a romantic idea. I've managed to achieve a kind of Walden / Wonko the Sane way of life in tech, where I work by a picture window looking out on a large field on a farm, and I in fact chop wood and get my water from a well, actually.
the way I use tech now is mainly trying to get LLM agents to work to shorten the daydreaming process by giving me the answers I need. the thing is, tech is just for building more tech. it only builds upwards on the stack, and doesn't yield discovery or growth outside it. it doesn't make me a better musician, horseman, hiker, motorcyclist, lifter of heavy things, or friend, etc. these things are only the effect of practice.
maybe the response is not so much a kind asceticism where choices of taste in tech or opinion become a proxy for purity, but to ask, what have you physically practiced vs. merely consumed?
the way I use tech now is mainly trying to get LLM agents to work to shorten the daydreaming process by giving me the answers I need. the thing is, tech is just for building more tech. it only builds upwards on the stack, and doesn't yield discovery or growth outside it. it doesn't make me a better musician, horseman, hiker, motorcyclist, lifter of heavy things, or friend, etc. these things are only the effect of practice.
maybe the response is not so much a kind asceticism where choices of taste in tech or opinion become a proxy for purity, but to ask, what have you physically practiced vs. merely consumed?