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.
Everyone Is a Luddite Now
Submitted 1 year ago by Womble@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.wired.com/story/everyone-is-a-luddite-now
Comments
Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
huginn@feddit.it 1 year ago
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.
ayaya@lemdro.id 1 year ago
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.
CalicoJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
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.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year 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@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Clickbait title written by a sorry excuse for a journalist. Gregory Barber should go write top 10 lists for Buzzfeed.
Makeitstop@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Buzzfeed would be a step up from Wired.
guitarsarereal@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Although, Marx’s critique still stands, in that the Luddites, while they generally correctly noticed the problem that within capitalism new technologies generally serve to further disempower workers and devalue their labor even further, didn’t have a shred of an answer. As it turns out, solving problems is more complicated than smashing things that are pissing you off.
Hence why the Luddites are a fondly-remembered image but the march of technology hasn’t slowed down literally at all.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Smartphones disrupted so more industries than they are at risk now, disrupting previously functional part of the society. It 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.
kittykabal@kbin.social 1 year 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
neptune@dmv.social 1 year ago
Unpaywalled
PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The Luddites weren’t wrong, their jobs were taken by technology.
Flabbergassed@artemis.camp 1 year ago
My job was taken by Dave.
ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 1 year ago
I personally refer the term Butlerian Jihadist, especially when it comes to being against AI generated content.
Gutless2615@ttrpg.network 1 year ago
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Always make me laugh seeing these neo-luddites. They’re cute as hell
mycatiskai@lemmy.one 1 year ago
The Majority Report had an excellent interview with Brian Merchant who wrote a 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.
www.youtube.com/live/SOsFm5H_M3w?si=KNxbkNnziDdh0…
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
There are also two rather excellent podcast episodes about luddites and the book, one by 99 percent invisible and another by Cautionary Tales.
chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
The interviews on The Majority Report are so good and in depth.
I always feel bad when I time them out while working. I can’t help that I do that. Sucks.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Time them out? What does this mean?
mycatiskai@lemmy.one 1 year ago
I listen to them at work the night after. I’ll be listening to Fridays show tonight.