"we're about to jump into a new era of technology - meaning different values, expectations, and powers - and we need to choose what it looks like.*1 The transition itself is unavoidable, but the details are up to us. Today we must choose between a) a future where our software environment has a thought-shaped interface on top of all the old kludge, or b) a future where software is built from the ground up to represent our thoughts, not twist or control them."
"For the past two centuries, invoking the term "Luddites" was shorthand for technological backwardness or fear of innovation - a sneer aimed at anyone who dared question the march of progress. But the real Luddites weren't afraid of machines; they were afraid of the social and economic impacts of the new technology on people - and of who controlled the terms of technological change."
Technology is entering an era that reshapes values, expectations, and powers, requiring deliberate choices about design direction. The transition to thought-shaped software is inevitable, but implementation can either overlay a thought-shaped interface onto legacy, kludgy systems or rebuild software from first principles to represent human thoughts without twisting or controlling them. This choice will determine whether software empowers or manipulates users. Historical perspective on Luddites reframes resistance as concern for social and economic impacts and control over technological change. Practical practices like owning a graph improve clarity of value, and organizational dynamics often concentrate top talent on critical problems despite mature systems.
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