[cap-talk] A paper on web-keys

[James A. Donald]

 >> It is a very great mistake to underestimate
 >> administrator-induced inertia.

 > Agreed - it is motivated by Job Security

I have told this story before, but it is worth telling
again.

In the 1880s, American business men, applying then well
known science and technology to steel making, made the
production of good steel routine, so that it was no
longer a mysterious art, and the quality of each batch
of steel no longer depended on the excellence and art of
the particular craftsman.  And in the 1890s, the former
craftsmen felt a chill, and saw these traditionally
white, relatively well paid jobs going to blacks and
unskilled whites. Actual war ensued, with the union
using artillery, attempting to burn black employees
alive, and so forth.

More recently, 1980s, we saw fortress Wapping and the
Wapping riots, as printers resisted the application of
computers to typesetting.  They did not use artillery,
but did use many of the methods of medieval warfare.