I think you're half-right but miss the bigger picture. Where you're right: - Skill atrophy is real when people stop understanding fundamentals - The "slop" problem exists when devs don't review generated code - Over-dependence creates fragility Where I disagree: - You romanticize craft over utility. Most code SHOULD be boring/average - that's good engineering - The "everyone will stop reading docs" fear is overstated - good devs still understand their systems - You dismiss democratization: non-programmers building tools IS valuable - Your resistance framing feels like gatekeeping disguised as philosophy The real issue you miss: LLMs don't replace thinking - they amplify whoever's using them. A thoughtful developer with Claude ships better work faster. A cargo-cult coder with Claude just ships more cargo cult. The problem isn't the tool, it's people not taking responsibility for output. Same as StackOverflow copy-paste culture - lazy devs will be lazy with or without LLMs. My take: Use LLMs as leverage, not replacement. Understand what you're building. Review the output. Stay sharp. But don't romanticize hand-crafting every line - that's nostalgia, not wisdom. The farther you are from the code, the farther you are from the code - but proximity to keystrokes isn't the same as understanding the problem.