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Comment by showerst | Hacker News Reader

If you’re not familiar with this channel, you’re in for a treat!

Turn on closed captions to get an explanation of what’s going on.

I was afraid this was going to be a "fake" primitive technology channel... but it seems that this one, "Primitive Technology", is actually the _only_ real one! It was even used as "a baseline for what SHOULD be achievable in a natural setting" [0]

The video hyperlinked below is a fascinating debunking of most other "primitive" channels.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvk63LADbFc

Yeah, this guy is the OG. There's a few exposés on other channels and how they have crews and machinery off camera doing most of the work. This guy is real.

This guy basically invented the genre and everything’s else has been copping his success. Most can’t do the stuff he does and to differentiate they just make stuff up.

Blisters on his hand, cuts on his foot, dirty all over the shoulder.

I remember when he was posting more frequently (I guess there has been a hiatus over the last 2-3 years) I would step away from the Friday evening company all hands to watch his new video as soon as I saw the notification. Which makes me think, perhaps this channel is still the only one I actually have "click the bell to be notified".

AAA content.

> hiatus

He was writing a book which he now sells.

The same thing happened with the hydraulic press channel. Copycats emerged there as well.

Can you post a link to it? Sounds interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/c/hydraulicpresschannel

I remember after watching one of his videos YouTube started recommending all of those other primitive construction videos.

So many shots of a shirtless Asian guy poking at the ground with a stick and walking off with a scant handful of dirt cutting to a 10x10x10 foot hole in the ground with perfectly square sides and the guy poking at the bottom of the hole with the same stick. Laughably bullshit.

And with mini bucket excavator tracks surrounding the hole, no less.

Oh most of those videos are obviously staged; but they are well-done and entertaining.

I watched one of them recently with my 3 1/2 year old, who loved it, displaying amazing attention span through the whole thing and making comments like how they nicely made this and that.

Why would anyone waste their energy debunking that; but go, go, you champion for the egregiously gullible, I suppose ..

I also recommend buying his book [0] as a means to support his awesome work. I will almost certainly never actually do any of this, but it's fun to read anyway! Especially after watching the videos of him doing it.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Primitive-Technology-complete-making-...

It's mildly humorous to me that the book is available on Kindle.

>I also recommend buying his book [0] as a means to support his awesome work

He has a pateron. If you don't want the book and only want to support his work that's probably the better route.

I’ve watched Jon’s videos for years now without knowing he added captions… thanks for the tip !

He used to write a blog to go with each video which I really enjoyed.

The youtube description for each video has a lot more details, especially on how long the different steps take.

This guy is an absolute gem. Quality content every single post

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