analogmoose
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2022–2025
2:55 · 2.8M views · Mar 12, 2014
A That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch in which Stone Age workers are given an orientation about the arrival of bronze. It satirizes change management and resistance to new technology.
Posted as a joke whenever threads discuss technological change, layoffs or hype around new tech.
4 comments from Hacker News
> For hundreds of thousands of years, pre-historic man became very skilled at cutting rocks in order to make stone age tools....When metal working developed, all of the hundreds of thousands of years of skill in making stone tools was meaningless Relevant Mitchell & Webb Look sketch: this video Also that's all well and good, but people won't necessarily take their skills being obsoleted lightly, just shrug their shoulders and disappear into the sunset. It could get to the point (especially if predictions about A.I. replacing a large swatch of jobs turns out to be true) that the people will get violent if unemployment gets too high. Just look at riots in Greece (when youth unemployment was 50%)[1] or France[2] for just a couple of examples. Granted, that's not going to happen with this particular layoff, especially with the unemployment rate at a low 3.5%, but if it gets back into the double digits, it starts becoming more likely. This is probably the real reason we gave out stimulus and PPP loans at the beginning of the Covid pandemic - to stop people from being so jobless, broke, that they take it out on the government. Not out of empathy. [1]: [LINK] [2]: [LINK]
That's a slightly "luddite" interpretation. The bus conductor job-class was outmoded by technology. More jobs are created at a higher technology level. This is how society has progressed for all history. A fantastic Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch on this topic: this video
"I'm so sick of hearing about bronze. Bronze bronze bronze bronze. Whats wrong with stone? Does stone not work all of a sudden?" this video
That makes me think of a fun Mitchell and Webb sketch, involving rock professionals and the introduction of bronze. this video