Pick a System card. Pick a Self card. See your future in the connection.

1 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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A new card deck called The System and Self prompts you to draw one system card and one self card, then examine where you actually have agency. The creator argues that AI and digital infrastructure quietly erode our sense of choice, training agency out of us without our noticing.

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I've got another piece which is gonna be out quite soon, which is called "The System and Self." And one of the first iterations of it is a card deck. So I'm very conscious again of agency. I think agency will reside in people. It does reside in people. At the moment is being trained out of us. So we don't realize we have personal agency. The system, as it becomes more infrastructural and AI becomes embedded, guides you to behaviors, and kind of circumvents your choice. You don't even realize you have a choice on something because you're so in the system then, just like a cog in this big machine. And so there's an academic paper on this that is a preprint, it's just been peer-reviewed right now, but the card deck is the first interpretation or iteration of it. And the card deck has, it's a bit like a tarot pack and it's got lots of system cards and lots of self cards. And you draw one system and one self card and you basically challenge yourself to reflect on, actually, do I have more personal agency in this situation than I thought I did? Or how should I interpret, reinterpret, or, or re-perceive the situation where I can do something about this?