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Rethinking the Luddites

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Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#541

Post by 0dayz »

guax wrote: post #511
0dayz wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what the prejorative mean, I don't see the point in making this political.

Indeed. Lets leave politics out of a political labour movement.

Luddites was the precursor to the labor movement, I never dispute this.

It's the attempt made to label someone as "liberal" because they didn't know that Luddites was/is used as a pejorative, to someone who clearly has not stated they identify as such.

Which is just absurd, like labeling someone as a supporter of imperialism because they didn't know that royal means "of having the status of a king or queen or a member of their family".

Not only that but to then also indirectly insinuating this is because they are essentially too sheltered/spoiled to understand the value of goods.

Specifically:

>I understand your point of view if you're from a first-world country and you never experienced the terror of having people interfering with the means of production.

Despite the original poster never stated something that would highlight such a point of view, beyond admitting not knowing the definition/use of a word.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#542

Post by throwuwu »

__loam wrote: post #500
throwuwu wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is to oppose the political class that has been manipulating popular opinion for a hundred years now in order to maintain their positions of power. Our current form of representation, although it’s a joke to call it that now, has been obsolete for decades. Examine the principals upon which it’s based, they make no sense with modern communication technology.

You realize that this is all a political choice right?

Being against the practice of politics is still politics huh? That’s kind of a loose definition don’t you think?

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#543

Post by eru »

JohnFen wrote: post #481
eru wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting more bang per buck is exactly how material progress works. Reducing costs is really, really important, and nothing to be ashamed about.

To a point. But there comes a point where further cost reductions made the product or service worse, and increase the adverse impact on society in general in many ways. At that point, there's absolutely something to be ashamed about.

Yes, maybe. But the right trade-off between cost and quality is something for customers to decide.

Eg you could build a smart phone that mechanically lasts ten years, but who would want to use a ten year old smart phone anyway?

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#544

Post by andsoitis »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #475
andsoitis wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if we look at the opposite assertion, that technological regress would improve humanity, we can arbitrate which is likely more directionally correct. There’s also a third assertion which can help our thinking, and that is that we have just about the right amount and type of technology, so we should halt now (vs regress or progress). So the question then is: which of these three assertions are likely correct?

The fact that moving from A to B is a net negative does not imply that moving "back" from B to A is a net positive. All 3 scenarios (net positive, net negative, neutral) are entirely possible. "The right amount of type of technology" is again a value judgement, tied into ideas about what a good life involves. It is also complicated by long term side effects, as we are seeing with the use of fossil fuels - there was a…

OK. To make it concrete: do you think that if we reduced our technology and never increase it again, humanity would be in a better position than if we continued on the technology train?

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#545

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

fnord123 wrote: post #373
raincole wrote: post #211

Luddites in the age of AI don't exist. Until at least some data centers get burned down to the ground, comparing the current anti-AI movement to Luddites is just ridiculous.

Are you aware that the Writer's Guild of America were striking for 4 months against AI doing their jobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Writers_Guild_of_America_... There are also many law suits against AI works: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/books/authors-openai-laws... You really require that they resort to physical violence when they know fully that data in one DC will be backed up elsewhere so it will ha…

> From my pov, they are using the violence of the legal system to stop/slow AI.

Luddites used extra-legal methods to try to accomplish their goals, so I don't think the comparison really works.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#546

Post by adwn »

dralley wrote: post #537
adwn wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would encourage you to read the facts [...] I already have, thank you. > They sold 180–190 °F coffee, with a lid, to a 79yo lady at a drive-through window. I know. That "79yo lady" is an adult who is liable for her own actions. Coffee is hot, duh , I would expect someone of that age to know that. McDonald's isn't responsible for babysitting people who should know better than to squeeze hot beverages between their…

> I know. That "79yo lady" is an adult who is liable for her own actions. Coffee is hot, duh, I would expect someone of that age to know that. McDonald's isn't responsible for babysitting people who should know better than to squeeze hot beverages between their legs. Are you aware that during discovery, it was uncovered that McDonalds had undertaken studies to determine how hot they needed to make the coffee to avoid…

[flagged]

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#547

Post by latency-guy2 »

avgcorrection wrote: post #489
glimshe wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While originating in Marxism, this thought is also exposed by Libertarians in their critique of government. Giving too much power to the government is basically the same as giving power to elites and thus it is a move against freedom.

The “Libertarianism” that you refer to here is a word stolen from the Anarchist tradition (e.g. Chomsky), a socialist tendency that has nothing to do with the radical right-wing ideology of entities like the Libertarian Party in the US. Such “Libertarianism” can't even claim that their own name originates with themselves.

So it seems things can only originate from leftist thought, but only after Marx, nothing before matters. The world began in 1800. Marx gave light, and created the world.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#548

Post by kubanczyk »

jmye wrote: post #195
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about lofty idealism. It's about central goals. Sometimes, even oftentimes, goals are failed to be met. But, when it comes time to sacrifice something, it's invariable that a side effect will be cut rather than the central goal. Look at a company. The purpose of a company is to make money. Not all companies are successful: lots of companies fail to make money. But, when push comes to shove, and a company nee…

> The purpose of a company is to make money. Not all companies are successful: lots of companies fail to make money. But, when push comes to shove, and a company needs to choose between "make money" and something else, say, a commitment to not being evil, the company will choose "make money". Are non-profits not “companies”? Are there no small businesses that opt against expansion? This is a reductive and ridiculous…

The irony is the best side of HN. It seems you ignored the parent's main argument, but you've found their admittedly weakest paragraph. "This is a reductive and ridiculous take" is the literal phrase that you've used at that point.

> Are non-profits not “companies”? Are there no small businesses that opt against expansion?

The law makes such businesses slightly less likely to survive. There are ideas and ideals that are the source of that law.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#549

Post by heavyset_go »

adasdasdas wrote: post #525
heavyset_go wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's basically crying that someone else is doing something better than you. That "someone else" used state power to beat you, imprison you and starve your family if you dared to organize with other workers. Meanwhile, literal conspiracies of factory owners had full legal protection and the ability to write laws, including laws that gave the death penalty for machine breaking.

Source for this please > That "someone else" used state power to beat you, imprison you and starve your family if you dared to organize with other workers. Luddites pre-dated socialism and worker organization. Unless you mean, organizing a terrorist organization to blow up factories.

> Source for this please

The Combination Act of 1799, and following Combination Acts, made it illegal for workers to organize in any sense[1][2].

> Luddites pre-dated socialism and worker organization

They pre-date Marxist socialism, but the term socialism predates Marx and has had various meanings before then. Marx chose to adopt the existing term to describe his concept of socialism.

It's weird for you to say that Luddites pre-dated worker organization, when workers had organized for collective bargaining in the past, and owners made it illegal. It's also interesting considering the history of workers organized in guilds that certainly predate the Luddites by centuries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination_Act_1799

[2] https://www.marxists.org/history/england/combination-laws/in...

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#550

Post by klik99 »

barrysteve wrote: post #504
klik99 wrote: post #453

I heard Brian Merchant on 99% Invisible and this take is slight historical revisionism, but I'm ok with that. It's revisionist because he's conflating the earlier movement when workers tried to negotiate with factory owners and organize with the Luddite movement. True - the failure of the first movement led to Ludditism out of desperation, but the groups are separate. Luddite literally is named after Ned Ludd smashin…

Can I slighty revise your comment and take out the bit where it says you're okay with revisionism? Talk about a slippery slope...

I get it - I'm against revisionism in theory but practically there's a strong argument that all history is revisionist. I am conflicted, but I'm going to argue the "ok with revisionism" side of things - "Ok" being the weakest pro word, like I'd rate this 6 out of 9 if 1 was "totally against", 5 was "totally neutral" and 9 was "totally for".

Part of us building the future is interpreting the past in a way that applies to our current world. For example - our modern western world was built on reinterpreting Romans and Greeks and idealizing their use of democracy. We had to throw away a lot of awful things they did to focus on just the good stuff. And even that period of history is being debated about how to interpret it in an attempt to understand who we are now - was it slave owning colonists who only prospered due to others labour or was it enlightened open thinkers who brought prosperity to the world, or was it a mix of those things or something else entirely. Revising the Luddite movement to include the earlier peaceful methods with the goal of saying healthy skepticism about technology is IMO a good thing - the Luddite movement specifically is tightly linked to the earlier movement so it's not a stretch to revise things it to include that whole chain of events.

But I'd be lying if I wasn't annoyed when he said things that weren't technically correct during the 99% invisible interview. But it's also revisionist to use Luddite as bludgeon, so if people are going to remove any subtlety from a word, I'd rather it was revised in an helpful way.

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