The AI Productivity Paradox creates a kind of anxious mania.

· Bits and Bobs 3/23/26
  • The AI Productivity Paradox creates a kind of anxious mania.
    • As your individual ability increases by orders of magnitude, the opportunity cost of an incremental minute of yours goes up significantly.
    • You get almost manic, and anxiously addicted to work.
      • Part of it is the joy of being able to achieve much more than before.
      • But a larger part is knowing that others have the same ability, and if you don't take advantage of it, you'll be left in the dust, unable to ever catch up.
    • When you have this mania, you get anxious when you're away from your Claude Code sessions on your computer.
    • A friend with decades of experience managing financial portfolios described it as the same feeling.
      • Debilitating, manic.
      • It ages you in dog years.
    • In the realm of software, we didn't before have such neverending fast-twitch domains.
      • Except for DevOps during an incident.
      • Even normal fast execution prized in Silicon Valley was orders of magnitude slower twitch than watching a portfolio anxiously.
    • But now we have it all day every day!
    • The new normal, grinding us down with overwhelming possibility.

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