{"id":104750,"date":"2026-09-12T03:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T07:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=104750"},"modified":"2026-09-12T10:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:06:08","slug":"stop-power-tools-the-signs-say-woodworking-under-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/stop-power-tools-the-signs-say-woodworking-under-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"“STOP POWER TOOLS! the signs say. WOODWORKING UNDER THREAT!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter<\/em>, ESR<\/a> has a thought experiment for us:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Prefabbed components and appliances for a Levittown home.
Image from Construction Physics<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Imagine it’s the 1940s. You’re a carpenter. Power tools are beginning to replace hand tools for ordinary work. Furthermore, jobs that would have been impossible or ruinously expensive are suddenly within reach. <\/p>\n

You show up at a worksite one fine morning and it’s being picketed. STOP POWER TOOLS! the signs say. WOODWORKING UNDER THREAT! <\/p>\n

Puzzled, you accost one of the demonstrators and ask him why he has a signboard in his hand rather than tools.<\/p>\n

“Power tools are a menace!” he says. “How are you going to train apprentices if they can’t feel the wood through their hands?”<\/p>\n

“What happens when we can chew through aged quality timber faster than we can grow new trees?”<\/p>\n

“Carpentry isn’t just a set of skills and habits, it’s a mindset. It won’t be any true carpenters left if we let this go on.”<\/p>\n

You inquire further and discover that they have plans. Plans to exclude from any job they work on any craftsman who has ever used a power tool or even spoken approvingly about them.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, inside the picket line, a house is going up. Men are working. Cutting and joining the framing is going faster than you could have imagined 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

You look at the workers. You look at the demonstrators. One group is talking. The other is getting stuff done. One group looks like the past, the other like the future. In this moment, you get to decide which group you’re going to join. <\/p>\n

This post was not about carpentry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, ESR has a thought experiment for us: Imagine it’s the 1940s. You’re a carpenter. Power tools are beginning to replace hand tools for ordinary work. Furthermore, jobs that would have been impossible or ruinously expensive are suddenly within reach. You show up at a worksite one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15,487,13,161],"tags":[1506,1235,426,1369,720],"class_list":["post-104750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-tools","category-usa","category-woodworking","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-esr","tag-housing","tag-powertools","tag-protest"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-rfw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104751,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104750\/revisions\/104751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}