The sentiment reminds me of the people who believe that having so much prosperity that people feel comfortable not working all year around... represents some terrible threat that must be vigorously resisted for the greater good! Think of what it would do to the poor metrics.

Literal overnight change might be too radical (although, frankly, I'd want to see some academic work on the matter because it sounds like it might work - typically the problem seems to be that the body politic tries every alternative but good policy first then blames the mess on freedom) but people who are scared of rapid improvement because they don't like change are a massive threat to human prosperity and really shouldn't be left in charge of anything important.

Delaying the industrial revolution was never a good choice at any point in human history. The potential gains from efficiency are unbelievably large.