this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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128
Everyone Is a Luddite Now (www.wired.com)
submitted 8 months ago by Womble to c/technology
31 comments fedilink hide all child comments
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[–] [email protected] 80 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

The Majority Report had an excellent interview with this author Brian Merchant who wrote the book "Blood in the Machine" about the luddites. It is quite interesting that luddites were not against technology, they were against the owner class using machines to replace skilled workers with unskilled workers using mechanized systems for lower pay and taking all the profits.

The interview went for nearly an hour but is worth a watch. It starts at the 30 min mark. https://www.youtube.com/live/SOsFm5H_M3w?si=KNxbkNnziDdh0l7V

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There are also two rather excellent podcast episodes about luddites and the book, one by 99 percent invisible that discusses more about the concept in general and another by Cautionary Tales that is focused on the luddites and what they did.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/live/SOsFm5H_M3w?si=KNxbkNnziDdh0l7V

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The interviews on The Majority Report are so good and in depth.

I always feel bad when I tune them out while working. I can't help that I do that. Sucks.

[–] elbarto777 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Time them out? What does this mean?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I meant "tune". Edited above. Phone autocorrect.

[–] elbarto777 4 points 7 months ago

Cool! Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

They probably meant to say tune out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I listen to them at work the night after. I'll be listening to Fridays show tonight.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Alright fine, I'll be a Luddite now. Every time we 'upgrade' or 'make progress' it is really about controling the working class and circumventing a previous business model. Capital pays more and more for the inputs: fuel and technology, in order to justify their control. And then once they have it, they use progress to justify poor labor protections. They never use the predicted best solution, or even a compromise, they use the solution that offers them more power.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Don't be a Luddite: be a socialist.

Because the entire problem with luddites is blaming the wrong cause.

Automation of menial labor is the best possible thing that can happen to humanity, and to the humans working those jobs.

Except our system is so fucked that "no job" = "go die on the streets you worthless layabout"

Every job lost to automation should be celebrated by a socialist society, as it means more of us are moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's how I've felt for a long time. What a stupid world we've built where reducing the number of jobs is considered a bad thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

And yet the only thing political parties across nations can agree on is they want more jobs.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You can be both, and a lot of us are. A Luddite wouldn't be opposed to the automation of jobs in a socialist society, nobody is being exploited in that case.

We question and oppose the tech right now because that isn't the society we live in. It isn't really about the tech at all, it's about who controls it and how they're using it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Luddites do not offer solutions: Socialists do.

Don't waste effort opposing tech when you could spend effort promoting socialism: You won't oppose tech anymore than the Luddites did (IE with limited initial success followed by absolute annihilation)

Socialists have actually been successful, unlike Luddites.

[–] FlyingSquid 26 points 8 months ago

Absolutely. And I celebrate every act of sabotage, from people putting traffic cones on robotaxis to people shooting down drones flying over their land.

[–] alienanimals 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Clickbait title written by a sorry excuse for a journalist. Gregory Barber should go write top 10 lists for Buzzfeed.

[–] Makeitstop 3 points 7 months ago

Buzzfeed would be a step up from Wired.

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I love technological progress and am no Luddite but the technology that’s most visible to consumers rarely just makes everyone’s lives better. For every truly transformative tech like smartphones, there’s a dozen “disruptions” that just replace some previously functioning part of society with something shittier. (Like phone trees instead of a customer service agent. AirBnB causing rent to rise while breaking zoning laws. Generative A.I. has potential but so far, it’s mostly just automating content farms. Crypto wasn’t a real technological innovation but Silicon Valley VCs pretended it was.)

In a competitive market, even those shitty “innovations” would eventually translate into lower prices but we live in an age of weak enforcement of laws to create and foster competitive markets. Of course there’s a rise in pissed off consumers when all the upside goes to profits/shareholders.

[–] Zeth0s 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Smartphones disrupted so more industries than they are at risk now because of any new techs, disrupting previously functional parts of the society. They sent home thousands of workers, ruining the life people with previously highly regarded jobs, from retail to bank and finance. Why do you regarded their introduction as "better"? Probably because we were just younger, and you were more open to changes, and when they caused turmoil you didn't felt the consequences.

(I am not against smartphone or technology, just trying to point bias and selective memory)

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

GPS is dope.

[–] Zeth0s 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

AI is dope as well. Still they all have impact on the market.

For sure they were companies relying on the tasks that gps does now to make a living. They most likely had to reinvent the business or die.

This is how market works since forever. Something is introduced, people make money out of it and push other people on the streets. It's an organizational problem, not a technological problem

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

https://archive.ph/FxLAg

Unpaywalled

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

the fact that i was paywalled trying to read this pretty much says all one needs to know about where such a sentiment could be coming from. HMMMMMMMM

[–] PopOfAfrica 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The Luddites weren't wrong, their jobs were taken by technology.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

My job was taken by Dave.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Always make me laugh seeing these neo-luddites. They're cute as hell

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

😘