4 ms·

Slight aside, but that was the position of the luddites too.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
> The Amish aren't really about rejecting technology just to be luddites, but rather to about trying to preserve their traditions and culture. One of the ways they do that is to avoid adopting new things (technologies, processes, etc) until the community leadership agrees to it. Neither feels right to me. The Luddites and Amish share a common thread, which is that of ownership and control and ability to set one's own course. I don't think the Luddites agreed that preserving traditions and culture was what drove them. They wanted mechanization to serve us all, to not be used to control them. They resisted the mechanization of the human spirit. The Amish have their own culture & tradition, but I think again what's afoot here is also in part about control & ownership, at least as much as it is tradition & culture. To call this just tradition & culture ignores & skips over what's really at stake, which is control & ownership. Whether we have the ability to use technology on our own footing, or whether it is an injected force that shapes and molds us. Is tech soft and malleable, or is it hard & unyielding, forcing humanity to change itself?
kmeisthax 3y ago
Smashing looms was their tactic, not their goal. Their actual goal was to own the looms (to the exclusion of the factory owners). The original Parliamentary compromise regarding the introduction of looms was that skilled weavers would get first dibs on using them. A bunch of factory owners said "Fuck that" and just started using them anyway. Parliament not only didn't punish them for breaking the law, they passed even more laws to criminalize machine breaking on pain of death so that the Luddites couldn't protest anymore. Then they made up a story about them irrationally hating machines so they could paint organized labor as regressive. The Amish reject technology that ties them into a centralized society because they think decentralized, off-the-grid living makes you closer to God. The Luddites did not reject technology, they destroyed it as a tactic to bring capital back to the negotiating table. They're closer to the artists naming-and-shaming AI art users: few if any of them are Dunepilled[0] enough to actually want, say, a ban on computer programs that create art. What they want is protection against being economically replaced. [0] We must destroy the machines that think.
rsynnott 3y ago
Yes; Luddites were not luddites in the modern meaning, confusingly.
- krapp 3y ago
  Because the modern meaning comes from propaganda spread by the business interests the Luddites were opposed to.

> The Amish aren't really about rejecting technology just to be luddites, but rather to about trying to preserve their traditions and culture. One of the ways they do that is to avoid adopting new things (technologies, processes, etc) until the community leadership agrees to it. Neither feels right to me. The Luddites and Amish share a common thread, which is that of ownership and control and ability to set one's own course. I don't think the Luddites agreed that preserving traditions and culture was what drove them. They wanted mechanization to serve us all, to not be used to control them. They resisted the mechanization of the human spirit. The Amish have their own culture & tradition, but I think again what's afoot here is also in part about control & ownership, at least as much as it is tradition & culture. To call this just tradition & culture ignores & skips over what's really at stake, which is control & ownership. Whether we have the ability to use technology on our own footing, or whether it is an injected force that shapes and molds us. Is tech soft and malleable, or is it hard & unyielding, forcing humanity to change itself?

kmeisthax 3y ago

Smashing looms was their tactic, not their goal. Their actual goal was to own the looms (to the exclusion of the factory owners). The original Parliamentary compromise regarding the introduction of looms was that skilled weavers would get first dibs on using them. A bunch of factory owners said "Fuck that" and just started using them anyway. Parliament not only didn't punish them for breaking the law, they passed even more laws to criminalize machine breaking on pain of death so that the Luddites couldn't protest anymore. Then they made up a story about them irrationally hating machines so they could paint organized labor as regressive. The Amish reject technology that ties them into a centralized society because they think decentralized, off-the-grid living makes you closer to God. The Luddites did not reject technology, they destroyed it as a tactic to bring capital back to the negotiating table. They're closer to the artists naming-and-shaming AI art users: few if any of them are Dunepilled[0] enough to actually want, say, a ban on computer programs that create art. What they want is protection against being economically replaced. [0] We must destroy the machines that think.

rsynnott 3y ago

Yes; Luddites were not luddites in the modern meaning, confusingly.

krapp 3y ago
Because the modern meaning comes from propaganda spread by the business interests the Luddites were opposed to.