I really struggle with this argument that I see everywhere lately, especially when we see many vibecoders clearly desperate for clout who post "decomps" and automated translations of works they clearly have no interest in and just want to claim a spot on the wall of fame. I'm talking about people bulk-translating old ROMs and not even booting them up to see if they work before releasing them in the wild for instance.

Their lazy cloud-chasing is normal but my high-effort clout-chasing is lame and makes me a fraud?

We're social animals. We like doing cool stuff and getting social status for it. We like breaking new ground. We like going where nobody has gone before.

Is it irrational and emotional? Maybe. Being human is being irrational and emotional sometimes. It's fine.

I am no one in anything, the thing is I love spending hours writing code, fixing some weird issue somewhere in the code, and then see it working as it intended. But now I can just put up some text and the whole thing is generated. Using my thoughts, the things I learnt, and applying them are not needed.

I can see there are still lot to do in the generated code, but I also feel something went away, Now I start working on it, and realize I'm reminded I just have to dictate what I need and it will be generated

It's like I have to pay for the best gun in the game to win, otherwise I can't just progress. Then why am I playing the game for?

Of course, passion here meant feeling good about putting effort into something which doesn't have obvious external life benefits such as money or visibility. If an LLM can just knock it out then it's hard to feel good about putting that effort in.

I don't see why it wouldn't, passion does not exists in a vacuum.

> It's like saying that concept of dynamite fishing affects passionate anglers.

Are you implying that it does not?

If dynamite fishing were deployed on the scale the AI infra is, with VC capital and government backing, we'd run out of fish in a week.

The concept doesn't affect much, deployment of it affects a lot.

Well if dynamite fishers show up in your favorite fishing spot you might want to consider moving somewhere else at least.

I get what you’re going for but that’s a poor analogy. If I was a passionate angler and someone showed up dynamite fishing at the same spot, the activity I’m passionate about is ruined.