
Why the Luddites Matter - imartin2k
https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/why-the-luddites-matter/
======
benbreen
Thoughtful, well-researched post.

People reading this may be interested in Lord Byron's first speech to the
House of Lords as well, which was a full-throated defense of the Luddites. As
you might guess, it's beautifully written. It also nicely magnifies the
historical irony of Byron fathering Ada Lovelace.

[http://www.luddites200.org.uk/LordByronspeech.html](http://www.luddites200.org.uk/LordByronspeech.html)

"Considerable injury has been done to the proprietors of the improved frames.
These machines were to them an advantage, inasmuch as they superseded the
necessity of employing a number of workmen, who were left in consequence to
starve. By the adoption of one species of frame in particular, one man
performed the work of many, and the superfluous labourers were thrown out of
employment. Yet it is to be observed, that the work thus executed was inferior
in quality, not marketable at home, and merely hurried over with a view to
exportation. It was called, in the cant of the trade, by the name of Spider-
work. The rejected workmen, in the blindness of their ignorance, instead of
rejoicing at these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived
themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. In the foolishness
of their hearts, they imagined that the maintenance and well doing of the
industrious poor, were objects of greater consequence than the enrichment of a
few individuals by any improvement in the implements of trade which threw the
workmen out of employment, and rendered the labourer unworthy of his hire.
And, it must be confessed, that although the adoption of the enlarged
machinery, in that state of our commerce which the country once boasted, might
have been beneficial to the master without being detrimental to the servant;
yet, in the present situation of our manufactures, rotting in warehouses
without a prospect of exportation, with the demand for work and workmen
equally diminished, frames of this construction tend materially to aggravate
the distresses and discontents of the disappointed sufferers. But the real
cause of these distresses, and consequent disturbances, lies deeper."

~~~
cornholio
I think this fragment clearly spells out what the Luddites were back then and
what they are remembered for today.

No, the Luddites where not against technology, and those using the term
properly are not saying that. Luddites rebelled against workplace automation,
with the explicit view that it renders skilled human labor unable to compete
and has disastrous social consequences. To call someone a modern Luddite has a
very specific meaning, it denotes opposition based on employment
circumstances.

We aren't talking about Google Glass, mass surveillance, social credits or any
ethically troubling technology that is yet to be accepted by society. We are
talking about technology designed to increase productivity of regular, already
accepted goods that has no nefarious effects other than unemployment, and
that, during the last 300 years, increased productivity, lower prices and
released humanity from industrial slavery.

The question is: can this process go on forever, aren't we hitting a hard
ceiling of human adaptability where the thinking machines will make us totally
unable to compete in the workplace? The Luddites matter, but not in the way
the author surmises.

------
pdimitar
> _you do not have to let a tech company screaming “technological progress” in
> your face turn you into a paragon of passivity_

This was the article's highlight for me. As a senior programmer I found myself
saying "no" to more and more tech nowadays -- smart speakers are and will
always be not welcome in my house, I carefully study mobile app permissions
and deny everything but the absolutely necessary minimum (on my mother's phone
as well), I am unplugging microphones and webcams when not using them, I
refuse to buy washing machines and any kind of kitchen tech with touch screens
(they are awfully non-durable, big surprise right?) and prefer tech with real,
physical buttons.

I am never gonna give WiFi access to my TV. I am even considering making my
home WiFi network hidden (not advertised). If you manually specify SSID and
password you will connect alright but you can never see the SSID. I feel this
might be a necessary default before too long. We'll see.

I did give WiFi access to my printer because accessing it through the router's
USB port turned into a nightmare of problems and inconsistency. I disallowed
it to make outgoing connections (through the router) anywhere but in the local
network however -- I don't want it going to the internet.

Point is, new tech is marketed as "progress" for mercantile reasons by the big
corps and me and many others aren't just taking their word for it when they
say it's for the best of all of us.

My rather depressing observation has been that historically, ever since the
90s, technology and especially computers / phones aren't used to improve
people's lives; they only complicate them and increase people's time, energy
and money expenses. To actually improve your life with tech you have to go a
lot of extra miles.

The marketed "progress" technologies don't deserve the benefit of the doubt
lately. It's all but a historical fact that most "progress" is mostly "guys,
here's a new market we just invented, please buy because we want the money".

~~~
Consultant32452
Depending on who you are concerned about with regards to protecting your wifi,
hiding your SSID will mostly only annoy legitimate users. The most basic
script kiddie tools for breaking your wifi encryption will easily detect
hidden SSIDs. Even Windows informs you that a hidden wifi network is
available, it calls it "Other Network."

~~~
laythea
I just checked this on Windows 10. It even calls it a "Hidden Network". How
entertaining! :)

------
jhbadger
Yes, it is unfortunate that the term "Luddite" has become shorthand for
irrational dislike of technology while the historical Luddites had a very
rational (if self-interested) reason to dislike mechanization.

~~~
crdoconnor
They didn't even intrinsically dislike mechanisation. They just viewed machine
sabotage as an effective tactic.

The straw man of them being anti technology crusaders was entirely a
stereotype created and perpetuated by capitalists.

~~~
jpttsn
The captialists had a very rational (if self-interested) reason to dislike the
luddites. They just viewed straw men as an effective tactic.

~~~
wiz21c
>> rational

when it's about people, "rational" is the last thing we need. Empathy,
sympathy, compassion is what you need.

~~~
Andre_Wanglin
Why are those superior attributes to rationality?

~~~
anoncoward111
because "rationally" i should kill you and take your money and food

but "empathetically" i don't want the same thing to happen to me, so i
tolerate your existence in hopes that you tolerate mine

~~~
roenxi
There isn't a moment in recorded history where one human acting alone has
outperformed a group of humans working in tandem. It just doesn't happen.

You sometimes get scenarios where one human has disproportionate social
control over a group, but even then experiments with democracy have shown it
overwhelmingly outperforms the competition. So far on both an absolute and a
per capita basis. Many (most?) of our morals also happen to be game-theory
optimums that you would raitionally see value in even as a true sociopath.

What you describe isn't rational, it is some combination of desperation and
short term thinking. The rational approach has always been to organise and
cooperate. If you actually tried to behave that way you would discover that
what you call 'behaving rationally' will involve you having no material goods,
comfort or prospect for obtaining them.

~~~
anoncoward111
ok, i have a better one:

"rationally", i shouldn't care about global warming because it's inconvenient
to alter my lifestyle and because global warming will not affect me as much in
my lifetime

but "empathetically" i care about the future environment i'm leaving for
future humans

~~~
shakna
You're using 'rational' as something devoid from worldview - which it can't
be.

Rationally I should have multiple children, as my only legacy is my name.

Still rational, differing worldview.

Part of the worldview your thoughts on rationallity betray is that only the
'here and now' matter. Which only fits a very small philosophy even within the
subset of humanity that have no belief in anything supernatural.

A worldview guides not just our view on our relationship to others, and
ourselves, and not just moral conduct, but the end goals being targeted. Our
rationallity cannot be divorced from our motivations.

Some worldviews are just 'to live another day', others are more nuanced,
measuring impact against criteria.

For example, frugality is a worldview, where you don't have any rational
compulsion to kill, steal and hoarde, as you don't need it anyway.

~~~
projektir
> Rationally I should have multiple children, as my only legacy is my name.

I would say that any view that includes a concept such as "legacy" is already
highly irrational... there's nothing rational about having a world view that
you do not call into doubt.

At the end of the day, you'll just gravitate towards a worldview that's the
easiest to support. That's what tends to happen to people since cognitive
dissonance hurts. There's nothing rational whatsoever in this entire process
and it is the very start of the problem, you can't ignore it.

The whole problem with "rational" is that it's a poor term that got
appropriated to describe behaviors that are not actually rational.

"Rational" is mostly a shorthand for "logically derived", which is only one
rather shallow facet of processing, and, not all that surprisingly, can lead
to rather irrational behaviors, like the ones the person you're responding to
is referencing. It often leads to nihilism, amoral philosophies, and other
things that play right into the worst parts of game theory. Because this is
what we naturally do if we turn off other processing. We have all the other
processing for a reason.

Emotions, intuition, and experience are all very important. Pure logic cannot
replace them, it is simply too slow, and there's simply not enough
information. The reason a lot of us are really annoyed with rationalists is
because they're walking around saying all those things don't matter.

~~~
roenxi
It sounds like you've had a bad experience with rationalists. I can sympathise
:P. Loudly claiming to be 'logical' and 'a rationalist' is rarely a logical or
rational act, so the people who do it ironically tend not be either (the
exception in my book is if they really enjoy arguing with or annoying other
people).

But rationalism isn't short-termism. Rationalists can execute long term plans,
potentially even multi-generational beneficial schemes, just as well as
everyone else. And just as badly. As the comment you replied to succinctly
argues, there is no causation between rationalism and values.

As an aside, logic isn't related to rationality any more deeply than logic is
tied in to anything else. I suppose the opposite of a rationalist is a
religious fundamentalist? Religious fundamentalists can be extremely logical
too (as in, their actions can be completely consistent with their
assumptions). Logic is just a technique to tell if some of your beliefs are
inconsistent, it isn't monopolised by any given world view. And it certainly
can't create new beliefs out of nothing, only evidence can do that.

------
indogooner
My takeaway : "You probably want to be able to feed your children (if you have
any), you probably don’t want to be driven into poverty, and you probably feel
that your economic security is at least as important as your boss’s ability to
buy a new vacation home"

------
jefurii
The Amish are another group whose name is synonymous with rejecting all
technology, but whose story is much more nuanced. They carefully consider each
technology and try it out on selected individuals to see what effect it has on
them, their family, and their community. They're not afraid to reject a
technology or to set limits on its use; they're also not afraid to adopt a
technology if it's useful to them.

Howard Rheingold's 1999 article
([https://www.wired.com/1999/01/amish/](https://www.wired.com/1999/01/amish/))
is a classic. Kevin Kelly has also written a lot about the Amish and their
relation to technology.

------
FrozenVoid
Luddites are just people disempowered by automation and capitalism: if its
cheaper to use machines than people, automation makes people effectively
jobless - and if automation touches multiple sectors of economy it multiplies
the effect by squeezing out people from multiple sides, reducing the labor
demand significantly.

If there are no alternative sources of income(welfare, UBI) that correct this,
expect many more "Neo-Luddites" to emerge; specifically in areas targeted for
automation.

Its not that these people would be "against progress", they would be against
more concrete things(such as the article describes) like automated
trucks/delivery and start attacking/robbing/sabotaging the machines to
discourage their use instead of people. Just like some abuse automated
cashiers(cash registers) to steal products and earlier trends of vending
machine abuse: it doesn't register to people they are criminals because the
target of crime isn't human, therefore justifying their impulse and intention.
That means NeoLuddites don't lose their own 'moral high ground' and will be
able to easily spread their ideologies as automation carries bigger and bigger
chunk of the economy.

~~~
gaius
_more "Neo-Luddites" to emerge; specifically in areas targeted for automation_

The difference being that the automation you want to smash is actually
thousands of miles away in China; there are no local factories anymore for the
neo-Luddites to target.

~~~
emodendroket
The automated trucks and cash registers his post refers to cannot be
"thousands of miles away in China" and serve their intended purpose.

------
knorker
The term is overused, yes. But sometimes it's correct.

The taxi industry (especially black cabs in London) fits everything in this
article, in my opinion. People who "just want to feed their children" trying
to force democracy and capitalism to purchase a product (their skill, called
"the knowledge") that has become obsolete, a product nobody needs anymore.

You have a skill. I'm sorry, that skill is no longer required in the world of
2018 for many years. Your job can now actually be done by anyone, and that is
why you're getting competition. It's as if everyone with a liberal art's
degree would demand to become a famous artist.

(a difference being of course that London black cabs are hugely corrupt, as
seen by blatant disregard for payment rules, tax law, traffic rules and the
fact that they fairly successfully make TFL act against the interests of
everyone-who-is-not-a-black-cab-driver, which is most people)

rant over

------
haberman
The author perceives an unjust smear against historical Luddites, and protests
the way that this cuts off critical thinking about the issue of technology in
our lives. They highlight that historical Luddites had noble and relatable
motives, like wanting better wages to feed their families. They entreat us to
think with nuance on the issue. A good and fair point.

But then, just paragraphs later, the same author casually throws out two of
the most charged smears in modern discourse: "In the midst of recent years
that have shown the sorts of racist and misogynistic biases that are often
endemic in the tech world...". There is no explanation or justification of
what is meant by this. There is certainly no nuance.

This seems endemic to modern discourse. We want a fair hearing of our own
beliefs. We feel persecuted when others smear us. But we see no problem
tossing around harsh judgments of others, with no nuance or recognition of
other people's potentially noble goals.

I wonder if this author would be willing to give a fair and nuanced hearing
towards people who are conservative on immigration (for example). Worry about
immigrants taking jobs is one of the top reasons people give for opposing
immigration. So the original Luddites and people who are conservative on
immigration have something in common.

I think this paragraph from the article takes on new meaning if you substitute
"immigration" and "xenophobia" for "technology" and "technophobia". I wonder
if the author would still support the argument:

> And I must report that it seems quite obvious that terms like “anti-
> technology” and even “technophobia” are just signs of lazy thinking, they
> say far more about the person using those terms than the people being
> accused of being “anti-technology.” In the vast majority of cases when you
> actually consider what these so-called “anti-technology” folks believe you
> realize that they don’t oppose “all” technology but (brace yourself)
> particular technologies, being used in particular ways, in a particular
> context. This is not to pretend that genuinely “extreme” cases don’t exist,
> but to claim that someone who thinks Facebook has become too big wants us
> all to go back to living in the woods is patently absurd. Yet it is the type
> of absurdity that becomes common in a society that has lost the ability to
> think critically about technology.

My goal overall isn't to shame the author though. I want to argue that we
should apply this charity towards _everyone_ making arguments, not just the
people who align with us.

~~~
memonkey
I think one of those points is the historical context the argument considers
and the consequences that surround it and who is making the argument. For
example, if an accused white supremacist in a position of power makes an
argument for immigration, should we apply this charity?

~~~
haberman
The author is arguing for critical thinking. If a person makes an argument and
we write it off because of that person's identity, that is the opposite of
critical thinking. We could as easily write off the Luddites for being violent
lawbreakers.

Like "racist", "white supremacist" is tossed around ever more liberally in
modern discourse. At Evergreen this year, people left graffiti saying that
science without intersectionality is white supremacy. We need to engage ideas
critically precisely to determine whether charges like "accused white
supremacist" are even accurate.

------
simula67
> Frankly, the Luddites wanted to be able to feed their children, they didn’t
> want to be driven into poverty, and they thought those things were more
> important than the factory owners becoming wealthier and more powerful

The effect of industrial revolution was not just factory owners being
wealthier or more powerful. It raised the workers wages and increased living
standards for everyone

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, but that is not something the Luddites could see from where they were
standing and plenty of them did end up hungry. The problem with progress is
that it does nothing whatsoever for those that are being displaced, and to
tell them to 'have the long view' does not solve their immediate problems.

~~~
digi_owl
Across time the vast majority of crime seems to originate with hunger and
other desperate situations.

~~~
hinkley
As the saying goes: revolutions happen when the price of bread goes too high.

~~~
digi_owl
And something we witnessed during the Arab Spring.

~~~
triangleman
He's right:
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/17/bread-f...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/17/bread-
food-arab-spring)

------
cheschire
Try explaining to people that you’re a programmer who doesn’t own a cell
phone, and count the seconds till this term gets raised. It’s disheartening to
watch our society practically force others through attempted shaming to follow
the acceptable path. I admit feebly that I bought a cell phone because the
infotainment system in my car is garbage, and that seems to silence the worst
of it, but I feel it’s going against my own values to even bring up that
glorified internet radio as roughly equivalent to their pocket leash just so I
don’t have to defend my pride yet again.

~~~
ChristianBundy
Have you written about your motivations or experience without a cell phone?

I've been considering getting rid of mine (and a local friend switched to a
dumb phone[0]) but RMS is the first person that comes to mind when I think of
a programmer without a cell phone.

[0]: [http://jordancrane.me/2018/04/16/the-dumbphone-
chronicles/](http://jordancrane.me/2018/04/16/the-dumbphone-chronicles/)

~~~
__s
I'm also a programmar without a phone or cell. No TV either. I beat people to
the punch & laugh about being a technoluddite. Goes along with my at-home
development environment being a linux tty & staying off Facebook. Have a nice
century old home. My boss is thinking of buying me a cell. I tend towards a
lot of seemingly contradictory behavior: philosophically I'm somewhat of a
stoic/hedonist hybrid

I think programmers are more likely to opt out of things like cell phones.
More likely to be technically competent enough to be work around challenges of
going with simplicity & more likely to want that simplicity. Also more likely
to see behind the curtain of this post privacy world

------
darepublic
I think a google glass type product will be back eventually

------
627467
Class wanted to maintain status quo, and resorted to violence as part of that
campaign... it has nothing to do with technology itself. Why does it matter?
It may matter like any other labour movement matters.

------
crazydoggers
The problem I have with the Luddites was their assumption that they were
entitled to their way of life. It’s a similar refrain heard today... coal
miners want more protection so they can continue to live and work in cole
mining towns. They just want to feed their children... something we can all
related to. But if times change, then you have to change with then. You don’t
get to hold the rest of society hostage... either thru slowing tech progress
via violence.. or continuing to support an industry that is destroying the
planet.

~~~
5DFractalTetris
To some extent the miner is the vanguard of your ability to discuss this on
the internet. We can't run the grid on lumber or "energy crops," and all the
other options (solar, wind, fracking, hydroelectric, geothermal) have very
similar environmental impacts to coal energy.

There's an advanced energy ecosystem that keeps a lot of really subtle and
important things running as the human ecosystem evolves. Maybe at some point
coal mining does get phased out in favor of less energy and cleaner energy,
but you're gambling on that miner's tonnage not being necessary to clear that
gap.

A society could also say, "No, coal stops tomorrow," but a lot of places tried
"Everyone's a farmer tomorrow" in the 20th century for very similar reasons
and hundreds of millions of people starved to death.

That coal miner isn't only feeding his family, that miner feeds and warms
probably thousands of people. To phase out his job, you need a willful change
in the infrastructure of the places he serves: you would need everyone to live
somewhere without heating, to give up some amount of electricity use, and to
begin food production independent of energy (which is a lark, if you've ever
tried to grow a crop it is not easy, especially without Haber process or crop
defense agents).

~~~
nitrogen
_...all the other options (solar, wind, fracking, hydroelectric, geothermal)
have very similar environmental impacts to coal energy._

You're going to have to back up that claim with some very strong evidence.

~~~
5DFractalTetris
Follow the process chains for manufacturing all of these technologies from
their constituent ores, transporting them to a suitable location, and
constructing the end product of a power plant connected to a durable energy
infrastructure. It cannot be done without ore tailings, a preexisting grid
(which will decay and will need periodic regeneration), though maybe it can be
done without fossil fuels. I still think the coal phase-out is going to take
another 50 years. I'd be surprised if burning stopped completely in my
lifetime.

Generally speaking, we eat stuff to gain energy and stay alive, and process it
into byproducts. Since we need heat and cooking and transit, we end up eating
uranium and coal as much as food.

As far as the environmental impacts of the energy economy are concerned, I'd
like to think that the worst of it was noticed and mitigated when the EPA was
formed. Lots of the numbers about one form of energy versus another and the
cost-benefit analyses are (as my argument was for you) way too much conjecture
than I can be comfortable with.

~~~
all_blue_chucks
Arguing that things use resources does not support your claim that they use
the same resources.

~~~
5DFractalTetris
That may be true, but due to a number of scientific conclusions in the 20th
century (the uncertainty principle & the incompleteness theorems), I've
concluded that all knowledge is at best heuristic, and that claims to the
contrary are a form of violence. I'm prepared to claim "all these use
resources" but am not prepared to claim "some technologies use certain
resources in a way that offer environmental benefit over other technologies,
which use different resources." That seems unfair and/or dangerous.

~~~
all_blue_chucks
Are you for real? That is the most /r/iamverysmart thing I've ever read.

------
truculation
_> Of course, we know that today the Luddites are not viewed particularly
kindly_

On the contrary, it is technology and progress that are viewed with scepticism
-- watch almost any recent sci-fi movie.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX-K63pVPTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX-K63pVPTM)

------
throwaway_234
As a UI/UX Designer I design with this audience in mind.

Though working with one is a bit annoying. Hey let’s design it this way it’s
simpler umm no I don’t know how to code it that new way let’s do it the way I
know. Sigh.

------
bleachedsleet
The author's premise is that Luddites are a misunderstood group with a
misunderstood agenda but then goes on to immediately say:

"The historic Luddites were skilled craft workers laboring in England in the
early 19th century, and they were amongst the first groups to see their jobs
and lifestyles fall victim to mechanization; their opposition to 'obnoxious'
machinery was in keeping with their view that the imposition of these machines
would bring 'a sad end to an honourable craft.'"

...which is exactly why myself and others generally ignore ludditism. To me
this seems perfectly in line with the general understanding of the term:
people that are being displaced by progress and become generally opposed to
said progress as a result, often violently so.

I'm sorry if new technologies are hurting your lifestyle, but if the only way
to become heard is to literally destroy that tech, then perhaps no one wants
to listen.

Adapt or die. This is the way of evolution.

~~~
Izkata
Yeah, this article actually confused me a bit, too. I always thought the
common understanding of Luddite was "doesn't understand / doesn't care about"
technology. Did nothing to dissuade that notion, either.

