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Comment by ilrwbwrkhv | Hacker News Reader

this deep culture is fundamentally missing from the US. we must try to start them.

I don't think this is entirely fair. There are people in the United States who carry on skills that most people consider lost. One marvelously documented one is Dave Engel, wainright and wheelright in Joliot, MT. He has documented his skills in a weekly youtube video for years. There are many others. My wife is an expert in Scandinavian fiber techniques, and teaches weaving, spinning, dying and nalbinding (a Norwegian fiber technique that looks like knitting, but is in fact entirely different and much older). She can make you a sweater, or wool rya (thing the warmest bedcover you can even imagine) from raw wool, straight off the sheep (which she raises, and I shear) and the right pile of weeds (for dyes).

Also worth mentioning Roy Underhill [1], who for 35+ years has been on US public television teaching traditional woodworking.

[1]:https://www.pbs.org/show/woodwrights-shop/

Does your wife sell things she makes? The rya sound so cool, I would love to get one.

Sorry, she no longer makes pieces for sale, but concentrates her energy on teaching.

Be the change you want to see mate. There is nothing stopping you from picking up one of these crafts in the US and offering your services to your community.

Time, money and space are all fine limiters and happens to be rife in the US, not to mention other places. Sometimes you can be without one of these (maybe something is cheap to start or needs little space), but you really need all three to do anything meaningful with these.

Also, training. There's a reason why this stuff is passed down through families: It's hard, it's hard to find a teacher, and the amount written in books about most specialized crafts is limited in quality and quantity.

when I was a child in SF Bay Area, there were craftspeople, furniture, print making and litho, special castings, and among some heavy printing press, large scale painting. silver and gold smithing and more. That list is only things I saw with my own eyes. Post-2000 and especially post-covid I would be very surprised to see one percent of those, operating as a self-sustaining small business. Small business continues to close in a hundred categories.

In high cost of living countries, a business needs to make substantially more than its base costs to continue to operate.

Paying living wages is a challenge every startup needs to consider if it wants to scale past a meager existence for its bootstrapped founder.

Startups thrive in low cost of living areas. You see cycles of cheap land -> innovative businesses -> concentration of talent -> economic boom -> expensive land -> globally uncompetitive businesses -> whole industry collapses.

This is what happened to the automotive industry in the mid-west.

you are right and I am seeing that -- however please consider the difference between England-style factory automation with economic booms, versus Florence Italy style high-skill, high value artisans. Near San Francisco and other places historically, the demand for very high value arts and crafts was closer to the latter. Land was never cheap here post-Spanish era.

We see rent as a massive expense for this innovation, but that isn't an inevitability. Consolidated landlords cannot recognize certain advantages that "Ma and Pa" owners will recognize like consistent (albeit lower) payments, tenants who are respectful of the building and grounds, or the fun of supporting a cool business.

Compare that to a place like Japan where the post-war distribution of land and smart zoning continues to cultivate a vibrant local economy, or venerable Italian cities where homes and businesses remain for centuries.

I don't condone decommodification of real estate or other acts of heavy-handed socialism, but there are laws that play against the "little guy" that must be repealed. Admittedly, every approach (including the Japan and Italy examples) has pros and cons, but many of us forget that there are alternatives out there.

We have so many of these —- look at old steam and rail shows and clubs. There are so many weird old things that are kept up by hobbyists and re-enactors. Heck, look at historical villages like Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. Or look at Old Salem in North Carolina.

Fredericksbuurg, Texas.

I think the distinction here is between trade and hobby.

I suspect youtube is helping to bring this back, I follow some living history channels (after finding Townsends) and a lot of maker channels, and there seems to be an explosion of interest in traditional making.

You have but to look.

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