3 ms·
I am pretty sure Luddites had very similar arguments back in the 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite If y
by ardit33 10y ago
I am pretty sure Luddites had very similar arguments back in the 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
If you look back at it, they were on the wrong side of history/argument.
Automation is going to keep going, no matter what, and it is mostly a good thing. Yes, we might have few years of uneasy adjustment times, but things will sort themselves out on the long run.
Think of it, one modern excavator is much better than 50 people digging ditches. One operator with one machine replaced 50 manual workers, yet the world didn't end, but I think it got better over time*
*Whoever protects manual labour vs machines, hasn't lived through deep poor communism. Most eastern Europe didn't have the capital or means to have productive machines in the workplaces, and they replaced them with human labour. Over time the stark differences between west and east became very apparent.
- mavhc 10y agoViewed from another perspective the Luddites were self employed, worked from home, and set their own hours. They didn't want to work 8 to 8 in a dangerous factory for a rich guy.
- DigitalJack 10y agoAlso, they were lucky to live past 40.
- internaut 10y ago> . Automation is going to keep going, no matter what This is a lie. Sooner or later progress will stop, it is just a matter of when, not if. All of human history illustrates this point. We are not about to be the exception.
- internaut 10y agoJust a few hours ago this was submitted to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12242525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12242525 The first paragraph reads: "One central fact about the global economy lurks just beneath the year’s remarkable headlines: Economic growth in advanced nations has been weaker for longer than it has been in the lifetime of most people on earth." We can extend our duration of economic success for a very long time, but not for forever. At some point we go dark. It has happened to every civilization in history, slowly or suddenly, primitive or sophisticated, for what appears to be about a million different reasons. I don't know whether this time it is 'The Big One', but it is folly to assume it shall never occur because we're more sophisticated than before. The same was true of every civilization before us. Other than the Net I don't think there's a single institution we have that some other former civilization had in some way on a smaller scale.