There are two interpretations of everyone’s favorite phrase: “you can just do things.” @_TamaraWinter makes the case that its essential we are clear what we mean when we say and act upon that line. One is empowering: the world is plastic and you can change it. In The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, Richard Hamming's message to his students (Tammy paraphrasing) is, “I want you to be incredibly serious about your own life. I want you to take your dreams, your aspirations, extremely seriously.” The other is destructive: you can just take what you want. Rules are for other people. A little fare evasion “for the cause,” a white lie for a “free hotel scarf,” a shoplift from big capitalism here or there. It feels clever in isolation. But antisocial moves compound. Each one teaches everyone else that the guardrails are optional, until real life slows everything down: more locks on toothpaste, less trust, increasing societal friction. We’ve all seen how things play out when this form of destructive agency wins (SF’s Mid‑Market Whole Foods closed after a year amid reported theft and safety issues). You might say that pushing cultural norms and actual crime aren’t comparable. But healthy societies held up by soft social scaffolding must shift into harder enforcement to maintain safety and make spaces less fluid. The technology industry is held up by a set of norms that enable tremendous goodwill to flow. Do we take that for granted? Here's Tammy: “I find it both heartening and disheartening to see a lot of people I appreciate saying, I really don't like that. I don't want us to become the kind of place that rewards what I think is cultural arson. We have lost the ability to distinguish. Some people use their agency in ways that I think are just bad. Even though there are a lot of cultural consensuses that no longer hold, 'cheating is bad' is one that I think still holds.” Here’s a quick test: if a move from you would force stricter rules or less freedom when copied by a thousand people, it isn’t agency, it’s extraction. In the latest @dialecticpod episode, Tammy makes the clear case: act, but don’t cheat; build, but don’t erode the social substrate we all stand on. High agency without guardrails can quickly spiral into cultural arson. I’ll leave you with this excerpt from our conversation, as we remembered Joan Didion’s advice on agency: Jackson: "I was rereading On Self-Respect by Joan Didion, and there's a line in there where she's talking about character. It's exactly what you're saying. She says, 'Character is taking responsibility for your own life.'" Tamara: "'People with self-respect know the price of things!' They don't engage in an affair and then feel like, ‘It was you that made me do it.’ They don't throw rocks and hide their hands. They know the price of things.” Links below.

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