The suck is why we're here

Purpose of Writing, Notes, and “The Suck”

• Many agree with the article’s idea that daily writing is a way to “remember how to think,” not to maximize output.
• Using journals/Notion/Obsidian is seen as a thinking aid; piping that into LLMs is described by some as “brain rot” that replaces one’s own structured thoughts with machine‑generated ones.
• Others say they use AI only after thinking—e.g., to clean up or summarize handwritten notes—arguing the real value is in the initial struggle.
• Several analogies compare AI shortcuts to using a forklift at the gym: you can move the weight, but you miss the point of the exercise.

AI in Personal Knowledge and Summarization

• Some find LLMs useful for clarifying difficult concepts, acting like a faster, more patient Stack Overflow or Google.
• Critics argue AI summaries are shallow “summaries of summaries” that omit the key insights and connections one would notice by reading the full text.
• This feeds into skepticism about AI for books/papers: searching and human summaries are acceptable, but many see LLM abstracts as especially lossy or misleading.

Programming with AI: Tool vs Crutch

• Strong divide: some see coding itself as the fun/thinking; others see it as boilerplate best offloaded to AI so they can focus on architecture and product ideas.
• Supporters report big gains for small “glue” tasks, scripts, config, doc lookups, and legacy-tool integration, while still reading and testing the generated code.
• Skeptics emphasize unreliability, hidden failure modes, and loss of skill, likening LLMs to an incompetent offshore contractor that must be micromanaged.
• Several note that for non‑trivial or spatial problems (e.g. 3D interaction, careful CSS) current models still perform poorly.

Art, Creativity, and Authenticity

• Many comments stress that art/writing’s value lies in the act and difficulty, not just the final artifact or monetization.
• Others argue people often just want results (content, leads, career advancement), so AI “slop” fits existing incentives.
• There’s recurring resentment toward “cosplay” or “vibe” creators who use AI, then present themselves as artists, writers, or programmers.

Quality, Slop, and Discoverability

• One camp echoes the article: widespread AI shortcuts will flood the web with low‑quality content, making genuine craft stand out more.
• Another camp is pessimistic: slop networks, SEO spam, and AI‑generated pages already dominate search, drowning out careful work.
• Several predict writing as a skill will be largely commoditized; the differentiator will be original insight and distribution, not prose quality.