as technologists and builders, we have a responsibility to design systems that increase the floor of agency.

The power of agency is, in practice, the power to build: to direct our intelligence toward the work of understanding the world and adapting it to our needs. It's how we impose a purposeful order on nature's chaos. – Gena Gorlin

The current paradigm of technology design often optimizes for engagement and potential at the expense of user agency. This creates a form of learned helplessness, where users become increasingly dependent on systems with no worldview.