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Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen

Lizzie Steven
Comedy
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this comedy video1 month2007–2023 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN mostly posts it as a joke whenever someone says things were harder in the old days.

The Monty Python sketch in which four wealthy Yorkshiremen try to outdo each other with exaggerated tales of childhood poverty.

1 recommendations · 11 jokes · Comedy

12 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@mynameishere Aug 2007 Makes a joke
on HN thread do not. I am just letting it out.
I'm strongly urged to one-up you (because I could, believe me) but what's the point? You're either going to A) Buck up, or B) Get some Xanax. That's about it. [this video]
@iwwr Dec 2010 Makes a joke
on HN thread Redditors share the way the world was 20 years ago
If you wanted to know something, there was no Google or Wikipedia. You might be able to find out a basic fact if you had a set of encyclopedias. But most information, from important stuff to basic trivia ("who was in that movie?") was not available unless you had a reference book or went to the library and really searched. Rumors, lies, media manipulation, thwarted by a few seconds of research. If more people bothered, it would be a better world. Off topic, but obligatory Monty Python piece [this video]
@confluence Sep 2012 Makes a joke
on HN thread The Programmers Before Us Were Better
Read more
That's complete crap and merely a manifestation of "Rosy Retrospection" ( [link] ). Monty Python made fun of this "in my time, you see" bullshit with the Four Yorkshiremen skit ( [this video] ). Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris did the same ( [link] ). The programmers before us were the exact same as the programmers of today and they will be the exact same as the one's that come after us. The only difference between them is whose shoulders they stood upon and what they were be able to do using the tools at hand. Programmers of the 60s were happy just to get things to add up. The guys in the 80s squealed with glee at GUIs. The guys in the 90s made the internet what it is today. And the guys of the 2010s will bring AI and robotics into the main stream. Everyone glues things together - it's how creation works ( [link] ). The only difference between generations is the things you have available to glue together. Sometimes you glue together a stick and a rock to make a spear, and other times you glue together a machine gun, a camera, and a computer. Either way - same people, different situations.
@Mandatum Feb 2016 Makes a joke
on HN thread An Open Letter to Millennials Like Talia…
Read more
Fourteen hour shifts? Fourteen hour shifts!? In my day we'd work from 1AM until 3AM the following morning, go to sleep for -2 hours, wake up and do it all over again! We were paid in 19th century New Zealand shillings and had to pay all of it back for living on the boss's premises! (Sorry, had to throw a Monty Python reference there: [this video] ) I don't believe just because something was done one way before, means it should affect how things are now. If we believe the way "something is" is fundamentally wrong - just because it has been that way (or worse) should not provide be a valid argument against said "something". Kind of fits in to: [link]
@kirubakaran Jun 2016 Makes a joke
on HN thread The illegal city of Somerville
Wow $2200 for a 2 bed? Luxury! That's how much you'll pay for a studio here in Mission, SF... if you're lucky. (and I wish this were a Four Yorkshiremen reference[1]. No!) [1] [this video]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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