by zackmorris | 2026-02-18 17:36:38+00:00
Since no comment here has expressed my experience of watching tech devolve since I started programming in the late 1980s, I thought I'd leave one.

I've been vibe coding for a few months now and have gone through the grieving process. I may never manually code again.

It's bittersweet though. I had grown to loathe computers and the direction that tech has headed for so many years and decades that I had internalized the feeling of living in bizarro world, a kind of purgatory or living hell. One where the harder we worked, the more of ourselves that we put into our work, the more likely we were to fail.

Not because of what we did, but because of what we didn't do. That there is an opportunity cost with coding, that it requires such an existential sacrifice of time and life itself to accomplish even the smallest result, that it may as well be wizardry or akin to living as a monk.

Meaning that we simply didn't have the time to see markets appear, to promote our work or network with other entrepreneurs. We failed due to our own singlemindedness and determination. We failed because others intentionally unburdened themselves of the timesuck that is our way, to focus on the business side and get rich.

Think about what I just said. That the more we grew and honed our craft, the more we were punished for it by the status quo - society itself. That is the ultimate betrayal of a belief system. The ultimate internalization of failure. The ultimate low-vibration thought around guilt and shame.

Meanwhile tech bros went around the problem by using us to achieve their ends. They patted themselves on the back as they pulled the ladder up behind them. They called empathy the ultimate weakness, and they weren't wrong. We're the living proof of that weakness. Having to watch as they do the opposite of everything that is good and holy in our names, feeling powerless to stop them. If there are enemies foreign and domestic, a clear and present danger to all we hold dear as human beings, it is they, it is them.

The identity I once held as the one who can solve any problem - not just the problem itself but the problem of solving problems by codifying automations - is now forfeit.

AI already does that better and faster than I ever could, and it's improving so rapidly that it will transcend all human ability in just a decade. It's over.

Now, some of you reading this are already scoffing at what I'm saying, already fuming with rage at the implications, the ramifications of living in a world where novices run circles around experts, where the sacred becomes a plaything for the rich and powerful. But the cat's out of the bag. We're looking at a future so dystopian that it could unravel all progress ever achieved by humanity. We're staring the end in the face.

I'm reminded of Neo in The Matrix when the Architect told him that he wasn't the first version of The One, and that he must choose between love and the survival of all humankind.

So I've been transmuting my grief into acceptance on the road to peace. I reject their zero-sum game. We are more than what we do, or what we have.

I see a future in which the more they tighten their grip, the more we slip through their fingers. A future where they get everything they wish for, where their karma catches up with them. A future where their own notion of self-important grandeur makes them look insignificant against the glory of just being alive. My deepest wish for them is that they lose it all to find themselves back at square one like the rest of us, so that they can start living again.

When viewed in that light, loss of identity might be seen as the ultimate gift, a kind of reincarnation. A way to start over. A rebirth.