Here’s another rant from the “get off my lawn” side of my personality. Or, maybe not. Maybe this is a thought-provoking post on the decline of civilization as we know it. Either way, here goes.
At one time in history, not that long ago, we as a species prided ourselves on hard work. We celebrated when we solved a difficult problem or created an artistic/literary masterpiece. We lauded the people responsible. Mostly. Sometimes we didn’t get around to celebrating them until after they died. And we tried to burn some of them for heresy because how dare they invoke science to question The Church.
Anyway, the point is that even most of the slowest among us eventually came around to the idea that hard work could pay off in exciting ways. New discoveries, new works of genius, new ideas! Or, at least something that we could be proud of individually. That clay pot may not be great, but we did that, dammit, and it’s pure genius. At the very least our hard work became something our mom could put on the refrigerator.
We used to laugh at the people who didn’t do the work. They were (correctly) labeled as lazy, shiftless, leeches. The smart kids avoided these people like the plague when it was group project time in school. Refusing to put in the effort was a vice.
Now it’s a virtue.
Somehow or other, we’ve started revering people who hit the easy button and reviling those who put in the work. Demonstrating care or mastery isn’t something people applaud any longer. They just wonder why you bothered. Why didn’t you just use AI? Why did you worry about whether or not your work is good? Just put out crap because no one cares anyway. No need to master the fundamentals anymore. Just shortcut yourself to “passable” work. No need to chase greatness when mediocrity will be rewarded just the same.
Even if you’re not rewarded morally, the financial rewards can make cheating and taking the easy way lucrative. In my line of work, people are using AI to crank out novels and sell them. And they’re making money! (Granted they have to keep changing pen names because most people stop buying once they learn the truth, but still… They’re making enough money that they don’t feel even the tiniest bit guilty for not putting in the work.) And this is going on in many industries and creative arts. Just slap your name on some AI shit and profit. Or steal someone else’s work, change it minutely, and profit.
And many people applaud them for finding a “hack” that lets them live life on easy mode. They flock to them asking how they can do it too. It’s hustle culture in hell. We celebrate the AI art more than the human generated art. We hold a banana taped to a wall higher than the greatest masterpieces. It’s demoralizing.
I cannot reconcile myself to this shift in attitude. What are we doing when cheating, stealing, and not putting in any human effort into something is lauded? How did we get to the point where the people who put in work are chumps and the lazy among us are heroes? How are we so okay with turning off the very deepest parts of our humanity for easy money and social media clout?
I can understand the economics of the situation. Thanks to years of failed leadership, things are expensive and times are tough. Many people need money and are willing to chuck their morals out the window to get it. And our leaders certainly don’t exemplify a solid moral code. They’re all about the grift and the cheat. Anything to enrich themselves, and to hell with everyone else. Most of them are hitting the easy button on their jobs. They’re not coming in to work to vote on anything, they’re not doing the work of governing or crafting policy. They’re just slapping AI shit together and calling it a day. If they’re doing anything at all beyond collecting checks from lobbyists.
When kids see all of that, why should they want to work? Why should anyone? Everyone should just grift their way to riches any way they can. Morality? Bah. If there’s a way to cheat, most are taking it and deriding those of us who still want to put in actual effort as suckers. Or regarding us with suspicion because we must have some nefarious agenda. (Yeah, my agenda is that I don’t want my brain to turn to mush and I actually enjoy the process of pushing myself to do ever-better work. Yep. I’m super subversive that way.) We’re being figuratively burned at the stake just like the scholars of medieval times.
Well, I guess I’m a sucker because I can’t applaud this shift. I yearn for the days when good grades were something to strive for, not something that only suckers got because the lazy idiots know they’ll be moved up a grade even if they flunk. I miss the days when hard-earned incremental progress was celebrated, not laughed at because, “If you’d cheated at this, you would have been at this place two years ago.” It’s hard to know that future generations will compare slop and greatness and prefer the slop because its creator “beat the system.”
There aren’t any answers to this because the structure of society rewards this stupidity. All I can say is that if you’re uncomfortable about it, too, you’re not alone. I’m out here rooting for you to put in the effort and make your art, or do your job to the best of your human ability. I’m rooting for you to learn, grow and progress in your endeavor without resorting to the slop machine, theft, or cheating. If you’re out there fighting the good fight to keep your brain strong and active and to make things you can be proud of, I wish you all the best.
