12 ms·

>The Luddites tried futilely to stop progress that benefited society Luddites were not anti-technology nor were they anti progress. They destroyed technology a

>The Luddites tried futilely to stop progress that benefited society Luddites were not anti-technology nor were they anti progress. They destroyed technology as a tactic to raise the price of the more automated competition. Their competition made cheaper, crappier equivalents of their artisanal work made with de-skilled McJob equivalent workers whose wages were pressured to abhorrent levels (via other means like the enclosure movement/Napoleonic wars). Similarly, people who strike are not "futilely trying to stop the existence of work". It's another tactic. In a way, the Luddites are pretty similar to the anti-H1B crowd of hacker news. >Before these technological advancements, workers enjoyed mini-monopolies. This is a hacky way of looking at it but the conclusion sort of works. It makes much more sense to look at relative market power of employees vs. employers rather than use the all-or-nothing terminology of monopoly vs. perfect competition. If Amazon workers attempt to sabotage Amazon's stock picking machinery, I expect it will result in an increase in wages, much like it did for the Luddites. They will be called Luddites, but similar to the original Luddites, they kind of only really have a problem with technology that is used to control them.

dominotw 12y ago
>In a way, the Luddites are pretty similar to the anti-H1B crowd of hacker news. H1B crowd == de-skilled McJob equivalent workers ?
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  de-skilled McJob equivalent workers = Outsourced (often Indian) workers that are paid peanuts and who consequently don't give much of a shit about the quality of their work. Elance with its screen recording feature = the equivalent of stocking frames
  - IndianAstronaut 12y ago
    What is wrong with mcdonalds level jobs? A mcdonalds doesn't mean that a high end restaurant cannot exist. They both fill two very different roles.
    - crdoconnor 12y ago
      There's nothing wrong with non-high end hamburger restaurants. The problem with McJobs is that they are designed to disenfranchise and maximize the fungibility of the people who work their so that their wages can be driven even below subsistence levels.
- mc32 12y ago
  Then that would make the people who refuse to train their replacement a 'Luddite' of sorts? Afteral that would entail the replacement worker ramping up on their own.
cbd1984 12y ago
> Their competition made cheaper, crappier equivalents of their artisanal work made with de-skilled McJob equivalent workers whose wages were pressured to abhorrent levels ... which enabled working-class people to own fairly large amounts of clothing for the first time, and even have fashionable clothing, which had once been the exclusive preserve of the rich. Don't try to paint this as all rich-vs-poor. The poor got a lot out of mechanization, even at the time, and reforming that system worked out a lot better than trying to work with people who were so threatened by change they would destroy other peoples' method of earning a living.
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  Very true. Consumers are often ignored in all of this but it is large scale automation and industrialization that is allowing for the mass consumer culture. A visit to other places which aren't as industrialized or have a lot of protectionism and you fill find very few consumer goods available and often for very high prices.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  >which enabled working-class people to own fairly large amounts of clothing for the first time Actually... "English peasants didn’t want to give up their rural communal lifestyle, leave their land and go work for below-subsistence wages in shitty, dangerous factories being set up by a new, rich class of landowning capitalists. And for good reason, too. Using Adam Smith’s own estimates of factory wages being paid at the time in Scotland, a factory-peasant would have to toil for more than three days to buy a pair of commercially produced shoes. Or they could make their own traditional brogues using their own leather in a matter of hours, and spend the rest of the time getting wasted on ale. It’s really not much of a choice, is it? Faced with a peasantry that didn’t feel like playing the role of slave, philosophers, economists, politicians, moralists and leading business figures began advocating for government action. Over time, they enacted a series of laws and measures designed to push peasants out of the old and into the new by destroying their traditional means of self-support." http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-jobs.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-... In today's world, austerity serves the same function as the enclosure laws. Reduce public sector demand for labor so as to push down wages across the board.
yummyfajitas 12y ago
In a way, the Luddites are pretty similar to the anti-H1B crowd of hacker news. I'd describe it a bit differently. The anti-H1B crowd here is typically (not exclusively [1]) like the old Jim Crow/New Deal/Chinese Exclusion crowd - wanting to pass laws to reduce competition by people who have had a different accident of birth. I'm curious to see if anyone can cook up an argument why protectionism against orange, white and green is morally justified, but protectionism against black is not. [1] Some people, (including myself), have non-protectionist opposition (or at least reservations about) to immigration. I'm very unsettled that my reservations could also justify anti-black protectionism if the same empirical criteria were satisfied.
- dropit_sphere 12y ago
  You're conflating race with citizenship. One of the ostensible goals of a state is to protect the interests of its citizens. Less politely: a state is an in-group that knows it's an in-group, and excludes the out-group, in accordance with all in-groups ever, everywhere. I feel perfectly justified valuing the interests of, say, my family, over someone else's family. I extend the same to my countrymen, over some other country's citizens.
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    He's also conflating the individual foreign immigrant with the foreign country. What is good for the immigrant is not necessarily good for the country as a whole.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      Similarly, the anti-segregationists don't realize that what's good for a black man is not necessarily good for black America as a whole. Sure, it's great to allow black people to shop at white stores, but what if they all decide "white man's ice is colder" and the black business community suffers? <- real thing that happened. Since you seem to want to bring up a variety of empirical criteria, what are the specific empirical criteria that would justify laws which require black Americans to get a visa before living/working in white America? I.e., what has to happen before you favor segregation?

dominotw 12y ago

>In a way, the Luddites are pretty similar to the anti-H1B crowd of hacker news. H1B crowd == de-skilled McJob equivalent workers ?

crdoconnor 12y ago
de-skilled McJob equivalent workers = Outsourced (often Indian) workers that are paid peanuts and who consequently don't give much of a shit about the quality of their work. Elance with its screen recording feature = the equivalent of stocking frames
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  What is wrong with mcdonalds level jobs? A mcdonalds doesn't mean that a high end restaurant cannot exist. They both fill two very different roles.
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    There's nothing wrong with non-high end hamburger restaurants. The problem with McJobs is that they are designed to disenfranchise and maximize the fungibility of the people who work their so that their wages can be driven even below subsistence levels.
mc32 12y ago
Then that would make the people who refuse to train their replacement a 'Luddite' of sorts? Afteral that would entail the replacement worker ramping up on their own.

cbd1984 12y ago

> Their competition made cheaper, crappier equivalents of their artisanal work made with de-skilled McJob equivalent workers whose wages were pressured to abhorrent levels ... which enabled working-class people to own fairly large amounts of clothing for the first time, and even have fashionable clothing, which had once been the exclusive preserve of the rich. Don't try to paint this as all rich-vs-poor. The poor got a lot out of mechanization, even at the time, and reforming that system worked out a lot better than trying to work with people who were so threatened by change they would destroy other peoples' method of earning a living.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago
Very true. Consumers are often ignored in all of this but it is large scale automation and industrialization that is allowing for the mass consumer culture. A visit to other places which aren't as industrialized or have a lot of protectionism and you fill find very few consumer goods available and often for very high prices.
crdoconnor 12y ago
>which enabled working-class people to own fairly large amounts of clothing for the first time Actually... "English peasants didn’t want to give up their rural communal lifestyle, leave their land and go work for below-subsistence wages in shitty, dangerous factories being set up by a new, rich class of landowning capitalists. And for good reason, too. Using Adam Smith’s own estimates of factory wages being paid at the time in Scotland, a factory-peasant would have to toil for more than three days to buy a pair of commercially produced shoes. Or they could make their own traditional brogues using their own leather in a matter of hours, and spend the rest of the time getting wasted on ale. It’s really not much of a choice, is it? Faced with a peasantry that didn’t feel like playing the role of slave, philosophers, economists, politicians, moralists and leading business figures began advocating for government action. Over time, they enacted a series of laws and measures designed to push peasants out of the old and into the new by destroying their traditional means of self-support." http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-jobs.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-... In today's world, austerity serves the same function as the enclosure laws. Reduce public sector demand for labor so as to push down wages across the board.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

In a way, the Luddites are pretty similar to the anti-H1B crowd of hacker news. I'd describe it a bit differently. The anti-H1B crowd here is typically (not exclusively [1]) like the old Jim Crow/New Deal/Chinese Exclusion crowd - wanting to pass laws to reduce competition by people who have had a different accident of birth. I'm curious to see if anyone can cook up an argument why protectionism against orange, white and green is morally justified, but protectionism against black is not. [1] Some people, (including myself), have non-protectionist opposition (or at least reservations about) to immigration. I'm very unsettled that my reservations could also justify anti-black protectionism if the same empirical criteria were satisfied.

dropit_sphere 12y ago
You're conflating race with citizenship. One of the ostensible goals of a state is to protect the interests of its citizens. Less politely: a state is an in-group that knows it's an in-group, and excludes the out-group, in accordance with all in-groups ever, everywhere. I feel perfectly justified valuing the interests of, say, my family, over someone else's family. I extend the same to my countrymen, over some other country's citizens.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  He's also conflating the individual foreign immigrant with the foreign country. What is good for the immigrant is not necessarily good for the country as a whole.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Similarly, the anti-segregationists don't realize that what's good for a black man is not necessarily good for black America as a whole. Sure, it's great to allow black people to shop at white stores, but what if they all decide "white man's ice is colder" and the black business community suffers? <- real thing that happened. Since you seem to want to bring up a variety of empirical criteria, what are the specific empirical criteria that would justify laws which require black Americans to get a visa before living/working in white America? I.e., what has to happen before you favor segregation?