Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but not everything needs to analyzed politically. Nor making a political assumption about someone.
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Nothing to add, __loam's comment is very right.
Rethinking the Luddites
411–420 of 572 posts
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#412Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is sometimes scary how long propaganda continues to work. In the case of the Luddites, ot was factory owners propaganda about, rightfully, discruntled workers opossing abuse and exploitation. In a sense, this propaganda win in England gave us the current oppossition to unions we see in the US and among corporations.
It's funny this guy was worried about the luddites hurting people when several luddites were ultimately gunned down.
Not to speak of all the injuries and fatalities happening in those factories day in day out. On top of all the other negative health effects from dust and such.
But somehow the rich dudes in their villas, and especially their money, need protection.
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember the mantra of some in the tech field of "no problem - just learn to code" when blue collar jobs in the manufacturing in the US was on the wane as production moved to cheaper locations overseas.
Woah woah woah buddy you’ve got that completely backwards. Journalists started that whole learn to code bullshit and then got justly lampooned about it when there were a bunch of media lay offs afterwards. It was a huge meme a while back so I’m not sure how you missed it.
It doesn’t matter who said it, people bought it, used it and spread it.
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#415The luddite example is one of suddenness: The owners see the massive advantage of mechanization and move in fast. The workers are blindsided - they don't have the time and spend all the time they do have in a ludicrous war. The regions are somewhat mono-industry which completes in making a giant mess. All in all the exact quandary not to get caught in. Now that they have demonstrated it, long ago, do we really have t…
I remember the mantra of some in the tech field of "no problem - just learn to code" when blue collar jobs in the manufacturing in the US was on the wane as production moved to cheaper locations overseas.
No need to look too far back, the similar big bait and switch by ClosedAI/Microsoft is happening right now.
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#416> Today, the word “Luddite” is used as an insult to anyone resistant to technological innovation Interesting, I never thought of the term as pejorative. I always thought of the movement as a kind of working-class heroes trying to navigate an uncertain future where rich people made them obsolete.
It's certainly used to describe certain reactionaries even if it doesn't make sense squared historically.
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#417The luddite example is one of suddenness: The owners see the massive advantage of mechanization and move in fast. The workers are blindsided - they don't have the time and spend all the time they do have in a ludicrous war. The regions are somewhat mono-industry which completes in making a giant mess. All in all the exact quandary not to get caught in. Now that they have demonstrated it, long ago, do we really have t…
Your comments fall into exactly the trap the article talks about. The luddites were painted as being against automation. That's only partially true, at best. Destroying machines was not the point. It was just the only thing that hurt and got remembered.
It was not layoffs that caused the revolts much worsening working conditions. They wanted things like getting paid in the promised time frame, and not having their children killed. It seems the protests were sprawling and later integrated every disappointment under the sun.
The other side took that as an opportunity to paint them as being generally anti progressive and against all forms of mechanization, but from what I understand there's not much to suggest that was actually true. Yes, machines were broken but so were a lot of other things as the protests turned violent.
Our lesson from the luddies should be that winners write history, we should not reiterate a centuries old smear campaign.
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#41899% invisible had Brian Merchant on recently. I agree with him except on the point that “Luddite” can be reclaimed. In an ideal world that would be possible, but in practical terms Luddite means a person who is against technological change. If you want to defend Luddite positions you don’t need to defend the term itself. Then the correct retort would be I’m not a Luddite I’m an X where X is something intuitive and sh…
I like to characterize my approach to technology as "informed carefulness". So maybe "I'm a cautious adopter of technology. I adopt what works, what improves my life, and respects my rights." The violation of people's trust through the use of telemetry is precisely what turned me skeptical of modern day stuff. There's a lot of stuff that I would probably use, if it wasn't hellbent on learning the color of my underwea…
> There is so much more I would be comfortable using in this world of technology if there was a modicum of mutual respect.
This sentiment was likely shared by many of the original Luddites.
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#419This version of the Luddites is the one I was taught in my history classes—in both HS and college my teachers were careful to emphasize that the colloquial usage and the actual movement are only loosely related, and we discussed how the Luddites weren't rejecting technology per se so much as they were acting out of desperation to preserve their way of life. This is certainly something worth learning from today, and a…
Pretty much every take posted under your thread here about luddites is a terrible one. People in this thread don't seem to understand what the more archaic form of "preserve their way of life" actually means. It means not starving to death. Back then there was no social safety net. Once your trade was not needed back then you were likely kicked to the street. There was not retraining to learn some new trade. This is…
> Once your trade was not needed back then you were likely kicked to the street
This is precisely what happened to Luddites and their families, at least the ones who weren't executed or exiled by the state.
Re: Rethinking the Luddites
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
There will be more companies making things and providing things than there are today because there’s more labor available. We can do the things that aren’t of higher necessity today.
This is similar to: Replacing horses with cars will free up those horses to do other productive work, like pulling plows and turning stone mills, thereby benifiting the horses.
I don’t agree because horses are extremely limited in function compared to humans. There is a very small set of things horses are useful for and you’re right, we’ve mechanized most of them.