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Four Yorkshiremen- Monty Python

TheFullMontyPythonCited 12× on HN, 2019–2026
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comedy · general · evergreen · 2019–2026 on HN

The classic Monty Python sketch in which four Yorkshiremen compete to claim the hardest upbringing, each story more absurd than the last.

Quoted as a joke whenever commenters one-up each other on past hardships.

12 comments from Hacker News

@overfeed2026-01 · in “2025 Letter”

I don't think Four-Yorkshiremen-style one-upmanship[1] this discussion adds anything meaningful to the conversation around comparing US/China/Europe 1. ▶ this video

@Simon_ORourke2024-10 · in “Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)”

Lazy Edwardian industrial workers demanding 8 hours sleep after 16 hours work! "Oooohh we used to dream of living in a corridor..." - ▶ this video

@dave3332024-08 · in “Blackhouses of Scotland”

Why does this remind me of the Four Yorkshiremen comedy sketch - "You were lucky! We lived in hole in the ground." ▶ this video

@joshstrange2024-05 · in “AI copilots are changing how coding is taught”

> Well before AI co-pilots something happened to the good old admins--they started to disappear only to be replaced by "AWS devops" (their job titles) who have never wired a network using routers, switches, and cables. I noticed that they started lacking basic networking knowledge and couldn't set up networking inside AWS. They just didn't know what a gateway, NAT, or subnet is. I see the same arguments about higher level languages. All of the tech industry is about standing on the shoulders of giants. I do believe that lower level knowledge can help a great deal but using this argument I can say something like: Kids these days don’t know basic assembly, they have no idea what an or/and/nor/xor gate is, they’ve never built a computer from components (no, not cpu/mb/ram/etc, I’m talking transistors and soldering). Maybe LLMs are different but I don’t think they are, they are yet another tool that some people will abuse and some will use wisely. No different from an IDE or a higher-level language in my book. I have next to zero idea how many things I use daily work (like my car for example), it doesn’t stop me from being able to drive where I need to go. I have configured lower level networking equipment in the past and I couldn’t be happier that I don’t have to do that drudgery anymore. All I’m saying is this is a dangerous argument to make because someone can always one-up (one-down?) you. “Oh you had NAT? Luxury! In my day we didn’t even have a network, we had to….” (See als

@joshstrange2024-04 · in “Show HN: CompressX, my FFmpeg wrapper for macOS”

Maybe? But I'll pick paid with a nice UI over ugly/cli-only almost every time if it's something I'll use regularly. I'm not the target market for this specific tool but I pay for a number of tools that I can technically do on my own because I like looking at nice things. Sue me. I get joy from well designed and clean UIs. I can always use more joy in my life. Polish and ease of use are important to me when using software. Don't get me wrong, I spent a ton of time in the terminal and using less than pretty tools but when possible I like nice tools that do a task well. Then again if all you see is a "simplistic ffmpeg frontend" then I don't know if I can make you understand the value in accepting less overall functionality in favor of a tool optimized for your specific workflow. And some people, not saying you, take a pride in using the lowest-level, most featureful, more obscure tool. They wear it as a badge of pride and chide anything else as a "toy" or "simplistic". I find this mindset absurd. I all for going to the lower level when needed but people that have this attitude best be writing assembly by hand or they are just cosplaying being "smarter". There is always a lower level, just because someone goes to an arbitrarily lower level doesn't make them "better" but that's the feeling I often get from people like this. Reminds of the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch: ▶ this video