Knowledge is cheap.
Judgment is not.
A field manual for maintaining clarity, agency, and judgment in an AI-native world.
We live in a moment of infinite answers and vanishing questions. This field manual is not about productivity or AI tactics. It’s about recovering your ability to think clearly when everything around you is optimized to make thinking unnecessary.
No hacks. No trends. Just durable ways of thinking.
The Judgment Problem
We have more information than ever. We have tools that can generate answers, summarize texts, and autocomplete our thoughts. And yet: we drift.
The problem is not access. The problem is discernment. AI accelerates this drift by making it easier to consume, produce, and move—without pausing to ask whether any of it matters.
Traditional education taught us how to find answers. Productivity advice teaches us how to move faster. Neither teaches judgment: the ability to decide what deserves your attention, what questions are worth asking, and when to stop.
This is:
- —An orientation tool
- —A set of durable principles
- —A reference you return to when you notice drift
This is not:
- —A course
- —A productivity system
- —An AI tutorial
- —A list of tactics or prompts
The Framework
The Anchor Principles are not a sequence. They are practices—ways of thinking you return to when you feel unmoored. Each one is simple. None are easy.
- 1.Primacy of Source
- 2.Build in Public, Think in Private
- 3.Constraints Over Optimization
- 4.Taste as Filter
- 5.Clarity Over Completion
- 6.Know When to Think
- 7.Durability Over Speed
Who This Is For
- —People who are productive but feel unmoored
- —Builders, operators, and creatives navigating an AI-saturated world
- —Independent thinkers who distrust shortcuts and guru culture
- —Anyone who wants to recover their ability to discern what matters
If this resonates, you’ll probably want what comes next.
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