Mitchell and Webb: "Are we the baddies?" on HackerTube: recommended by 1 Hacker News commenter across 1 month, 2014–2026.
comedy · evergreen
A Mitchell and Webb sketch in which two German soldiers realize their uniforms carry skulls and wonder whether they are the baddies. It is a short comedy bit about people failing to see themselves as the villains.
Cited constantly as a quip when a person or organization seems to be doing something morally dubious.
“this sketch from Mitchell and Webb stayed with me for years.”
19 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
On the topic of evil, this sketch from Mitchell and Webb stayed with me for years. Are we the baddies? ▶ this video Every villain is the hero in their own story, after all.
in “Peep Show is the most realistic portrayal of evil I have seen (2020)” · View on HN
I guess it's a sign of the times. I was just reading the old speech by John Barlow, in another post[0]. Sort of dovetails with this. I spent the majority of my career at a camera manufacturer. I probably made half of what I could have made, anywhere else, and there were lots of issues, caused by bureaucratic overhead, heavy-handed QA, and cultural misunderstandings. But not once, during almost 27 years, did I wonder "Are we the baddies?"[1]. My first job was at a defense contractor, where we manufactured surveillance gear, and sold it to militaries and spy agencies around the world. One of the reasons that I left that job, was because we definitely were the baddies. [0] [link] [1] ▶ this video
in “Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale” · View on HN
The title is likely a reference to a sketch: [link] ▶ this video Although it could be unintentional - the phrase is mainstream now and not hard to produce independently either.
in “Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder If They're the Bad Guys” · View on HN
> You might want to think about why Petersen wants you to think you’re the Nazi. What change is he trying to effect in our culture, and how does that belief support his desire? Rhetoric always aims to effect some change in the attitude of the listener, and never without some benefit of the speaker. What benefit do you think he's trying to get from it? I'm honestly trying to figure out the nefarious angle and coming up blank. It seems to me like a very similar sentiment to that great "are we the baddies?" sketch from Mitchell and Webb. [1] I see both as an exercise in moral humility. See the Milgram experiment, or the Asch experiment. Most people do cave to pressure from authorities and the group. Everybody believes they're they exception. Statistically, most of them are wrong. [1] ▶ this video
in “Asked to do something illegal at work? Here's what these software engineers did” · View on HN
>I think we disagree on the totalitarian aspect of the echo chamber. That distinction you hope for does not exist. We arent talking about your frame of digital neighbors but an end to self hosting. How ever nice your story sounds isnt more important then its predictable consequences. Authoritarian means with righteous sounding justifications safeguarded by only good intentions and an assumption of competence arent safeguards against totalitarianism, its its description. You cant create an authoritarian entity where you just keep the mean people away from the wheel. Thats how almost all totalitarians describe their perspective, including when some of my older relatives can be believed my great grand parents with NSDAP membership cards. You are making the exact same argument. By insisting on how competent, well intentioned and justified you are, you verifying this assumption. You acknowledge that you are unable to recognize that that isnt enough. Which means less and less people are going to tell you this. Because its really dangerous, on an individual and a societal level. [link] When the acoustic breaks are gone the kinetic ones will need to be engaged. Thats not a bug, they have to, there is genocide and existential risk waiting at the bottom of the slope and you dont have the ability, let alone intention, to break yourself. Which is really bad as its a very safe indicator that stuff is soon to become horrific. With anyone who tried the acoustic breaks unable to engage the k
in “ISPs Should Not Police Online Speech – No Matter How Awful It Is” · View on HN
Yes. Unfortunately none of this is easy. Even if you are sure you are not in a deteriorating cult (pleasant one or not) there is still a ton of blind spots not stemming from social environment but your ego for the lack of a better term. Cognitive biases are a real danger and both advertisement and cognitive warfare target those. This is very much an asymmetric struggle. While you might be a sensible person when you are paying attention to the right aspects, most of the time you arent. Or to quote the Provisional IRA of all people >Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. I dont see a way around regularly checking if you have gotten unlucky and carried away. Its really easy to just be opposed to a caricature, figuring out and accepting that you have become one as well as a reaction is quite a lot harder. Mitchell and Webb made a great bit about checking regularly if you and your friends are maybe the baddies. ▶ this video If people around you take offense to you doing that, thats a very valuable indicator. If this leaves you with a collapsed reality model, dont worry, thats normal. Stuff is just complicated. Fortunately less bad is often a very reachable bar.
in “Project Gutenberg has implemented one of the worst AI fears of striking actors” · View on HN
By your reasoning it would be a fallacy to call any large project unethical. I think that is clearly a fallacy. Nobody is arguing that every individual within Facebook is an unethical person. The argument is that the overall project is unethical and the ethical people within it should take that possibility seriously. For more philosophical background on this idea: ▶ this video
in “Facebook Network Breach Impacts Up to 50M Users” · View on HN
It would have been funner if it had been more truthy. What actually happened fits very well with that bit of fun narrative. Using a bunch of incorrect stuff detracts from the funness. my example: the storm troopers didn't wear black. The SS did. But they didn't just wear black, they had runic emblems and skulls and shit. This minor detail is important because remembering details about genocide is probably a good thing. See Mitchel and Web for a better example. ▶ this video
in “World War II Is Full of Plot Holes (2010)” · View on HN
Its very rare for people do deliberately do bad things. Almost everyone thinks they are doing the right thing. My point (which I think should be apparent in my original comment) is that we should look at doing things "for their own good" has a very bad history. Now do you get it? ▶ this video
in “Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs” · View on HN
Obligatory "Are we the baddies?" ▶ this video for those who don't know this meme (the Dawkins definition of meme)
in “EV demand up 50% in France and Germany since Iran war” · View on HN
I have read the whole thing but I nonetheless want to focus on the second paragraph: > Anthropic has therefore worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War This should be a "have you noticed that the caps on our hats have skulls on it?" moment [1]. Even if one argues that the sentence should not be read literally (that is, that it's not literal war we're talking about), the only reason for calling it "Department of War" and "warfighters" instead of "Department of Defense" and "soldiers" is to gain Trump's favor, a man who dodged the draft, called soldiers "losers", and has been threatening to invade an ally for quite some time. There is no such a thing as a half-deal with the devil. If Anthropic wants to make money out of AI misclassifying civilians as military targets (or, as it has happened, by identifying which one residential building should be collapsed on top of a single military target, civilians be damned) good for them, but to argue that this is only okay as long as said civilians are brown is not the moral stance they think it is. Disclaimer: I'm not a US citizen. [1] ▶ this video
in “Statement from Dario Amodei on Our Discussions with the Department of War” · View on HN
I think it's important to assess the quality of the comments - they aren't bringing facts, just stating opinions; doing so quickly and agreeing with each other. You can test this out - pick a few names on the comments that disagree, ctrl+f, and you'll quickly find one individual with 29 comments at the time of writing all over the thread; with a handful of others with 1-4 responses. This is not actually what the majority of people think and feel. IE; from recent polling > 55%+ of Americans have “very little” confidence in ICE, while 16 percent only have "some". That's ~71% of ordinary US folks; and I would wager many international folks are very clear eyed about the situation. But why don't you see a ratio of 7/10 of top level comments critical? It's reasonable to assume that about half of those people are just keeping to themselves or part of the political middle that feel something is a "bit wrong"; but not quite enough to go yell into the internet about it. For the others, arguing is tiring and doesn't seem to change much. Watching the situation induces feelings of dread, despair or helplessness. On the opposing side, that 29% of people are faced with the fact that they might actually be the "baddies" ( ▶ this video ), and a good number of them are flooding conversations to prove they are in fact "not"... because admitting otherwise would mean they are actually doing something quite morally or ethically wrong by their own or their community standards. Since that would be unthin
in “Kash Patel says FBI is investigating Signal chats of Minnesotans tracking ICE” · View on HN
Obligatory: "Are we the baddies?" ▶ this video Looking forward to the commenters arguing that this regime aren't the baddies...
in “US bars 5 Europeans it says pressured tech firms to censor American viewpoints” · View on HN
Pointing out this satirical sketch might be a cliche, but: ▶ this video (Mitchell and Webb: Are we the Baddies?)
in “The United States withdraws from UNESCO” · View on HN
I think if I were reading a statement like "no nazi bullshit" and thought it applied to me, I'd probably wonder "are we the baddies?"[1]. 1: ▶ this video
in “Shine with Gleam” · View on HN
Why would one grad student have the same power as 10000 employees of a company? Surely when you're finishing with ominous repetition you must know something's a bit off[0]. [0] ▶ this video
in “Standard cells: Looking at individual gates in the Pentium processor” · View on HN
You have to feel for anyone who works at pinterest - they just be getting that “are we the bad guys vibe” ▶ this video
in “Most promoted and blocked domains among Kagi Search users” · View on HN
Your definition of freedom differs from theirs. They belive in the freedom to follow their religion as they belive it should be followed. Their supporters believe in the same freedom. Your definition of freedom (and indeed mine) is very different. But you would be foolish to think that they thought of themselves as the bad guys and that they had no support amongst the local populace. ▶ this video
in “Big Data Firm Says It Can Link Snowden Data To Changed Terrorist Behavior” · View on HN
"Are we the Baddies?" ( ▶ this video ) Probably not, but you may be working in a closer profession to them.
in “The Tech Industry vs. San Francisco” · View on HN