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- Split competitive-analysis-2026-05.org → TOC + 9 competitor files in ideas/competitors/. Dropped date from filename. All competitor UUIDs generated, TOC keeps original UUID for backlink continuity. - Deleted passepartout-economics.org archive (replaced by 27-node KB). - Inlined 5 'See also' blocks into natural prose (compliance-index, first-mover-window, revenue-table, orders-of-magnitude-time, native-org-knowledge-base). - Linked 7 orphan compliance pages back to compliance index + finished truncated sentences. - Linked all 14 Agora requirement docs from topic-relevant pages (identity→lisp-machine-security, infrastructure→compute-marketplace, social-space→growth-strategy, exchange→agora-contracts, etc.). - Linked ai-industry-impact from investment-thesis, sufficiency-flip, verification-appliance, effects-growth-flywheel (up from 1 to 10+ pages). - Fixed CREATED timestamps to use git commit dates instead of today. - Made all links absolute from root (no port inheritance). - Removed stale agora/docs/ duplicate content.
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Orders of Magnitude — Time
Time at human scales is best thought of in orders of magnitude, not linear progression. Each jump in scale is qualitatively different — the constraints, the tools, the feedback loops, and the failure modes change entirely.
The hierarchy:
| Scale | What fits | Feedback | Failure mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minutes | Firefighting, ops, real-time decisions | Instant | Burnout, whiplash |
| Hours | Work session, meeting, focused task | Same day | Interruption cascade |
| Days | Shippable thing, momentum building | Next day | Drift, distraction |
| Weeks | Sprint, feature, market pulse | One cycle | Wrong direction |
| Months | Product cycle, hiring, traction | One data point | Bleeding out slow |
| Years | Company, moats, technology shifts | Scarce | Irrelevance |
| Generations | Culture, regulation, infrastructure | Post-founding | Irreversibility |
Practical use:
When planning anything, identify which order of magnitude you're operating in — then use the tools and cadence appropriate to that scale, not the one below or above it. A minutes problem solved with a weeks solution is overengineering; a years problem approached with days thinking is naive.
Common mistake: treating a months/years problem as if it can be solved in days/weeks (startup hype, premature optimization) or a minutes problem as if it deserves weeks of deliberation (analysis paralysis, bikeshedding).
The Time estimates page applies this framework to Passepartout's development timeline.