Ramble: "agency" is kinda dumb
If you spend any time on the "tech" side of twitter, you’ll see non-stop discussion on "agency". It’s usually grouped with IQ as a talking point which is equally stupid.
People define Agency as the ability to impose your will on your surroundings. I am not interested in the sociological side of this here (gender, sexuality, looks, environment) I’m more interested in the mechanics of the Will.
One thing this makes me question is where mental illness ends and "personality" begins. We say laziness or being rude is a personality trait but treat mental illness as external glitches. Are these not all on the same continuum? Also interestingly is how people view individuals with mental illness. One with BPD has a underlying "them" below the BPD, but people being rude/mean do not. At some point, after continuous failure by an individual, people become the sum of their actions. If you are consistently "lazy," that is your output. At some point, the "internal" you doesn't matter. Personality IS all of those glitches and fuck-ups we all have, mental illnesses included.
Think of Will as a battery. On Twitter they will say agency is using the battery to climb a mountain. In my opinion, agency is just the ability to align your ambition with your Will.
If my Will is to eat, sit on the couch, and do absolutely nothing, and I succeed in doing exactly that, I am operating at 100% capacity. I have imposed my Will on my environment perfectly. I am, by definition, as agentic as a CEO.
The CEO isn't "more agentic" than me, he simply has different ambitions.
We have almost turned "Agency" into a moral virtue rather than any definition. It represents doing an action that is viewed as valuable in certain communities. It is more representative of internal friction, or static energy buildup. If you want to do nothing and you do it, you have zero friction. If you want to make a million dollars but you're scrolling reels then you have internal friction and low agency.
The agency discussion on twitter is really just a circle jerk on who did the perceived "most-valuable" actions in any given community. We have kinda lost the plot here. I want to write about why IQ discussions are even stupider soon.