Every time a new wave of technology shows up, we seem to tell ourselves the same story. It usually goes something like this: the machines are coming for our jobs, and the only honorable response is to fight them. The Industrial Revolution had its loom-smashers and rail-yard skeptics. We have AI think pieces and LinkedIn meltdowns. Different century; same anxiety. One of the most enduring stories from that earlier moment is the legend of John Henry, the steel-driving man who raced a steam-powered hammer, beat it, and died from the effort. The story is usually told as a kind of defiant victory. Human strength, grit, and pride holding the line against cold machinery. But that may be the wrong takeaway. John Henry didn’t lose because the machine was better. He lost because he treated it as an opponent instead of a tool. He proved a point, certainly, but at the cost of everything else. The machine kept working. The system moved on. The work still needed to be done. That feels uncomfortably ...