Bryan Cantrill argues that laziness — the constraint of finite human time — forces the crisp abstractions that make good software. LLMs lack this constraint; left unchecked, they generate 37,000 lines of noise per day. This simulation shows three constraint regimes producing visibly different outcomes from the same generative process.
Particles spawn freely with random colors and never die. The screen fills with noise because there is no selection pressure and no inheritance — abundance without constraint produces nothing coherent.
New particles are rare and inherit from the fittest, with small mutations. The unfit slowly fade and die. Scarcity plus inheritance produces convergence toward the target — this is what productive constraint looks like.
Particles spawn frequently but die after 1.5 seconds with no inheritance. A trace memory strip preserves the 12 fittest particles ever observed. Moderate resources without memory produce constant churn — occasional brilliance that the system cannot retain.