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epicPOV 01 · defensibility: high
Attention Is the Last Scarce Thing
AI made competence cheap, so attention is the only scarce thing left.
The bottleneck was never time — it was attention. When AI removes the friction of the blank page, it also removes the oily fingerprints that made the work yours. Output without proper attention is just slop, and you can ship slop faster than ever. Every AI-assisted artefact has a caring-per-token ratio; below a threshold it's slop regardless of how good the model is.
Inscriptions
304
Sources
206
Became
3
Last fed
1mo ago
Inscriptions — the highlights that fed it
“I also had a lot of experience in “translating genius.” Essentially a lot of very smart people are poor communicators. I spent years working out how to make complex specialist research accessible for a generalist audience.”
articlesmy noteEchoes what Rik thinks is my skill: - translating complex ideas to simplified texts via news articles, Substack, talks - translating what I see into photography & painting - always comfortable adapting things to multi-medium. The problem is I get overwhelmed - have an output-oriented approach [[essay idea]] I'm stuck in this rut. So if you're keen, why don't you coach me? What would you do with these tendencies? These skills? What do you imagine I can do with my life?
“If it’s a repeatable task, I can build a workflow for managing it.”
articlesmy noteit's like what coders do. If it's a repeatable task, they automate it.
“From 2017 to 2021 I had approximately 400 curiosity conversations with anyone who wanted to book a call on my calendar each Wednesday.”
articlesmy notethese become Paul's audience. He knows who to write for and what to say because he has curated and collected many ideas, thoughts, worries and feedback from people. sabbatical
“While writing this book, for instance, I benefited from the critical eyes of dozens of colleagues, who didn’t ask a penny for their time.”
booksmy noteSo WOP is like a mini-communism, according to this definition. We take and give each other feedback for free.
“I recommend you shift as much of your time and effort as possible from consuming to creating.V”
booksmy noteOutput is what makes someone valuable
“On the subway, I kept my phone in my pocket and people-watched”
articlesmy notewill doodle instead of scrolling thru phone
“The harder, and more competitive, are the Time Delay and Effort & Sacrifice. The best companies in the world focus all their attention on the bottom side of the equation. Making things immediate, seamless, and effortless.”
books“To avoid impulsively “just shipping it,” he introduces deliberate friction through cooldown periods when reviewing designs or providing feedback. This intentional pause allows ideas to mature, fostering more thoughtful and meaningful responses.”
articles“Focus on getting it right over being right. This idea can be applied to many situations. Transcript: Johnny Harris Caring more about getting it right than being right. And this could be applied to everything.”
podcastsWhat this taught me to write — receipts
01I had AI write my newsletter
Beck At It · 20 May 2026
Claude has gamified work
Beck At It · 13 May 2026
Oops I built an app
Beck At It · 4 Mar 2026
⚷ Unwritten · the next page of this tome
“The attention budget”
Creators need to track attention spend the way they track money. Every AI-assisted artefact has a caring-per-token ratio, and below a threshold it's slop regardless of the model. — drafted from the tome, not yet published.