider a wider option space, i.e what is the upper bound scenario?

Wasil presents:

- most people only consider opportunity _in front of them_, not entire action space of possibilities
- generally dismiss ideas <span class="marker marker-h2">prematurely</span> and fail to seriously consider what it would look like to do something that deviates from the natural intuitive, default pathways
- two traits are valuable:
  - considering wide action spaces
  - taking weird ideas serious

## agency and taste

[The Agency Gap](https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2025/07/31/The-Agency-Gap/) and _[Impact, agency, and taste](https://www.benkuhn.net/impact/)_

To [dwell](https://tsvibt.github.io/theory/pages/bl_24_08_01_14_01_47_609192.html) is to surrender your will to become even more agentic.

> Without taste, you’re likely to work toward the wrong thing. Without agency, even if you work toward the right thing, you’re likely to get nowhere.