[benreesman]

I think my personal anecdote supports this observation with the treatment group being "me in the zone" and control group "me not in the zone".

When I'm pulling out all the stops, leaving nothing for the swim back the really powerful (and expensive!) agents are like any of the other all out measures: cut all distractions, 7 days a week, medicate the ADHD, manage the environment ruthlessly, attempt something slightly past my abilities every day. In that zone the truly massive frontier behemoths are that last 5-20% that makes things at the margin possible.

But in any other zone its way too easy to get into "hi agent plz do my job today I'm not up for it" mode, which is just asking to have some paper-mache, plausible if you squint, net liability thing pop out and kind of slide above the "no fucking way" bar with a half life until collapse of a week or maybe month.

These are power user tools for monomaniacal overachievers and Graeberism detectors for everyone else (in the "who am I today" sense, not bucketing people forever sense).