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Comment by VikingCoder | Hacker News Reader

Tom7 is kind of like the electronic version of the Primitive Technology Youtuber.

It's fascinating watching someone using some of the worst tools ever to make something in about the most labor-intensive way imaginable - and it's just beautiful. It's practically meditative.

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I know what you mean by Primitive Technology Youtuber, but I would encourage you to not dismiss the underlying concepts out of hand. Building a chair from green wood with hand tools may not work for Ikea, but it is much more energy-efficient than power tools [1].

There's also something incredibly empowering about working with tools you understand, both in software and woodworking.

[1]: https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/blogs/blog/podcast-12-the...

Oh absolutely. I'm going to confess that I read this book, "Replay" by Ken Grimwood, which is roughly about a guy who keeps having a heart attack on the same day, and wakes up in his younger body, with all of his memories. Again and again and again. Kind of like Groundhog Day, but for an entire adult life. I kind of became obsessed for a while with the idea that I would like to live my life over again. It was a really unhealthy obsession. It took a while for me to live in the moment, try to not hold on to my regrets, etc.

Back to the topic... I kind of watch things like Primitive Technology out of a hope/fear that I'll either get thrown back in time to when these skills were relevant, or that I'll live in a post-apocalyptic world where they're relevant again. (Which was probably inspired by reading Stephen King's "The Stand," and worrying about how my life would be if there was no electricity.)

But yeah, I love watching people show their enthusiasm... I love watching people demonstrate mastery over tools I don't know how to use... I love watching someone build something... Tom7 and Primitive Technology check all those boxes. Adam Savage's Tested often does, too.

> (Which was probably inspired by reading Stephen King's "The Stand," and worrying about how my life would be if there was no electricity.)

Reading ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ ATA formative age had a similar effect on me. :)

> but it is much more energy-efficient than power tools

Only if you forget to amortize the cost of supporting a human life for the extra marginal hours it takes

sure, let's all maximise the time we have available to spend on a couch consuming mindless tv.

The "but it takes tiiiiime" argument against making your own things (and achieving a kind of satisfaction, control and learning that's hard to beat) is simply dreadful.

It's nice to have the luxury of spare time. Many people don't. Or they have to budget it extremely tightly.

Don't project your use of spare time on everyone else. Some of us use spare time towards productive ends. I would personally prefer not to spend all my time living like a subsistence farmer from 1200 years ago.

Who are you to decide what people do and don't want to do with their spare time? Some people don't achieve any satisfaction from making their own things; they just see it as a chore. Your disappointment in that is just your subjective opinion, not any reflection of objective truth.

You also seem to think that there's nothing "productive" anyone could do with the time they save from not having to make their own things, which seems obviously false.

Industrialization and automation lead to higher human populations, so if your point was that the cost of supporting a human makes power tools more efficient than hand tools, I think you have it backwards.

Cheap energy makes efficiency less important.

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