[HN Gopher] Rethinking the Luddites in the Age of A.I
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Rethinking the Luddites in the Age of A.I
Author : Hooke
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-09-26 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| pininja wrote:
| History is written by the victors. I hadn't heard about the
| Luddite movement until recently but had known of the slang for
| years. This book argues we might see the term reclaimed by those
| who have suddenly lost value from the emergence of AI.
| barryrandall wrote:
| History is written by whoever signs the check, and the popular
| perception of the Luddites reflects that.
| w_for_wumbo wrote:
| There's plenty of rhetoric about whether technology advancements
| will be a good thing or not. But I think that distracts from the
| core message, that the most important matter is not whether we
| use technology, but how we treat our fellow humans.
|
| 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.
|
| We have a mandate for us and our future generations to learn from
| the lessons of history and stand together as human beings to
| ensure that the value that we have created is respected and
| shared with those who created it.
|
| We don't deserve the scraps that fall to us, we deserve a seat at
| the damn table.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Given what the "top" of society looks like currently, the
| Luddites were correct to be skeptical of technology, and
| accusations of "Luddite" at the slightest hint of not being
| 100% on board with the latest fad technology make this
| discussion seem in bad faith. Most techies I know do not have a
| skeptical eye for technology, even though IMO they should. This
| shit is being used to spy on and manipulate us with the data
| they gather. At what point is it okay to say "no"? My view of
| the culture says techies never say no to new shiny.
|
| We need a new era of carefulness in computing, both as
| programmers and as users. We need to demand better
| accountability. As long as the leaders we have now are still
| there tomorrow, I'm afraid this goal will never happen. You
| need a nation who cares more about its people than its GDP to
| achieve that, and I posit no nation on Earth has that level of
| care for its people.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| luddites were not skeptical of technology, or even against
| it. They were against the way in which factory owners used
| technology to displace them, in illegal ways, 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.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| _My view of the culture says techies never say no to new
| shiny_
|
| The only people I know who remotely care about things like
| data privacy and GDPR are techies. I personally will never
| install a "smart home" device.
| rossriley wrote:
| People bring the value that they generate for an economy. Once
| they can be replaced with AI/Robots then that labour can be
| reallocated further up the value chain which in turn makes our
| economies and culture richer and more productive.
|
| Imagine if we were all working 18 hour subsistence farming jobs
| now just to survive, it's ridiculous to argue that eschewing
| automation for anything is detrimental, it only serves to
| enhance society and make it more productive.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _Imagine if we were all working 18 hour subsistence farming
| jobs now just to survive..._
|
| Then you definitely shouldn't look at actual reports of time
| spent, leisure time, etc, in those eras.
|
| Because that's nothing at all what life was in the eras
| you're thinking of.
|
| How much of our modern time - work hours - do we spend to
| maintain the cars we take to work, and the large houses we
| were convinced to buy "as an investment," etc? Or just our
| personal tech stacks that always somehow seem to need
| replacement?
| peteradio wrote:
| Bit of a rosy picture though. People aren't reallocated,
| instead they are fed opioids/various other drugs to death.
| There are very much winners and losers.
| noduerme wrote:
| You can both be right. An obese, drug addled society is by
| definition a wealthy one (although it may not be for long).
| mulmen wrote:
| This is a nice sentiment but labor doesn't create value in a
| world of robots. We need a radically different system of wealth
| allocation.
| pydry wrote:
| 1) We need a radically different one _now_ - one that shifts
| the burden *off " labor and back on to asset owners -
| _especially_ land owners (there is literally only an economic
| upside to taxing them more).
|
| 2) somebody still has to fix those robots.
|
| 3) if control over the economy were wrested from oligarchs
| and were put under _democratic_ control, the economy wouldnt
| be geared towards frittering away billions on trying to
| deskill, dehumanize and eliminate labor.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| I take issue with point three. Assuming that
| democratization of private goods is a good thing, we'd want
| to deskill so to speak. We'd want to pursue automation. I
| doubt the majority of citizens would want know how to
| maintain the automation.
| tzs wrote:
| > 2) somebody still has to fix those robots.
|
| Not necessarily. If the manufacturing of robots can be made
| cheap enough it may be cheaper to replace broken robots
| with new ones and send the broken ones off to be recycled
| rather than fix them.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| > 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.
|
| The thing is we can't help but compare people on the value that
| they bring. We can't go on about human value being tied to our
| creativity, emotional sensitivity, or any skill because once AI
| can do that, that value goes out the window for humans. Humans
| have to be valuable for no other reason than the fact that they
| are human, even if they technically are a burden. This is the
| only mentality that will keep humans safe in the AI apocalypse.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > 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.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Equal pay for robots!!
| mouse_ wrote:
| The people in positions of power are going to treat their
| fellow humans as poorly as they can get away with. That's how
| they got their positions of power.
| its_ethan wrote:
| I think you'd find that, on average, "as poorly as they can
| get away with" actually does mean that they treat people
| quite well.
|
| I'm not sure what hierarchies you've been a part of where
| people actively trying to treat people poorly leads to their
| success - I'd wager those are few in far between in reality,
| and over represented in media. Maybe you're cynical about a
| few high profile companies or how U.S. politics appears, but
| positions of power exist everywhere in society, and society
| wouldn't be even remotely functional if people followed your
| assumed behavior.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Walk into any office in the United States and you'll find
| this. There's even a phenomenon associated with it that has
| a name: The Peter Principle.
|
| Within any organization, you will have the sociopaths who
| want the glitz and title and power but have no respect for
| those they'll have to knock down to get there. That is what
| we're talking about.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The Peter Principle is about being incompetent, not
| sociopathic.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You've never heard of sweatshops or labor trafficking?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Google "wage theft US" ...
|
| I think some people treat people well, but I've met too
| many small business owners who bristle at paying minimum
| wage.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| How much power do such people have? (Clearly not zero,
| but ...)
| realce wrote:
| Enough to keep the minimum wage from growing logically or
| justly
| JohnFen wrote:
| Big businesses, too.
| nirvdrum wrote:
| I suppose this is all relative. Paying people a paltry
| wage, cutting their hours so they can't get employer-
| sponsored healthcare, routinely committing wage theft,
| forcing minors to be use unsafe equipment, requiring doctor
| notes for time off from work, denying PTO requests or
| shifting PTO so it can't be accrued or paid out are all
| pretty common with some major US corporations. And on top
| of that they took advantage of raising inflation to jack up
| prices or reduce product quantities so they could maximize
| profit.
|
| So, yeah, Americans aren't working 16 hour shifts in mines
| anymore and child labor laws are largely in effect. But, I
| also wouldn't say most people are treated "quite well."
| That's not the media force-feeding me stuff. That's first-
| hand experience and watching what friends and family are
| going through right now.
| rurp wrote:
| Look at how people are treated in places without decent
| labor laws or other protections. There are hundreds of
| millions of people _right now_ toiling away in miserable
| and dangerous conditions. Middle class workers in the US
| and Europe are the exception, not the norm.
| username135 wrote:
| That's essentially capitalism.
|
| Profit > everything else
| ta8645 wrote:
| That's human nature. You won't get a better deal in Russia,
| China or any theoretical utopian civilization you dream up
| either. I don't know what the answer is, but it sure as
| hell isn't blaming everything on capitalism.
| realce wrote:
| That's a PART of human nature, but to equate all of
| capitalism to all of human nature is a gross costuming.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Why is it people like yourself simply cannot fathom that
| one particular economic system could be harmful to
| humanity? We've managed to take a critical eye at
| superstition, religion, propaganda, all sorts of things.
| But the primary means through which inequality is carried
| out in society? NOOOO, leave that alone. That's
| _perfectly fine_ where it is.
|
| People who align with that are profiting from capitalism.
| ta8645 wrote:
| Why is it people like yourself can not learn from
| history? I'm all for moving in a better healthier
| direction, i'm not interested in repeating the mistakes
| of the past. For all its failings, capitalism has done
| more to improve the lives of every human on this planet
| more than any other system before.
|
| The burden of proof is thus on those who want to destroy
| it, to prove they have a viable and useful alternative
| that will ACTUALLY make the lives of people better.
| Instead, what I see is a direction that is guaranteed to
| lead to bloodshed and misery, with only a dreamers hope
| that what comes afterward is any better.
| [deleted]
| zlg_codes wrote:
| > For all its failings, capitalism has done more to
| improve the lives of every human on this planet more than
| any other system before.
|
| I'd like to see some real numbers for this. Capitalism
| creates inequality which even the feudal eras of various
| countries couldn't match. Serfs enjoyed more spare time
| in their day than the modern full-time worker. Granted,
| they had their own problems to deal with, but to pretend
| that capitalism is the best because it's created the most
| inequality (i.e. someone's hit a really high score)
|
| Capitalism enables sociopathic behavior. In fact, it
| rewards it. The more profit you get from something, the
| better you're playing capitalism. Doesn't matter if what
| you're selling is remotely close to what you're charging,
| in value. Endless growth and profit _must come from
| somewhere_. Money and resources do not just poof into the
| world. Money can be printed, but that has consequences.
|
| A corporation exploiting my labor so they can profit, and
| shareholders giving them money with the expectation to
| make more back later (i.e. gambling) is not making the
| world any better. It's trapping people into a cycle of
| giving their most valuable resource -- time -- to others
| of its kind that wouldn't care if they died tomorrow.
|
| I'm not sure what an alternative would be. People act
| like there's only 2 or 3 systems out there. That dogmatic
| myopia is part of what traps us in shitty systems.
|
| Without capitalism, I could have control over my life.
| Why should an economic system dominate one's waking life?
| Businesses are not more important than individuals. They
| have no more right to exist than we do.
| ta8645 wrote:
| > Without capitalism, I could have control over my life.
|
| Says who? You think people in China and Russia have more
| control over their life than those in the west? You've
| still not offered anything other than wishful thinking.
| You've not proposed any system to replace capitalism.
| Ultimately you're just offering destruction, with no
| vision for rebuilding other than, "I hope it gives me an
| easier life".
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Do you think China and Russia aren't capitalistic in
| nature? They structure their markets very much like the
| West, because they end up having to do business with the
| West at some points.
|
| Do you really think there isn't a better system than
| accepting that some other human out there is going to get
| more out of your work than you?
|
| In nations with extreme abundance, it should be trivial
| to solve problems of homelessness and hunger. We have the
| means, but capitalism says "no, people must not be
| allowed to survive without working for others".
|
| Why are we the only animal on Earth that pays others of
| its kind to survive and exist?
|
| If capitalism cannot bring people up then its cancerous
| nature will naturally give way to unrest and change.
| Expecting me to know what that change would be, and what
| conditions would settle, is unreasonable.
|
| Labor should be a choice, and you should get the vast
| majority of the benefit for it. Capitalism cannot offer
| such things. It has nothing to offer except exploitation.
| It rewards preying on your fellow person and justifies
| everything with profits. Cancer incarnate.
| ogogmad wrote:
| > In nations with extreme abundance, it should be trivial
| to solve problems of homelessness and hunger. We have the
| means, but capitalism says "no, people must not be
| allowed to survive without working for others".
|
| There's unemployment benefit. In the UK, that's PS85 a
| week. There's also council housing.
| TotalCrackpot wrote:
| Do you know that slavery too was justified to be just
| human nature and now it's fairly niche in richer parts of
| the world? Your argument is essentialist, so I find it
| weak. And both Russia and China are capitalist countries
| actually.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| That's not entirely fair. The main downside Capitalism
| has in this discussion is that the wellbeing of the
| people is not even one of it's stated goals. You can
| argue all you like about Socialism being a failed
| ideology, or impossibly utopian, that's it's own
| conversation. But it makes the common welfare a stated
| goal to strive for. Capitalism does not.
|
| Capitalism's goal is to maximize the creation wealth by
| allowing individuals to privately hold wealth and
| efficiently leverage it to produce more wealth.
| Currently, humans are a crucial element in the production
| of wealth, which has allowed labor to capture some amount
| of that wealth for themselves. But that's not central to
| Capitalism. If you can generate massive amounts of wealth
| and give none of it to your workforce, you've succeeded
| at Capitalism, even if it means the 90+% of the
| population who don't own much capital at all starve in
| the streets.
|
| In contrast, Communism's stated goal is the achievement
| of a classless, moneyless society that provides to each
| according to their need, and each works according to
| their ability. Unlike Capitalism, the elimination of the
| necessity of labor doesn't _intrinsically_ cause
| everybody to starve. It just dwindles away the necessity
| of the "from each according to their ability" part.
|
| So you can argue about what other better solutions there
| are, but if we're pushing towards a world with less and
| less need for human labor, Capitalism is flatly
| untenable. Capitalism's answer to human labor being
| optional is that the former labor class dies.
| ta8645 wrote:
| > In contrast, Communism's stated goal is the achievement
| of a classless
|
| What good is a stated goal if the reality is the
| opposite? Capitalism may not have a lofty sounding goal
| to your ear, but the fair trade of goods and services is
| actually a pursuit in the betterment and empowerment of
| mankind. Of course, human nature gets in the way, and
| leads to corruption that needs to be constantly addressed
| and readdressed, but that will never change no matter
| what system you dream up.
|
| And while capitalism isn't draped in utpoian idealism, it
| has the benefit of having proven to be able to lift a
| huge bulk of humanity out of subsistence living.
| [deleted]
| alexb_ wrote:
| Opposing technological development because it might cost people
| jobs is how you fall behind as a country. The last thing I want
| is for China to become the leader of the world because they
| actually pushed forward with technological progress.
| lolinder wrote:
| I think you completely missed the article's thesis. It's not
| about whether people lose their jobs, it's about whether people
| lose their livelihoods. Millions of lost jobs is inevitable,
| but millions of ruined lives is unacceptable.
|
| > In the era of A.I., we have another opportunity to decide
| whether automation will create advantages for all, or whether
| its benefits will flow only to the business owners and
| investors looking to reduce their payrolls. One 1812 letter
| from the Luddites described their mission as fighting against
| "all Machinery hurtful to Commonality." That remains a strong
| standard by which to judge technological gains.
| lewhoo wrote:
| I think it's clear that China is not the one to push for
| development of something that may flip the current state of
| power between government and the people.
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| The rewriting of history shows no sign of slowing I see.
| fredoliveira wrote:
| Care to expand?
| coolhand2120 wrote:
| People are happy to use tech like wix to build a web page because
| building web pages is hard. Virtually every designer, artist,
| writer, and musician, were all very happy to use wix even though
| it cost the jobs of legions of developers. "Finally I can do what
| these nerds can do without their help". I really don't see the
| difference.
| lolinder wrote:
| When a dollar store moves into an area, it provides most
| products for cheaper than an independent grocer possibly can,
| inevitably putting the local grocer out of business. It's sad
| for the grocer, but surely it's for the benefit of the
| community as a whole, right? Everything is cheaper! Except that
| the dollar store doesn't sell produce, and it just put the
| store that did out of business.
|
| I see a similar trend with automation: it can do most of the
| job far cheaper than the specialist can, so short-term
| rationality says we should embrace it completely. But then the
| specialist goes away, and we don't have access to them anymore
| for the things that automation is bad at.
|
| When you call in to customer support you can't talk to a human,
| because they replaced them with chat bots. When you need a good
| website designer because Wix won't cut it, they're out of your
| price range because the only ones left are working for large
| companies. When you want a new book, you can't find one written
| by a human, not because the robots have gotten as good as a
| good author, but because they've gotten good enough to spam the
| marketplaces so thoroughly that writing a good book isn't
| profitable anymore.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Reality is that it didn't cost any jobs. Everyone just moved up
| to making things more complex than what Wix can do. I don't
| feel my life is any worse off having moved from building static
| marketing pages to complex web apps.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| This is a great perspective because, if humans acted rationally
| and ethically, it would be reality.
|
| The problem I have with tools like that is the technical
| quality of the solution (which Wix seemed somewhat reasonable
| in its output when I briefly looked around at Wix sites) and
| the social effects. Putting together a Wix site and buying or
| downloading/installing a theme does not make you a Web
| developer.
|
| You're still getting to the end goal of a site, but without the
| knowledge of how it works and, should it break, how to fix it,
| it's more of an appliance to you than an environment to express
| yourself. (using royal you, not you personally)
|
| It's strange to me that people want to be able to "do what the
| nerds can", but don't want to put any of the effort forth. I
| would love to be a great drummer or saxophonist, but I
| recognize it would take years of effort and practice to reach
| that point. I could compose tracks using synthesized
| instruments, and that's its own music skill I guess, but it's
| definitely not the same as playing the instrument.
|
| Which jobs are you referring to that were lost? The dot-com
| era? As far as I understand, a lot of web design firms still
| exist, and tons more freelancers make cash through selling
| custom themes for clients or packaged themes on Wordpress,
| small client-oriented web apps, etc. And, given that much of
| the market is on Web tech still, a lot of the skills from 20
| years ago translate pretty well and can now be used to make
| software within the browser. In my own efforts to learn how to
| make webapps, I've only really had to learn flexbox and grid.
| Most of my old knowledge has carried over, with some slight
| modernization tweaks as necessary. It's nice to never _need_ to
| float a div ever again, haha.
|
| Having good tools that create good work is a goal I think most
| of us can get behind. The challenge lies in building the tools
| and promoting healthy culture.
| abakker wrote:
| I love this so much. The reality of _all_ technology is that it
| allows individuals to do more themselves. It condenses the
| knowledge domain to accomplish a task.
|
| In my mind, there are no downsides in allowing individuals more
| leverage. The real downsides are with the orthogonal problem of
| what productivity means in civil society.
|
| High productivity through technology is perfectly human - we're
| tool-builders and tool-makers. But, productivity does not
| absolve us of our responsibility to each other. People who
| suggest we should not use tools often justify their point of
| view with assertions of cost born by others. I am suspicious of
| this argument because the opportunity cost of _not_ letting
| people use the best tools available could be much greater. For
| example, had we not developed tools to create mRNA vaccines,
| many lives would have been lost to Covid that were saved. We
| don't know yet what AI will enable, but I'd rather we find out
| what people can achieve than focus on muddying the waters
| between productivity and society.
| lewhoo wrote:
| Sure, if you look at artificial intelligence as a tool
| (perhaps there is still no reason not to), but the end goal
| here is not to assist but to replace, isn't it ?
| [deleted]
| abakker wrote:
| I guess I tend to see it as an augmentation simply because
| I don't see much evidence of it originating expertise.
|
| A side comment here is that I am equally skeptical that
| leveraging copyright work as training data is fair use. if
| the objective is to retrieve original copyright work, then
| I think its fair use, but if the goal is to draw me
| campaign poster in the style of Shepard Fairey, I'm not
| that sympathetic.
|
| If we use AI to replace the creation of copyright free
| derivative works, it isn't clear what the objection should
| be?
| lewhoo wrote:
| > If we use AI to replace the creation of copyright free
| derivative works, it isn't clear what the objection
| should be?
|
| None whatsoever, and I agree with everything you stated
| but this is right here and right now. If the
| technological boundary of AI had already reached its
| speed of light then there wouldn't be anyone raising
| concerns.
| type0 wrote:
| Who are this modern day Luddites? Hollywood writers on strike?
| Don't try to make me laugh, it's not funny. I would prefer XJ-212
| Funnybot creations every day over present day garbage they are
| creating.
| Animats wrote:
| They came for the manual laborers, and I was not a manual
| laborer, so I did nothing.
|
| Then they came for the skilled craftsmen, and I was not a skilled
| craftsman, so I did nothing.
|
| Then they came for the clerks and bookeepers, and I was not a
| clerk or a bookkeeper, so I did nothing.
|
| Now they've come for the chattering classes, and there is no one
| left to speak for me.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Sort of backwards.
|
| First they came for the writers and illustrators, and I did
| nothing because I'm not a writer or an illustrator.
|
| Then they came for the musicians, and I did nothing because I
| only listen to music.
|
| Then they came for the text-dependent professional classes, and
| I did nothing because I'm not one of those people.
|
| They they came for the programmers, and the plumbers sat around
| laughing saying "and you thought you were so much better than
| us!"
| [deleted]
| Aunche wrote:
| > Today, the word "Luddite" is used as an insult to anyone
| resistant to technological innovation; it suggests ignoramuses,
| sticks in the mud, obstacles to progress. But a new book by the
| journalist and author Brian Merchant, titled "Blood in the
| Machine," argues that Luddism stood not against technology per se
| but for the rights of workers above the inequitable profitability
| of machines.
|
| Just because Luddites were sympathetic doesn't change the fact
| that they were wrong. They didn't care for the welfare of workers
| in general so much as they were looking out for themselves. It
| did not matter to them that hundreds of thousands of peasants
| chose to move to find work in the cities because it was better
| than life in the countryside and by destroying machinery,
| Luddites were taking away their livelihoods while the factories
| were shut down.
|
| It's usually at this time that someone will bring up the
| enclosure of common land as the reason why people were forced out
| of the countryside, but that doesn't change that factory life was
| still offered a better alternative for a lot of people. The
| privatization of fertile land was inevitable with a growing
| population. Without the new factory jobs, even more people would
| be stuck as serfs like they were in China or Russia at the time.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| 90% of people ever to exist were only looking out for
| themselves. The luddite claim that the industrial revolution
| made their life worse was absolutely not wrong, even if their
| actions were selfish.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| I thought that this had been the conventional view for a while
| now. Certainly it is what i have believed for many years, that
| the Luddites were reacting to iniquitous working practices and
| market forces.
| NoThankYouTho wrote:
| You are definitely correct, but there is a popular perception
| that Luddites are just reactionarily "opposing progress"
| because it hurts their own personal interests.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And the advoctaes for this kind of change are only pushing
| it, against all resistence and withbany means, because it
| serves _their_ personal interest. Difference being, the
| Ludditea had their livelihoods and health to loose. The other
| just a bunch of even more money earned on the backs of an
| exploited and abused workforce.
| [deleted]
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| "Luddites were reacting to iniquitous working practices and
| market forces." is the same thing as "reactionarily opposing
| progress because it hurts their own personal interests."
| NoThankYouTho wrote:
| I meant to stress the "opposing progress" part of my
| comment. The two things are only the same if there was a
| universal, objective definition of progress with bettering
| humanity. Imposing a subjective yet "active" intent like
| opposing progress just obfuscates context and nuance around
| what's happening.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Those are actually both the same thing. Luddites were being
| reactionary, they were opposing progress because it hurt
| their own personal interests, and it was 100% rational for
| them to do this (and thus should be expected).
| jacquesm wrote:
| At least the Luddites _eventually_ had other work to go to. This
| time around I 'm not so sure of that.
| janalsncm wrote:
| 99% invisible had Brian Merchant on recently. I agree with him
| except on the point that "Luddite" can be reclaimed. In an ideal
| world that would be possible, but in practical terms Luddite
| means a person who is against technological change.
|
| If you want to defend Luddite positions you don't need to defend
| the term itself. Then the correct retort would be _I'm not a
| Luddite I'm an X_ where X is something intuitive and short.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| I like to characterize my approach to technology as "informed
| carefulness". So maybe "I'm a cautious adopter of technology. I
| adopt what works, what improves my life, and respects my
| rights."
|
| The violation of people's trust through the use of telemetry is
| precisely what turned me skeptical of modern day stuff. There's
| a lot of stuff that I would probably use, if it wasn't hellbent
| on learning the color of my underwear, how often I snore, or
| what products I'm interested in.
|
| You won't catch me with a Ring camera, any Alexa device, I use
| uBlock, etc. There is so much more I would be comfortable using
| in this world of technology if there was a modicum of mutual
| respect.
| lolinder wrote:
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| > they were acting out of desperation to preserve their way of
| life
|
| Should I have the right to preserve my way of life when it
| imposes costs on others?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| You certainly have the right to try.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Should you have the right to press for changes that impose a
| cost on others?
| [deleted]
| winwang wrote:
| Sure, then I won't "press". I'll just release a product and
| see if the market wants it.
| throwanem wrote:
| 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.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| > 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?
| zlg_codes wrote:
| 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?
| zlg_codes wrote:
| 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.
| arp242 wrote:
| 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.
| adasdasdas wrote:
| > Luddism stood not against technology per se but for the rights
| of workers above the inequitable profitability of machines
|
| Being against the inequitable profitability of machines is just
| as dumb as being against technology, especially outside of a
| socialist context which this definitely was. It's basically
| crying that someone else is doing something better than you. In
| fact, I think being against technology wholesale is a much more
| defensible position since it creates an arms race, its
| unpredictable, it forces everyone into a lifestyle, etc.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| I'm not observing a situation of people massively losing their
| jobs or losing money. If you do, feel free to share your
| experience. So far, the AI technology has been a nice toy/support
| for the people.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Ever boiled a frog?
| lewhoo wrote:
| This is true but the "prophecy" is this is unavoidable due to
| rapid development and no ceiling in sight.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| Anecdotally I hear that freelance article writing dried up
| pretty quickly now that you can just ask GPT "write an article
| about my dry cleaning company in Phoenix" and similar bottom-
| of-the-barrel content tasks.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| For the first time in history a machine can come up with novel
| ideas.
|
| Up until now, you were only really automating away the boring
| stuff.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Since when can a computer come up with a novel idea?
|
| Do not be fooled by GPT, it's a fancy Markov chain hooked up
| to training data. It cannot come up with anything that wasn't
| already in its data set.
| ogogmad wrote:
| I got it to anglicize my name a bunch of different ways. My
| name is not in its data set.
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