4 ms·

The biggest change is that the left have become the conservatives

by jurschreuder 3mo ago

simianwords 3mo ago
[flagged]
- gremlinunderway 3mo ago
  "Neo-luddite" is thrown around by people who don't actually know history and just eat up terminology that was spoonfed to them for a purpose. FYI, the luddite movement wasn't some stupid movement against technology for the sake of being against technology like the eventual term evolved into. Historically, they were skilled artisans who were protesting exploitative working conditions and practices that came about as a result of automation. When some of them started destroying machines, the British government subsequently made it a capital crime to do machine-breaking and violently suppressed these protests and controlled the narrative that the reason luddites were breaking machines was because they were ignorant people who hated progress. Not ironically, you're eating up the same propaganda brought to you by the likes of Thiel and co. that the people protesting legitimate grievances just simply "hate technology".
  - simianwords 3mo ago
    Interesting, do you think the current form of anti technology ideology is different from Luddism? In what way? Do you mean to say that the current protests are actually against technology for the sake of being against technology? Also, I don't say that they are against technology for technology's sake, but the real actual reason they are against technology is because they are fundamentally conservative. They act in their own self interest as normal people do and try to conserve their status, employment and lifestyle. Technology tends to act against it - naturally they oppose it.
    - watwut 3mo ago
      > They act in their own self interest as normal people do and try to conserve their status, employment and lifestyle. Technology tends to act against it - naturally they oppose it. Why is the underlying assumption that tech must make life of people worst? That the only way tech can advance is by actively creating dystopia, by harming, by disrupting instead of creating better opportunities for people? Tech changed, from positive to pure anti-human sociopathy. It used to have positive vision and many people in it actually wanted to help actual people. Then the SV pretended to want to create something good while not caring whether they were harming people. Now they stopped even pretending to want to create something good while actively openly trying to cause harm. For christ sake, look at art. These companies could have been creating better and empowering tools for artists. Instead, they brag about destroying them, about destroying everything art communities like and then blame the victime for not being happy with that.
      - simianwords 3mo ago
        Its an interesting question and I'm biased here. As for the morals of both parties I'll leave you with this: Waymo is cool tech that actually works and saves lives everyday. These are the parties lobbying against Waymo - Trial Lawyers because they gain from accidents [1] - Labour Unions [2] - Transport Unions [3] Most recently Uber also opposed it but in a different format, but still the same. I wonder what your take on this is? Who is being anti-human here? Who wants to help people? And who are selfish? For me it looks like each one of these parties would rather have less safety in streets than have their jobs taken away. [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/07/trial-lawyers-lobby-against-autonomous-vehicles.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/07/tr... [2] https://teamster.org/2026/03/illinois-teamsters-demand-lawmakers-oppose-driverless-car-and-truck-expansion https://teamster.org/2026/03/illinois-teamsters-demand-lawma... [3] https://www.twu.org/waymo-testing-in-nyc-is-a-danger-to-the-traveling-public-and-transit-workers https://www.twu.org/waymo-testing-in-nyc-is-a-danger-to-the-...
        watwut 3mo ago
        > Waymo is cool tech that actually works and saves lives everyday Is it? I don't know. I was listening about self driving cars being better the people for years now ... only to find every single time it was a lie. And always comes with "but that was old tech", but the new tech is better. But I do give you that they are one of the few "seems like they are not as casual about killing people as Uber and Musk and rest of SB". Note that the hate toward them is also much lower then hate of AI and Musk. > Labour Unions Considering destruction of labor unions ended up being bad news for average poorer workers and considering the K shaped economy ... maybe we need more of them. > Most recently Uber Uber is poster child of a tech company being build on a fraud, trying to sell service under price, create monopoly and then jack up price. And no, famous medallions were not everywhere, plenty of places had and still have normal competitive taxi market. What Uber did there was to break labor rules, sell drives under price from VC money, tope to establish monopoly, hope law obeying taxi companies and drivers will. All the while SV celebrated it. Frankly Uber is one of the reasons why tech is hated so generally.
    - gremlinunderway 3mo ago
      No, I'm saying is that you fundamentally don't understand what "Luddism" even is or was at any point. Let me be clear. The the term "Luddite" is completely made up. The group it was supposedly based on were simply people whop opposed exploitation at the time of early industrialization. The state at the time came up with this trope of "they are against technology!" as a way to undercut that movement and impose harsh punitive measures like capital punishment for machine breaking. They weren't just self-interested / conservative people who simply went out to conserve status, employment and lifestyle by opposing technology, that's a label/strawman put on them by the British government at the time. Just like there was no real luddism historically, there's no group of people who are just selfish people fighting against technology out of pure self-interest. This is just a strawman setup by people who don't wish to receive criticism for their own use of technology as a means of exploitation.
      - simianwords 3mo ago
        Who do you think came up with the term Luddites? You are confusing a lot of things here. Like the existence of the movement and the people itself. And you are questioning the existence by using an adjacent topic of Luddites were not against technology. Luddites did exist. And the people opposing data centers now are the same type of people.
add-sub-mul-div 3mo ago
Guess who organized these protests?
mindslight 3mo ago
Yes, as a libertarian I was certainly quite frustrated with bureaucratic authoritarianism. But with autocratic authoritarianism now looming over us, and a bunch of people cheering it on because it seems new and exciting, I most certainly have become much more conservative! As for data centers, I'm not against them in principle - I'm sitting ten feet away from my own rack [0]. But with the way the legal environment is set up - once something is built it becomes basically impossible to regulate - combined with the vice signalling federal executive that is likely to focus one of its two minute hates on your community if you do manage to succeed at regulating operations, it's simply best to just not give this industry a foothold in your own community. And while this is most certainly a selfish position (I'm happy to use data centers hosted elsewhere), it's all we have until we restore the equitable rule of law. [0] I am against the centralized software that necessitates so many data centers in the first place though
g8oz 3mo ago
This is not a left versus right issue. Maybe more of a NIMBY thing. Co-locating natural gas power plants along with the servers near residential neighborhoods has not helped. The stories of electricity rates rising because of data center demand also has not helped. People are understandably concerned by changes that promise private profits and public risks. The groundswell of opposition and anger amongst ordinary people runs more broadly than many in the tech industry understand. Here is famed activist Erin Brockovich railing against data centers: https://youtu.be/XpQo1yQCP34 https://youtu.be/XpQo1yQCP34 I don't know how solid her arguments are. But this is the sort of content that is helping inform the opposition that is brewing across America and abroad.
- jurschreuder 3mo ago
  Your point is more about which side is right and which side is wrong. My point is more about a cultural shift in who's on which side. The traditional left has become conservative in that they don't want new technology. While the traditional capitalists want basic income so they can keep building all this cool stuff and keep playing their game of building AI and robots. What does more harm? Going back to the middle ages having another one of these dark ages where technology is shunned? Will China and Russia then grab power? Or will we really have a dictator AI? Possibly both where China is ruling over less advanced countries with AI. They are clearly not stopping developing technology no matter what the west decides.
  - anon7000 3mo ago
    Anti-AI sentiment isn’t a leftist specific thing. Tech workers are predominantly liberal in my experience, and many like AI (or at least don’t despise it) but also have progressive views on other things. I’m also not aware of any republicans or conservatives advocating for UBI. Corporations are kind of a 3rd party here. They’ll do literally anything for profit, celebrate pride month for the liberals, give Trump some considerations at inauguration for the conservatives. So yeah, tech AI CEOs opine that their companies will usher in a new era of prosperity, but this is probably 90% PR speak

The biggest change is that the left have become the conservatives

simianwords 3mo ago

[flagged]

gremlinunderway 3mo ago
"Neo-luddite" is thrown around by people who don't actually know history and just eat up terminology that was spoonfed to them for a purpose. FYI, the luddite movement wasn't some stupid movement against technology for the sake of being against technology like the eventual term evolved into. Historically, they were skilled artisans who were protesting exploitative working conditions and practices that came about as a result of automation. When some of them started destroying machines, the British government subsequently made it a capital crime to do machine-breaking and violently suppressed these protests and controlled the narrative that the reason luddites were breaking machines was because they were ignorant people who hated progress. Not ironically, you're eating up the same propaganda brought to you by the likes of Thiel and co. that the people protesting legitimate grievances just simply "hate technology".
- simianwords 3mo ago
  Interesting, do you think the current form of anti technology ideology is different from Luddism? In what way? Do you mean to say that the current protests are actually against technology for the sake of being against technology? Also, I don't say that they are against technology for technology's sake, but the real actual reason they are against technology is because they are fundamentally conservative. They act in their own self interest as normal people do and try to conserve their status, employment and lifestyle. Technology tends to act against it - naturally they oppose it.
  - watwut 3mo ago
    > They act in their own self interest as normal people do and try to conserve their status, employment and lifestyle. Technology tends to act against it - naturally they oppose it. Why is the underlying assumption that tech must make life of people worst? That the only way tech can advance is by actively creating dystopia, by harming, by disrupting instead of creating better opportunities for people? Tech changed, from positive to pure anti-human sociopathy. It used to have positive vision and many people in it actually wanted to help actual people. Then the SV pretended to want to create something good while not caring whether they were harming people. Now they stopped even pretending to want to create something good while actively openly trying to cause harm. For christ sake, look at art. These companies could have been creating better and empowering tools for artists. Instead, they brag about destroying them, about destroying everything art communities like and then blame the victime for not being happy with that.
    - simianwords 3mo ago
      Its an interesting question and I'm biased here. As for the morals of both parties I'll leave you with this: Waymo is cool tech that actually works and saves lives everyday. These are the parties lobbying against Waymo - Trial Lawyers because they gain from accidents [1] - Labour Unions [2] - Transport Unions [3] Most recently Uber also opposed it but in a different format, but still the same. I wonder what your take on this is? Who is being anti-human here? Who wants to help people? And who are selfish? For me it looks like each one of these parties would rather have less safety in streets than have their jobs taken away. [1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/07/trial-lawyers-lobby-against-autonomous-vehicles.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/07/tr... [2] https://teamster.org/2026/03/illinois-teamsters-demand-lawmakers-oppose-driverless-car-and-truck-expansion https://teamster.org/2026/03/illinois-teamsters-demand-lawma... [3] https://www.twu.org/waymo-testing-in-nyc-is-a-danger-to-the-traveling-public-and-transit-workers https://www.twu.org/waymo-testing-in-nyc-is-a-danger-to-the-...
      - watwut 3mo ago
        > Waymo is cool tech that actually works and saves lives everyday Is it? I don't know. I was listening about self driving cars being better the people for years now ... only to find every single time it was a lie. And always comes with "but that was old tech", but the new tech is better. But I do give you that they are one of the few "seems like they are not as casual about killing people as Uber and Musk and rest of SB". Note that the hate toward them is also much lower then hate of AI and Musk. > Labour Unions Considering destruction of labor unions ended up being bad news for average poorer workers and considering the K shaped economy ... maybe we need more of them. > Most recently Uber Uber is poster child of a tech company being build on a fraud, trying to sell service under price, create monopoly and then jack up price. And no, famous medallions were not everywhere, plenty of places had and still have normal competitive taxi market. What Uber did there was to break labor rules, sell drives under price from VC money, tope to establish monopoly, hope law obeying taxi companies and drivers will. All the while SV celebrated it. Frankly Uber is one of the reasons why tech is hated so generally.
  - gremlinunderway 3mo ago
    No, I'm saying is that you fundamentally don't understand what "Luddism" even is or was at any point. Let me be clear. The the term "Luddite" is completely made up. The group it was supposedly based on were simply people whop opposed exploitation at the time of early industrialization. The state at the time came up with this trope of "they are against technology!" as a way to undercut that movement and impose harsh punitive measures like capital punishment for machine breaking. They weren't just self-interested / conservative people who simply went out to conserve status, employment and lifestyle by opposing technology, that's a label/strawman put on them by the British government at the time. Just like there was no real luddism historically, there's no group of people who are just selfish people fighting against technology out of pure self-interest. This is just a strawman setup by people who don't wish to receive criticism for their own use of technology as a means of exploitation.
    - simianwords 3mo ago
      Who do you think came up with the term Luddites? You are confusing a lot of things here. Like the existence of the movement and the people itself. And you are questioning the existence by using an adjacent topic of Luddites were not against technology. Luddites did exist. And the people opposing data centers now are the same type of people.

add-sub-mul-div 3mo ago

Guess who organized these protests?

mindslight 3mo ago

Yes, as a libertarian I was certainly quite frustrated with bureaucratic authoritarianism. But with autocratic authoritarianism now looming over us, and a bunch of people cheering it on because it seems new and exciting, I most certainly have become much more conservative! As for data centers, I'm not against them in principle - I'm sitting ten feet away from my own rack [0]. But with the way the legal environment is set up - once something is built it becomes basically impossible to regulate - combined with the vice signalling federal executive that is likely to focus one of its two minute hates on your community if you do manage to succeed at regulating operations, it's simply best to just not give this industry a foothold in your own community. And while this is most certainly a selfish position (I'm happy to use data centers hosted elsewhere), it's all we have until we restore the equitable rule of law. [0] I am against the centralized software that necessitates so many data centers in the first place though

g8oz 3mo ago

This is not a left versus right issue. Maybe more of a NIMBY thing. Co-locating natural gas power plants along with the servers near residential neighborhoods has not helped. The stories of electricity rates rising because of data center demand also has not helped. People are understandably concerned by changes that promise private profits and public risks. The groundswell of opposition and anger amongst ordinary people runs more broadly than many in the tech industry understand. Here is famed activist Erin Brockovich railing against data centers: https://youtu.be/XpQo1yQCP34 https://youtu.be/XpQo1yQCP34 I don't know how solid her arguments are. But this is the sort of content that is helping inform the opposition that is brewing across America and abroad.

jurschreuder 3mo ago
Your point is more about which side is right and which side is wrong. My point is more about a cultural shift in who's on which side. The traditional left has become conservative in that they don't want new technology. While the traditional capitalists want basic income so they can keep building all this cool stuff and keep playing their game of building AI and robots. What does more harm? Going back to the middle ages having another one of these dark ages where technology is shunned? Will China and Russia then grab power? Or will we really have a dictator AI? Possibly both where China is ruling over less advanced countries with AI. They are clearly not stopping developing technology no matter what the west decides.
- anon7000 3mo ago
  Anti-AI sentiment isn’t a leftist specific thing. Tech workers are predominantly liberal in my experience, and many like AI (or at least don’t despise it) but also have progressive views on other things. I’m also not aware of any republicans or conservatives advocating for UBI. Corporations are kind of a 3rd party here. They’ll do literally anything for profit, celebrate pride month for the liberals, give Trump some considerations at inauguration for the conservatives. So yeah, tech AI CEOs opine that their companies will usher in a new era of prosperity, but this is probably 90% PR speak