Why Brute Force is failing and how to install the new OS.
The Signal: Architecture > Brute Force
Welcome to the new standard.
If you have been reading me for the past 11 weeks, you noticed a change. We switched languages. This is not a random choice. The battle against human obsolescence is global.
The standard of the Tech Industry is English. To compete at the highest level, we must align with the standard.
Today, we launch Above Average OS v1.0.
And to understand why this matters, we need to look at what happened in the AI world just 96 hours ago.
1. The End of the "Muscle Head" Era
On January 1, 2026, DeepSeek (the Chinese AI lab) released a paper that quietly humiliated the rest of the industry.
For years, the strategy in AI was "Brute Force":
Want a smarter model? Buy more GPUs.
Want better reasoning? Burn more electricity.
Want to beat OpenAI? Spend more billions.
This was the "Muscle Head Era." Pure, raw power (and a lot of money wasted).
But DeepSeek had a problem: they faced heavy export controls. They couldn't just "buy more power" (Nvidia H100s were restricted). So they were forced to think differently.
They published the "Manifold-Constrained Hyper-Connections" (mHC) framework.
Without getting bogged down in the math, here is the lesson: Instead of adding more hardware, they optimized the internal architecture of the network. They made the "brain" efficient, so it didn't need as much "muscle."
The Result: They achieved state-of-the-art performance at a fraction of the cost.
The Lesson: Clever Architecture beats brute force.
2. Are you running on Brute Force?
This is exactly where most Senior Professionals (+40) are failing today. We are trying to survive modern life using the "Muscle Head" strategy:
Work is overwhelming? --> we brute force it (Work late, skip lunch, sleep 5 hours).
Health is declining? --> we brute force it (Extreme diets, "David Goggins" mode for 2 weeks, then crash).
Family is demanding? --> we brute force it (Multitasking, being physically present but mentally absent).
We are trying to fix a Software Problem (bad habits, lack of focus, poor prioritization) with Hardware (more hours, more coffee, more stress).
It is unsustainable. Eventually, the hardware breaks, you already know that.
In engineering, we call it "Catastrophic Failure."
In life, we call it Burnout, Divorce, or a Heart Attack.
3. The Threat: The Vegetalization of Humanity
While we exhaust ourselves with brute force, the machines are taking over our cognitive load.
I have spent the last year devouring every single book by philosopher Éric Sadin. From “L'Intelligence artificielle ou l'enjeu du siècle” to his latest essays. Reading him completely rewired my perspective on what we do for a living.
As tech professionals, we are often blinded by the "utility" of the tool. We obsess over efficiency. But Sadin exposes the hidden cost: The Administration of Existence.
He argues that when we let algorithms guide every decision, from what route to drive (Waze) to what code to write (Copilot) to what to watch (Netflix), we are not "optimized." We are neutralized.
We are witnessing the "Vegetalization of the human subject."
A state where we are no longer "Agents" acting on the world, but merely passive nodes receiving instructions from a system.
The Danger of the "AI Slooper" There is a new term floating around: the "AI Slooper." It refers to the lazy user who blindly loops prompts, accepts the first output, and lets the LLM do the thinking.
The Slooper asks AI to write the email and sends it without reading.
The Slooper asks AI to solve the bug and pastes the code without understanding the logic.
This is exactly what Sadin warns about. When you bypass the friction of thinking, you atrophy the muscle of judgment.
Our mandate as tech people: we cannot be luddites. We must use AI. I use it every day to leverage my output. But there is a thin line between leverage and dependency.
Leverage is using AI to run faster.
Dependency is forgetting how to walk.
If you are a Tech Lead today, your job is to master the tool without becoming its pet. You must "out-architect" DeepSeek. You must reclaim your agency.
4. The Solution: The "Full-Stack Human" OS
I am transitioning from a standard Tech Professional to a Full-Stack Human. I stopped trying to "hustle." I started engineering my life like a mission-critical system.E
We need to be future-proof.
The Above Average OS is the framework I use to ensure I don't become "Legacy Code." It has 3 Layers:
THE KERNEL (Biological Layer): Prioritizing sleep and nutrition as if they were server maintenance. If the server is down, the code doesn't run. Metric: HRV and Sleep Score. You can get this info from your Oura ring or Garmin Watch, it's not rocket science.
THE APPLICATION (Performance Layer): Deep Work protocols (90 min blocks) and endurance training (In my case marathon but you can choose whatever you want). We use the this not for fitness, but as a Stress Test for the mind. Metric: Output quality and VO2 Max.
THE SECURITY (Legacy Layer): Protecting my time with my children. Being a "Clean Core" father, present, stable, and uncorrupted by digital noise. Metric: Presence. You know if you're doing this task OK or not.
THE DEPLOYMENT: My Personal Dashboard (🎁)
I am not just giving you theory. I am giving you the Source Code.
To celebrate the launch of this new format, I am releasing my personal Notion Dashboard. This is the command center I use every Sunday to refactor my week.
It includes:
The Identity Stack: Defines your roles (e.g., "Tech Lead", "Athlete", "Father").
The AI Performance Director: A specific prompt module to turn ChatGPT into a ruthless auditor of your time.
The Calendar Debugger: A protocol to spot "Spaghetti Code" in your agenda.
🔒 ACCESS THE DASHBOARD
To ensure quality control, the Above Average OS (Notion Template) is exclusively available to subscribers.
👉 Click here to unlock the system (Free)
Let’s build this together (v1.0)
This Operating System is currently in v1.0. It works for me, but I want to know if it works for you.
I treat this community as an Open Source project.
Reply to this email: What module is missing? What part of your "Operating System" is currently crashing? I read every reply. Let's iterate on this together.
Next Week: We will talk about "The Biology of Focus" and why your calendar is actually a heat map of your energy, not your time.
Stop forcing. Start architecting.
Pablo Marichal Tech Lead | 19x Marathoner