Computers have facilitated a second industrial revolution, and we're living in the "children crawling into giant machines, everyone is choking on coal smoke in

Computers have facilitated a second industrial revolution, and we're living in the "children crawling into giant machines, everyone is choking on coal smoke in London" phase. In today's economy it's precariously employed gig workers being exploited. Everyone's mental health is being poisoned by social media. There's a small upper crust of capitalist "factory owners" who are making bank by resisting any attempts by legislators and labour to reign them in. If we compare today to the Industrial Revolution, this seems like a cycle - eventually the organized labour backlash occurs, some of the excess value from automation gets passed to the workers in the form of shorter hours and higher pay. The environmental harms are recognized and the externalities are regulated by the government. Since I've been in the industry I've often thought of myself as a Luddite - someone who opposes the constant race to the bottom that technology is driving. The original Luddites were skilled artisans who protested cheap, low quality cloth woven by machines. They knew that unskilled, automated work not only produced worse goods, but it was bad for the souls of the workers. To quote Ursula LeGuin in The Dispossessed: > A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.