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The Luddites were employed by textile manufacturers and destroyed machines to get better bargaining power in labor negotiations. They weren't indiscriminately t
by lukeschlather 9mo ago
The Luddites were employed by textile manufacturers and destroyed machines to get better bargaining power in labor negotiations. They weren't indiscriminately targeting automation, they targeted machines that directly affected their work.
- Refreeze5224 9mo agoWhich makes the comparison of modern anti-AI proponents (like myself) and Luddites even more apt and accurate.
- panarky 9mo agoBecause life would be so much better if people still had to spin wool and weave cloth by hand, and grow their own food by digging in the earth with no tools. Use whatever means necessary to stop powerful people from exploiting you and stealing the fruits of your labor. If that struggle involves monkeywrenching their machines, so be it. But like any tool, the machines themselves can be used for good or evil. Breaking the machines shouldn't be an end in itself.
- dpc050505 9mo agoThe 700m people suffering from starvation or malnutrition while we produce excess food would probably rather be digging in the earth with no tools if it meant they got fed. The Luddites wouldn't have been destroying machines if they had insurance that they would also benefit from the machines, rather than see their livelihoods being destroyed while the boss made more money than ever.
- Refreeze5224 9mo agoLike the OP, you misunderstand the entire point of the Luddites. Breaking the machines was not an end, it was the tactical means to help illustrate their broader point of how the owning class can arbitrarily ruin their entire lives and livelihoods with absolutely zero recourse or consultation with the impacted people. This is a defining feature of capitalism, and that was their issue. Your strawman about spinning and digging with no tools is just that, and is irrelevant to the core issue of capitalism.
- panarky 9mo agoIf the core issue is ending exploitation by capitalists and not about breaking machines, if you don't want to return to a world without automation, if the machine is just a strawman, then why do you describe yourself as "anti-AI" instead of "anti-capitalist" or "anti-exploitation"? It seems like you identify yourself with the strawman instead of with the core issue.
- Refreeze5224 9mo agoI am anti-capitalist and exploitation. And I don't think any anti-capitalist person can be pro-AI, not the way it's currently constructed. But people on a startup forum tend to lose their minds if you say you're against either :) Being anti-AI is not a straw man, it's the logical conclusion of being against exploitation and hierarchical domination. Discussing that nuance here is difficult, to say the least, so it's simpler to say anti-AI.
- lukeschlather 9mo agoUnless you're committing serious crimes vandalizing machines to get leverage over a counterparty in a negotiation you're not comparable to the Luddites.
- Refreeze5224 9mo agoAnd you clearly don't understand the core issue the Luddites have if you think it was just about breaking stuff for leverage.
- nine_k 9mo agoDestroying someone else's property is much more obviously criminal than cutting off someone else's car, which is not nice, but not destructive.
- Retric 9mo agoCriminality is an arbitrary benchmark here, cutting people off can be illegal due to the risks involved. However what’s more interesting is the deeper social contracts involved. Destroying other people’s stuff can be perfectly legal such as fireman breaking car windows when someone parks in front of a fire hydrant. Destroying automation doesn’t qualify for an exception, but it’s not hard to imagine a different culture choosing to favor the workers.
- nine_k 9mo agoInflicting damage is usually justified by averting larger damage. Very roughly, breaking a $200 car window is justified in order to save a $100k house from burning down. Stealing someone's car is justified when you need a car to urgently drive someone bleeding to a hospital to save their life (and then you don't claim the car is yours, of course). I don't think Luddites had an easy justification like this.
- ordersofmag 9mo agoI'm pretty sure the Luddites judged the threat the machines posed to their livelihood to be a greater damage than their employer's loss of their machines. So for them, it was an easy justification. The idea that dollar value encapsulates the only correct way to value things in the world is a pretty scary viewpoint (as your reference to the value of saving a life illustrates).
- SR2Z 9mo agoOne one side there were the luddites and their livelihoods; tens of thousands of people. On the other side, there were cheap textiles for EVERYONE - plus some profits for the manufacturers. They might have been fighting to save their livelihoods, but their self-interest put them up against the entire world, not just their employers.