
The case for working with your hands (2009) - bookofjoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html
======
mdturnerphys
I'm reminded of this line: "More and more people in this country no longer
make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa
constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary"
[0].

A year and a half ago I finally made my way back to hands-on hardware
development after a few years in data science. It's very satisfying to have a
job where there's some physical labor involved and I recognize how lucky I am
to be in such a job in a tech company.

[0] [https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-
tr...](https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/)

~~~
combatentropy
Now that is weird. Yesterday I thought the same thing, that the durable jobs
are those that a child can understand: grocer, teacher, police officer,
firefighter, plumber, and so on. And I was thinking specifically about Richard
Scarry books.

~~~
mattrp
Me too! Seriously just yesterday I was thinking it would be valuable to study
the NEC electrical code with my kids. I may be wrong but seems like
electricians fall into the same category. As a side note: I have a house going
through final trade inspections now and an issue came up where I literally
turned to stack exchange to educate myself on the issue prior to going back to
my electrician to insist he back off from his stance that he’s right and the
inspectors wrong (not that this is a sustainable position in the first
place).. but it was interesting how the stack exchange culture has gone beyond
developers.

~~~
Animats
The Illustrated Guide to the NEC is useful, although the current version is
overpriced. Because It's A Textbook.

------
dekhn
I was extremely lucky to transfer to a team at my employer that did full-time
making (like Maker Faire). After many years of being totally ignorant about
things that I cared about a lot (making structures that do interesting
things), I was finally able to work with people who had been raised as
gearheads and makers, and I found that I truly enjoyed working with my hands.
Now, there are many things I don't like to do manually, but I will spend a ton
of time designing parts in CAD, coercing my printer or mill to make them, and
then assemble the parts into something larger/more interesting.

Eventually I managed to build some really cool stuff, including a scanning
microscope (from CNC parts) and a "Bean Machine" which demonstrates the
central limit theorem. Now I'm experimenting with rendering 3D surfaces into
wood by writing python programs that output g-code so they can be milled (this
would take far too long to do by hand unless I was retired).

Fun stuff. I think working with your hands (not typing on a computer, but
cutting, carving, shaping, making etc) can be very enjoyable.

~~~
samcheng
I've been thinking about wood CNC myself. What kinds of tools are used these
days?

I have seen basically X-Y stages hooked up to a hand router, but I wonder if
there are other approaches.

~~~
dekhn
I have an X-carve, which is basic X-Y-Z stages hooked up to a hand router, for
about $2K. I have one carving behind me right now (currently playing with
generating sine wave and reaction-diffusion patterns in numpy, converting
those to heightmaps in OpenSCAD, generating g-code with MeshCAM, and then
rendering in wood).

There are also 6040 mills, which are similar but built differently, and
shopbots, which are big but capable, plus a bunch of others. To me, the
X-carve was the right combination of price, features, and support. I
previously had the ShapeOko but it really wasn't capable enough.

~~~
samcheng
Thanks for the tips! I've been doing something similar with Python + FreeCAD
for FDM (3D plastic printing).

Wood is just so much nicer as an end product, though.

------
Wistar
Last night I watched a very good documentary called "Takumi" which was
commissioned by Lexus. The version I watched was a 53 minute long cut-down of
the original 60,000 hour long piece—claimed to be the longest documentary ever
produced—that intimately explores the working lives of four Japanese master
craftspeople who spend 60,000 hours to achieve the master artisan status known
as "Takumi."

It was made to "emphasize that, in a world where technology and AI can
replicate or better anything man can do, human craftsmanship still has a
purpose and could become more prized than ever."

The short version I watched streams on Amazon Prime. The full version,
"Takumi: a 60,000 hour story of the survival of human craft" is available
online hosted with a special video player (with a kind-of weird UI) that
allows the user to quickly move about the 60,000 hour (6.8 year) timeline:

[https://takumi-craft.com/us/en](https://takumi-craft.com/us/en)

~~~
e2e8
The documentary is not actually 60000 hours long. There is well under an hour
of footage for the carpenter so the whole thing is maybe a few hours and it
loops those shots repeatedly. It is presented as if it is that long to
emphasize the thesis of the documentary. It is kind of ironic that in a film
which makes a big deal of the notion that there are no short cuts to mastery
they took such a short cut in producing the supposedly very long documentary.
I was disappointed to discover this because I was actually looking forward to
at least a few hundred hours of nice footage of the carpenter working. They
could easily have done that.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Of course with these traditional long apprenticeships you spent your first
year filing and making the tea :-)

AT my first place we did have some master carpenters who made some of the
hydrodynamic models - the work they did was breathtakingly fabulous works of
art in their own right

------
leftyted
The thing about (simple, repetitive) manual labor is that you can think about
other things while you do it. There's something liberating about working a
full day while being able to think about whatever you like.

You can't think about other things while you're programming. Of course, you
get paid a lot more and it's easier on your body.

~~~
Baeocystin
One of the things I genuinely enjoyed about welding was that it was difficult
enough to be engaging, easy enough that I could let my mind relax in to the
flow of things and roll ideas around in my head while I worked. On a good day,
it felt like my shift passed in a flash.

~~~
chrisseaton
> On a good day, it felt like my shift passed in a flash.

Surely that’s a bad thing that a job is so bad you need to wish the day away
as quickly as possible rather than enjoying it?

~~~
Enginerrrd
No. A flow state is notorious for a couple of things: Being extremely
satisfying, and passing by in a flash. Flow state is good for the psyche.

~~~
Baeocystin
Exactly so. You couldn't reach it every day, but the majority of the time I
genuinely looked forward to and enjoyed the work, because is was so amenable
to the flow state.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's _Flow_ describes it well.
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W94FE6/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W94FE6/)

------
allovernow
I wanted to quote the article, but it looks like they've disabled text
selection????

Anyway, I think killing shop was short sighted. I never got to experience it
as I graduated in the 00s, but having hobbies that involve handiwork, building
things teaches you discipline, patience, and a way of thinking different to
and complimentary with typical "knowledge" work. I think general mechanical
skills are extremely useful for young people to learn.

~~~
reificator
I can select text on Firefox latest on Win10.

As far as shop goes, we still had shop class in middle school around 2005. I
believe high school also offered some sort of mechanic class, where you could
do simple work on cars. Not 100% sure because I didn't take it.

------
hprotagonist
If you like this, Crawford's book-length treatment is called "Shop class as
soul-craft", and is generally worth a read.

~~~
jseliger
It's a good book. We encourage too many people to be abstract symbol
manipulators and encourage too few people to work with their hands (or hands
and mind together): [http://seliger.com/2017/06/16/rare-good-political-news-
boost...](http://seliger.com/2017/06/16/rare-good-political-news-boosting-
apprenticeships/). It's got to be pretty obvious not just to me, but to just
about any intellectually honest person teaching at non-elite colleges and
universities that a whole lot of people are in them who take out lots of
student loans but get very little out of the process.

~~~
geomark
"...hands and mind together..."

mens et manus - does MIT really practice that or is it just a motto with no
action behind it?

~~~
hprotagonist
You need hands to breed yeast or test mice or splice genes.

Probably not what you had in mind, but plenty of wetlab work gets done on
campus every day.

------
samatman
This leaves me curious about the connection between the philosophy department
at the University of Chicago and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

~~~
poliscithrow
It was the political science department, not the philosophy department. (For
academic purposes, political philosophy is a subfield of political science,
not of philosophy.)

I'm not sure where your curiosity comes from—Crawford is presented in the
story as taking a break from his academic career to work on the motorcycle.
There's no continuity between the two things except his own personality and
involvement.

~~~
tsomctl
He made a joke. And in the likely chance you haven't read it, I strongly
recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

~~~
cushychicken
I absolutely cannot stand that book. It's largely a narcissist making
superficial observations about what "doing a good job" means in the face of
his son's very real mental health struggles.

~~~
tsomctl
To each his own. I took it as him admitting his failure at "doing a good job,"
and his son's mental health struggles as just being a kid. Riding a
motorcycle, camping in a tent, and hiking in the mountains are exhausting. I'm
29, in reasonably good health, and after a week of hiking even I am glad to
take a shower and sleep in a proper bed.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=622303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=622303)

Also in 2010:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1323487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1323487)

------
sn41
Mahatma Gandhi's "Nai Talim" (New Education) [1] placed prominent importance
on working with hands. When I first visited the US, I was really impressed by
the number of people who undertook DIY projects, and knew woodworking etc. I
also think that the importance that Germany pays to vocational training is one
of the leading reasons for their engineering dominance.

Maybe it is time to remember the great man's ideas during his 150th
anniversary and put it into wider practice.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nai_Talim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nai_Talim)

------
commandlinefan
The author separates knowledge work, which I think would include programming,
from “working with your hands”. Although I agree there’s a difference between
building a house and building a program, the feeling I get from really coding
is closer to the sense I get when I play the guitar than I get when I
“brainstorm” a solution to a problem. One of the reasons I’ve stayed away from
a management track is because of the sense of “making something” with my
keyboard.

~~~
JohnFen
I agree that playing and/or creating music is closer to programming than is
often appreciated.

I also think that there is great value engaging in crafting things with your
hands if you're a programmer, specifically. At least, there is for me. Even
though there is a certain amount of overlap, working with my hands engages a
different part of my brain than working with code. Doing that is a bit like a
mental vacation for me, and I often have insights into whatever software
problem I'm having while doing it, because while my mind is active, the
"programming part" is allowed to relax. And the greatest insights often come
under those circumstances.

~~~
calebkaiser
Similarly, I find that doing other work that can put me in a state of flow
without engaging my "programming brain" is necessary for me to feel rested.

------
RickJWagner
I've been working as a programmer for 29 years now, and almost since the
beginning there has been a story ciruculating about how new technology
('4GLs', then 'Rules Engines' and now 'AI') would put programmers out of
business.

It's never happened, of course. But if AI does ramp up and take over a bunch
of programming space, it may drive IT jobs ever lower on the social/pay scale,
perhaps even elevating manual labor.

------
Animats
I miss TechShop. But they pretended to be a growth startup and ran the
business into the ground through overexpansion. Then there was TheShop.build.
They tried to acquire the assets of TechShop without the liabilities, and that
didn't work out. There's Humanmade in SF, but it costs twice as much per month
as TechShop did. Mostly the same old TechShop equipment, too.

There are some other "maker spaces", but they're more into "education", which
seems to mean activities for the middle school rat race to get into college.
Kids at desks all doing roughly the same thing, basically.

What kept TechShop going for a while was Etsy. Etsy used to require that you
make your own stuff. But computer-controlled laser cutters were allowed for
"hand-made" items. TechShop SF had eight of them busily cutting wood and
plastic 24/7 at peak. Then Etsy allowed outsourcing manufacturing and that
disappeared.

It was fun while it lasted. But the maker movement is over in Silicon Valley.
Space is too expensive and the smart people don't have the free time.

------
swiley
Working with pine and balsa is surprisingly easy and cheap (hand saw is $9,
drill is $20, xcircut or paper is more or less free, 8ft of 2x1 pine is $2)
with balsa you can get away with just a pocket knife and self tapping screws
or just hot glue. I used to use it for making robots, it’s better than 3d
printing if you don’t need something precise and repeatable.

You can save money on dimensional lumber if you don’t have a large vehicle and
only need shorter pieces by buying the largest pieces at the hardware store
and cutting it in the parking lot.

~~~
taneq
Pine and MDF are amazing for slapping together prototypes, jigs, and custom
furniture. They're the perfect blend between adequate strength and
malleability. I haven't tried balsa but I bet it's perfect for smaller stuff.

------
gregschlom
Related: the essay "solitude and leadership", also well discussed on HN:
[https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-
leadership/](https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/)

