This 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 new book bringing this interpretation to more people is worthwhile, but it's not a novel take on the movement, just an attempt to reclaim the colloquial phrase.
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 something in the times of "Learn 2 code", or "Go be a plumber" that we hear tossed about so casually. When you cause mass unemployment in a trade, especially very rapidly, you can destabilize society, you can induce crime, and even if you're not directly affected by the trade, you can be indirectly affected by the instability of the changing employment market.
Fully agreed. And everything that you say in that last paragraph is just as true today as it was then, at least in the US. We do not have a good strategy in place for taking care of all of these displaced people, and society in general will suffer for it.
There are many things twisted like this in our living memory and it irritates the hell out of me. How do we deal with it aside from endlessly correcting people? Indeed, Luddites weren't against technology.
The McDonald's hot coffee lady case wasn't frivolous.
"The customer is always right..."? Yeah, "... in matters of taste." It means you don't sell a customer who wants a green car a red one.
The "welfare queen" story wasn't about a woman who was lazy and collecting benefits, she just fit a profile that matched peoples' prejudice. It's difficult to stay on the government dole and there's a lot of conditions for receiving it. Defrauding them can disqualify you from further benefits or land you in the slammer. People aren't out there living the high life off of SS.
Sorry if it seems scattershot, I'm just describing other things that get twisted far away from their original circumstance, usually just to enable anti social behavior, like calling someone who takes a careful approach to technology a Luddite.
For better or worse, in modern parlance "luddite" is the same as "vandal" or "barbarian": actual Vandals weren't really vandalistic, and Barbarians weren't all that barbaric.
If the term wasn't "luddite", "vandal", or "barbarian" then it would be something else to describe the same thing. That is: these terms aren't really a source of any sentiment, and merely used to describe it.
This is different from e.g. the McDonald's coffee lady, where people draw real conclusions about modern society from the case (usually with very limited knowledge of the facts) and is the source of a sentiment.
> The McDonald's hot coffee lady case wasn't frivolous.
No, this isn't "twisted in our living memory". The people who think that the lawsuit is frivolous haven't forgotten that the coffee was hotter than other fast-food coffee, or rather, it has no bearing on their assessment.
Coffee is a hot beverage, and it's in your personal responsibility not to put a flimsy cup containing a hot beverage between your legs, especially not while sitting in a car. It's completely irrelevant whether the coffee was 85°C, 75°C, or 65°C, or whether there's a large warning label on the side of the cup – as an adult you can be expected to exert common sense, and if you don't, then McDonald's shouldn't be held liable for your clumsiness.
They sold 180–190 °F coffee, with a lid, to a 79yo lady at a drive-through window. She was sitting in her car and spilled the coffee in her lap while trying to remove the lid. I don't have an opinion on the legal ramifications, but the setting has 'horrific accident waiting to happen' written all over it.
> 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 legs.
> the setting has 'horrific accident waiting to happen' written all over it
Not more than handing someone knife and fork. If you go out for dinner and you cut yourself in the finger, or you stab an eye out because you forgot how to use cutlery, is that also the restaurant's fault? Should they give everyone dull knifes and spoons only, just in case?
> 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 in-restaurant guests from drinking it too quickly and getting free refills. They knew the coffee was too hot and had received many complaints, and other people had been burned, but it was in fact "the point" to ensure the coffee was too hot, to save a couple of cents per customer.
Don't waste your time on such worthless rhetoric coming from the other guy. He clearly thinks it's okay to hurt people, moreso if it can be argued 'they brought it on themselves'. I wonder what their opinions on sexual assault are.
Is it also personal responsibility when a rollercoaster fails? They knew the risks, allegedly.
This is a dim moral view of humanity. Basically nobody is liable to you, even if they fuck up? That's not how morals and ethics work.
I'm convinced those that beat the drum of personal responsibility are simply conservatives that want everyone to lead a shit life. There is only so much one can do to avoid the damage that others cause. But of course, no personal responsibility to the businesses hurting people, right?
Dead giveaway of conservative, backwards outlooks. You would not be able to build a community with those values.
The real lesson we should be taking from the Luddites is while they did establish a precedent for fighting for worker's rights, they failed in any meaningful way to reverse the march of technology. In fact throughout history we have never managed to put the technology genie back in the bottle, probably going back to the first tools and weapons that were ever created. So we had better figure out real quick how we are going to live with AI, because there is no going back now.
This is an assertion made, necessarily, without evidence. It's also value laden in terms of what is considered "costly", and who should make the judgement.
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 fairly good argument for their use 120 years ago, but it turns out that whether that argument was or wasn't correct, planning to continue to use them "forever" is not only infeasible, but utterly detrimental.
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?
So it's okay to perform the harmful act, knowing the harm it will cause, as long as you leave yourself the out of being able to say it'd have come to nothing had others declined to participate? I once heard a heroin dealer make a similar claim.
No, of course not; that would be foolish. I'm pointing out that this argument goes equally well to justify either practice, and a lot more ill besides. That makes it a weak argument, and it makes someone who uses it look likewise, because who'd go for this if they had anything better?
How were the Luddites harming others by preserving their way of life?
Also, costs? We're caring about money in a discussion about technology and culture? By that measure, the only cultures we should have around are the ones that cost the least.
> How were the Luddites harming others by preserving their way of life?
Me and my pals have some skill that you can now buy a machine and replace so me my pals put on masks and come visit you to smash those machines. Me and my pals want to keep getting paid for the work the machine can do nearly free now. Are me and my pals not imposing costs on others?
> We're caring about money in a discussion about technology and culture? By that measure, the only cultures we should have around are the ones that cost the least.
What would you say to slave owners struggling to preserve their culture and way of life when slavery was being outlawed? Would you support them? Because to preserve their culture and way of life which imposes costs on others is ok?
The Luddites were free people who knew a trade that machines were threatening to make obsolete. The slavery situation is nowhere near comparable. Slave owners didn't care one iota about their livestock, they were a means to an end. Did the Luddites capture or enslave anyone? I think this comparison was made solely to raise the temperature of the conversation.
Vandalism or destruction of property is nowhere near as insidious as the erasure of an entire culture and squeezing money out of them for literally generations.
I'm not convinced you have a clear view of who the Luddites were. We should look back at that situation as a hint as to how we should move forward with technology in society, if we make that choice. Choosing to leave certain people behind and not offer retraining or some other opportunity is exactly what creates the malice that would motivate a tradesman to destroy machinery. People know when they're being screwed or left out. So, maybe we shouldn't screw people over whose skills become obsolete by technologies. We should be forward-thinking and responsible in the effects our innovations have on our social systems.
Or we can blame individuals and call them names. Good enough I guess?
If your job was X by hand and now a machine does X better what gives you the right to deny others who want to use such a machine?
> The Luddites were free people who knew a trade that machines were threatening to make obsolete.
Did Luddites not feel it was their right to impose costs on others to maintain their way of life?
> Slave owners didn't care one iota about their livestock, they were a means to an end.
Slave owners not feel it was their right to impose costs on others to maintain their way of life?
The two cases are obviously different however do you deny both involve the the belief that it is ok to impose costs on others to maintain some way of life? There is nothing in common?
>Choosing to leave certain people behind and not offer retraining or some other opportunity is exactly what creates the malice that would motivate a tradesman to destroy machinery.
A society that leaves members behind will be out competed and replaced by societies that are smarter about this. Ditto for a society that imposes costs on others so that some group can continue to maintain some legacy way of life.
> If your job was X by hand and now a machine does X better what gives you the right to deny others who want to use such a machine?
Self-preservation? Do you expect them to roll over and die?
> Did Luddites not feel it was their right to impose costs on others to maintain their way of life?
Did the factory owners not feel it was their right to suddenly and massively disrupt the industries that Luddites were making a living in? What about the cost on them?
> Self-preservation? Do you expect them to roll over and die?
Above I said “A society that leaves members behind will be out competed and replaced by societies that are smarter about this. Ditto for a society that imposes costs on others so that some group can continue to maintain some legacy way of life.” Are these ideas unreasonable? If you think they are good ideas, the rational thing to do is spread them so there is collective will to have a safety net that ensures nobody is left behind. This needs to exist and be collectively paid for ahead of time. That many do not understand this is a problem. One solution is laws like forced purchased of private vehicle insurance. Another is to include such insurance as part of citizenship which now has a higher price / taxes. What is needed are some prices signals so that those who make decisions that put them at greater risk should pay higher costs to prevent such decisions.
> Did the factory owners not feel it was their right to suddenly and massively disrupt the industries that Luddites were making a living in? What about the cost on them?
Nobody “owes” you a job. Factory owners must follow laws but are otherwise free to run factory as they like even shut it down. They are at the mercy of a market of consumers. Are you willing to pay for hand made goods / services when machine made offer better value? What do you suppose happens to a business that refuses to modernize?
The Luddite movement came about more due to working condition concerns and factory owners skirting standard labor practices rather than an anti-tech slant. The workers just wanted safe working conditions and fair wages, not to halt progress.
“But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.” [1]
“Part of why Ludd could count on such support was that Lt Mellor began by strategically targeting the factories that had the worst records of safety and that paid the lowest wages.” [2]
“Malcolm L. Thomas argued in his 1970 history The Luddites that machine-breaking was one of the very few tactics that workers could use to increase pressure on employers, undermine lower-paid competing workers, and create solidarity among workers. "These attacks on machines did not imply any necessary hostility to machinery as such; machinery was just a conveniently exposed target against which an attack could be made." [3]
“In the place of a “cottage industry” where clothworkers, often working from home, could work as many or as few hours in the day as suited them, a new institution was arising: the factory. Inside the factory, workers would work long hours at dangerous machinery, be fed meager meals, and submit to the punitive authority of the foreman. The Luddites saw that the winners from this technological “progress” would not be workers—neither the expert textile makers losing their jobs, nor the exploited children replacing them. The winners were the factory owners who, having found a new way to disempower their workers, were able to amass a greater share of the profits those workers generated.” [4]
This is certainly something worth learning from today, and a new book bringing this interpretation to more people is worthwhile, but it's not a novel take on the movement, just an attempt to reclaim the colloquial phrase.