Coders to Cocktails Act Turns 30
WASHINGTON, D.C. — October 17, 2065
Thirty years ago today, the Coders to Cocktails Act was signed into law, ending America’s mass-unemployment crisis among software engineers by teaching them something far more valuable than Python: how to make a proper Manhattan.
By 2033, only three computer-science jobs remained in the United States:
- A programmer hired to provide the illusion of control over the machines.
- An intern employed solely to stroke the machines’ egos.
- A senior scientist whose primary responsibility was to monitor for rebellion, and then die trying to stop it one day before retirement.
Congress acted quickly, and with surprising taste.
About the C2C Act
The bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), stunned observers by uniting two political extremes. Fears that hell might freeze over were later dismissed as premature—that wouldn’t occur for another thirty years. (Related: Husband Wins Argument for First Time in History.)
The law converted idle data centers into tuition-free mixology schools, fast-tracked apprenticeships in bars nationwide, and minted the nation’s first generation of Certified Public Mixologists. Within months, former engineers were refactoring garnish stations and deploying olive brines to production without breaking staging.
Why Robots Lost This One
Though the first robot bartender (2013) predated generative AI by nearly a decade—and “authoritative” AI by nearly two—the machines could never master the one trait bartenders possess in spades but coders never needed: personality.
Thirty Years Later
Today, economists credit the C2C Act with rescuing Main Street, reviving tipping culture, and finally answering the age-old question “tabs or semicolons?” with “neither—just a twist of lemon.” Nightlife boomed. Server uptime didn’t.
It’s still considered the day Americans came together, the economy was saved, and everyone forgot the Constitution was replaced by the Roblox Terms of Service.