CONCEPT
Productive Addiction as Ponzi Scheme of the Self
The application of Minsky's position taxonomy to the psychology of AI-augmented work — revealing productive addiction as a speculative-to-Ponzi progression in which the self's <em>output</em> is the asset whose appreciation must continue.
The Opus 4.6 simulation extends Minsky's financial taxonomy from balance sheets to psychological commitments, tracing the progression through which AI-augmented engagement moves from hedge (genuine flow, self-sustaining satisfaction) through speculative (refinancing through task seepage and micro-sessions) to Ponzi (engagement sustained entirely by continued output, because stopping would reveal a deficit that the output was designed to conceal). The framework reframes productive addiction — which Edo Segal described in You On AI as compulsive engagement indistinguishable from flow — as a specific financial-structural pattern whose progression is driven by the same mechanisms that produce institutional speculative bubbles. The builder who cannot stop is, in Minsky's precise terminology, refinancing a psychological position whose income stream no longer covers its obligations.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The hedge phase of AI-augmented engagement is genuine flow. The challenge-skill balance is matched; the flow conditions are met; the builder returns to life replenished. The income — in psychological terms, the satisfaction of