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Rethinking the Luddites

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Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#481

Post by JohnFen »

eru wrote: post #247
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a contempt for the cost of human workers and, frankly, just cost in general.

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.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#482

Post by JohnFen »

cm2012 wrote: post #186
SoftTalker wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are the pharaohs today? That sort of social imbalance leads inevitably to revolution. Always has. It's not sustainable.

Yep. The most powerful demographic in America today don't even have jobs, it's people 60+ voting to keep social security and Medicare and kicking away the ladder.

> it's people 60+ voting

Most of the people I personally know who are 60 and older have jobs.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#483

Post by JohnFen »

nico wrote: post #189
JohnFen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By replacing labour with robots and not compensating them, you're sending a clear message that you don't respect people and the value that they bring. Companies already send that clear message even without AI. That's why there's fear here: we expect companies to behave as they always have, and that is with a level of contempt for human workers.

> Companies already send that clear message even without AI. Companies are people. You are saying people running those companies are doing that to other people

Companies are not people. They are engines of economic production that use people as one of their resources.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#484

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #180
_aavaa_ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

luddites were not skeptical of technology, or even against it. They were against the way in which factory owners used technology to illegally displace them (as workers) and to falsely advertise the resulting textiles (selling low quality goods while claiming they were of higher quality) in order to undercut them and put them out of business.

The customer is responsible for accepting the level of quality of said goods. And it seems overwhelmingly that they (thru their action, rather than words), prefer to have cheaper, lower quality goods as long as it passes some threshold. Therefore, if a machine surpasses this threshold, they will win marketshare.

[deleted]

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#485

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #313
anigbrowl wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating to me how capital owners are never ever responsible for anything despite having maximal agency.

> maximal agency how are the capital owners deciding what a consumer would choose to spend their money on?

[deleted]

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#486

Post by greenhearth »

davidgoudet wrote: post #343
sakex wrote: post #330

> 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 not pejorative for you if you are a liberal, for me it is pejorative, I see Luddites as people who damage important parts of production systems and threaten people's lives. 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.

The sense of the word "luddite" (I guess until this recent rethought) has always been pejorative, and has zero dependency on political ideology. Why even bring it into the conversation, unless you're trying to stir some shit up.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#487

Post by rakoo »

creer wrote: post #264

The 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 proposed solution doesn't solve anything, it only delays it.

As long as workers are not self-organizing, top to bottom, up to and including what to produce, how much to priduce and how to produce it, the domination will exist. What is the added value to the society of having bosses ? Of having people not producing but deciding how to produce ?

Scratch the destruction of machines, the sudden uprise, the distinction between what group acted and what group negotiated. The real lesson to learn from this all: society doesn't need someone telling you what to do if they're not also a worker.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#488

Post by FrustratedMonky »

nico wrote: post #474
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing I said even hinted at giving up. Just because humans tend to create systems that tend to reward evil doesn't mean we can't try to be better. The problem isn't capitalism or communism. Both are run by humans who could choose to be better. I don't know how to improve humans. I know it isn't religion given it's tendency to just become another system that rewards evil. Maybe it is just groups, humans don't do wel…

And who said anything about capitalism vs communism? Seems like you are just arguing with yourself there

Who? The entire thread, it is a common theme, in this post and every other post on AI. Sorry I was speaking outside you're singular comment.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#489

Post by avgcorrection »

glimshe wrote: post #448
Joker_vD wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the government reaction to the whole thing was equally absurd. It, however, would later give Marx a nice example of how the government is the tool that the ruling class uses to oppress the working classes and get their way: because when seen from this angle, the reaction was entirely reasonable.

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.

Re: Rethinking the Luddites

#490

Post by hnax »

Man's greatest advantage over (Generative) AI is his creativity, originality, ingenuity, spirituality and commonsense. Our defeat is sealed once we become more impressed with statistically produces results (including the obvious hallucinations and subtle lies by mission and omission), rather than trusting our God given qualities.

We are and should not try stopping technology: we just have to sublime our human qualities and keep proving technologies' limitations (many of which are so obvious as requiring only some commonsense).

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