January 3, 2026
No pain, no post
The Suck Is Why We're Here
No pain, no prose: commenters roast AI shortcuts and hype the hard work
TLDR: A blogger rejects AI mimicry, saying daily writing is a workout for thinking, not output. Comments explode into Team Grind vs Team Assist: many cheer the struggle as the point, while others say search and light AI help are fine—but outsourcing your brain kills the joy and the craft
A writer says an AI clone of his voice felt like the uncanny valley of blog posts, and the crowd went wild. His point: he blogs daily to think, not to churn. Cue a chorus of “No pain, no prose.” Commenter analogpixel slammed using chatbots in journals and notes apps: the whole point is to think better, not outsource it. Fans cheered Ezra Klein’s take that AI book summaries miss the exact connections you’d make yourself, with people joking “touch grass, read the book” and linking the interview and the author’s own piece on reading full books.
Then came the drama. Team Grind says struggle is the secret sauce; Team Assist says small tools help. One commenter dropped a domestic sitcom about choosing long division over walking to get a phone—proof that effort still feels good. Another went full philosophy with “I think, therefore I am,” arguing the thinking is the art. But skybrian pushed back: search isn’t useless, as long as you know what you’re looking for—AI as flashlight, not ghostwriter. The vibe? People crave craft, meaning, and that sweaty brain-muscle burn. The spicy split is whether AI’s a helpful sidekick or a creativity crutch. Either way, the community’s verdict is loud: the suck is the point, and shortcuts rarely satisfy
Key Points
- •An AI model was trained on the author’s past blog posts to generate new articles in his style.
- •The author found AI outputs exhibited an uncanny valley, often diverging from his intended direction or argument.
- •The author states that even a perfect emulation would be useless because his daily blog is a thinking and practice ritual.
- •Ezra Klein is cited as using AI only for light research and data structuring, arguing summaries miss a writer’s unique questions and connections.
- •The article argues that struggling through writing challenges is essential, and reliance on AI shortcuts can degrade quality.