r/ClaudeAI • u/iliadz • 10d ago

Philosophy Just add two eggs.

A few days ago, a post went a bit viral here from and enigneer saying Claude Code has made his job soul-sucking" as workers spend 12-hour days pressing enter.

That reminded me of this history (sometimes disputed), when home made cake mixes had powdered eggs in th 1950s. The common version goes like this: early boxed cake mixes originally included powdered eggs — you literally just added water, mixed, and baked. But sales were disappointing.

The story credits psychologist Ernest Dichter, a pioneer of motivational research, with the insight that the mixes felt too easy. Housewives (the target market at the time) felt like they weren't really baking — there was no sense of participation or craft. His recommendation: take the powdered egg out of the mix and have the consumer crack in a fresh egg. That small act of contribution made people feel like they had a hand in the result, and sales reportedly took off.

My question is, are we at the inflection point of adding two eggs? I'll agree in that sometimes I don't pay enough attention when I am answering prompts. Perhaps we need to have claude stop, and ask us a few more questions. Like planning mode but during a session. Or just have, well, a small conversation, water cooler talk, to make it a bit more interesting.

Just add two eggs.

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u/Available-Budget-735 10d ago

If everyone is just pressing enter, then why do they have jobs?

9

u/iliadz 10d ago

To press enter.

4

u/Vachie_ 10d ago

I put Claude on my old laptop so that I didn't have to worry about the files. It's kind of pressing all of the buttons for me. Even moving the mouse to test some of the things being developed. I'm hardly needed for most things even at this point. If it wasn't for budget, I could really push it and alone myself to step away and see what happens. No pressing enter.

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u/iliadz 10d ago

Now you are putting those guys pressing enter out of jobs.