Slashdot Mirror
The Return Of The Luddites
Members of a radical agrarian movement in early l9th-century England, the Luddites surfaced in Robin Hood country -- Sherwood Forest, near Nottinghamshire -- and for 15 bloody months took on the Industrial Revolution's first factories and entrepreneurs, until the British army suppressed them for good. The term has come to mean something else, though -- an attitude of fear and resentment toward technology. The Luddites never really left us completely, but the rise of the Net, the Web and the screen-driven culture they're helping to push along are bringing Luddites, or at least modern pretenders, back in force.
The historical Luddites drew their ranks from farmers and artisans whose families had lived for centuries in small villages, using simple machines that could be operated by individuals or small groups. The big mills and factories of the Industrial Revolution meant an end to social customs and community, to personal status and individual freedom. Having worked independently on their own farms, they grasped that they would be forced to use complex, dangerous machines in noisy, smelly factories, enduring long hours for slave wages, and that the trade was not in their favor.
Contemporary Luddites are fighting technology to keep power rather than livelihood, though they have as much chance of succeeding as their predecessors did.
These self-appointed watchmen are opportunists and cultural reactionaries led by people like Joseph Lieberman, former Education Secretary William Bennett, (one of Washington's leading moral gasbags, and one of Lieberman's closest friends), and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, who bemoan the lack of "morality" in popular culture, entertainment, and of course, most of all, the Mother of All Demons, the Net.
In fact, plenty of people call themselves Luddites today; they're popping up all over in media and Academe. The writer and social critic Kirkpatrick Sale, best known for his prescient book on the rise of the Sunbelt and his portrayal of Christopher Columbus as a raving imperialist scumbag (he's most recently the author of Rebels Against the Future: the Luddites and Their War on The Industrial Revolution), routinely attracts college audiences who cheer while he figuratively or literally smashes computers and denounces technology for ruining the world.
Unlike the first time 'round, this time corporations have joined the Luddite movement with a fury, hiring platoons of lawyers and lobbyists to fence off the Net and beat back the menace of free information online. Congress has passed a number of anti-democratic and unconstitutional laws designed to curb the free speech spawned by new technologies. Every season brings more books, articles, news stories warning that technology is driving us crazy, making us stupid, turning out kids into murderers, endangering out families. And how many articles and TV news stories have you seen on dangerous "hackers," online predators, Net addicts?
The neo-Luddites have attacked on a broad range of fronts blaming technology for everything from copyright theft to addiction to the oft-invoked menace of hacking and cracking. But no assault has been more relentless than the idea that technology and culture endanger the moral and literal lives of children. For years Bennett and Lieberman have led a wildly successful campaign (now joined both by Al Gore and George W. Bush), thumping the entertainment industry for allegedly contributing to violent behavior. Columbine advanced the hysterical ideal that computer games were not only unhealthy, but mortally dangerous. This idea has become the central rallying cry of the neo-Luddites.
It's interesting how modern-day Luddites invoke morality as a shield to mask zealotry and ignorance. Basically, they're doing what fanatics have done for centuries: try to force everyone to accept their own personal ideas of right and wrong. We are constantly being told this cultural piety and conformity is really for our own good -- and that of our children. This despite evidence that young people are safer than they've ever been, according to every recent statistical survey, from the FBI Uniform Crime Report to the Center for Juvenile Justice in New York. There are virtually no credible connections between technology use, media and violence.
Author Richard Rhodes, a scholar both of technology and violence, pointed out in The New York Times last week that violent behavior isn't learned from mock struggles on a screen. Violence is learned in personal encounters, beginning with the epidemic brutalization of children by their parents and peers. "Violence is on the decline in America," wrote Rhodes, "but if we want to reduce it even further, protecting children from real violence in their real lives -- not the pale shadow of mock violence -- is the place to begin."
But that isn't likely to happen. Exploiting the idea that technology as a menace to children is a lot easier and cheaper than confronting more complex social problems like child abuse or guns. Rhodes and others have pointed out that as media use has increased in the western world, violence has generally declined. Private violence (as opposed to the military or nation-state kind) has been dropping in the West since the Middle Ages, when homicide rates are estimated to have been 10 times those of Western nations today. Historians attribute the drop to improved social controls -- police forces and common access to courts of law -- and to a shift away from brutal physical punishment in child-rearing, a practice that shows up again and again as a common factor in the background of violent criminals.
Yet most Americans believe violence among the young is skyrocketing, and more than 80% told the Gallup poll last year that they believe the Internet is at least partly responsible. that's how good a propaganda job the neo-Luddites and their media have done.
"This time around the technology is even more complex and extensive," warns Sale, "and its impact even more pervasive and dislocating, touching greater populations with greater speed and at greater scales." In a way, Sale has a point. The neo-Luddities do have a whole new crop of legitimate issues with which to rouse an already alarmed populace: nano-technology, artificial intelligence, the open source challenge to proprietary businesses, and the growing access to information by younger Americans who could previously be easily censored and influenced.
Little organized political or other opposition counters the neo-Luddites. Few people are using mainstream media to argue that digital technology actually is creating many new kinds of jobs, sparking new kinds of communities and liberating information for millions in ways never before possible. Some should. For all its many flaws, the digital culture fosters freedom and opportunity and information everywhere it goes. The irony is that the neo-Luddites, like their predecessors, are fighting forces beyond anybody's control. They can't win either. The only issue is how ugly the brawl will get.
Imagine this: one day in the near future, Congress and the FBI finally get their way and install Carnivore boxes not only at the ISP level, but at your local computers also. If Richard Stallman urged a call to arms and geeks everywhere organized massive protests where they liberally shattered the Carnivore boxes into little bits, would you not join? You too, Mr Slashbot, are a Luddite, by that standard, make no mistake about it. When someone shatters your own world-view, it is your right and duty to shatter his means, at whatever cost and to whatever ends.
With this article and that super-confusing one 2 above, I'm wondering if it's Mondo 2000 day at Slashdot. Now all we need is another neo-hippie Timothy Leary article and we're set!
Katz dismisses out of hand people that complain about the lack of morality in the movies, tv and on the Internet. Yes, people in political positions that are attempting to use the "back to values" battle cry in their political campaigns are usually the least interested in a true check on our morality. However just because people have genuine beliefs about the moral decay of American civilization doesn't make them anti-technology. I think the proliferation of moral relativism is apalling. For those of you who many not be familiar with the term, moral relativism is the mode of thought that whatever anyone wants to do is fine becuase it's what they beleieve is right. This is going to cause the ultimate downfall of our society because eventually one of two things will happen: anarchy will come to pass or a zealot movement will get power and clamp down on all GENUINE freedoms. There HAS to be standards of conduct. Programmers follow standards in code. The Intnet is based on standards and those that don't follow the standards are shunned. Yet in our REAL lives there are NO standards of behavior? That's ludicrious.
Some people take their .sig way too seriously
Does anyone else think it's really silly to complain about luddites in a cyber-column?
Once again, JonKatz spouts off. Well, that's an editor's prerogative. And ours to flame :)
The original Luddites were afraid of change, and didn't like that their trade was being usurped by cheaper factory producers. They wanted things their way rather than change to own or build these new machines. Tough!
The current crop is no different. They are deathly afraid of change because they will lose the status and position they have built for themselves. Tough!
In every change there are winners and losers. The secret is to adapt so you are on the winning side. I have no sympathy for lazy whining losers. I do have some sympathy for those who try to change, but need help.
Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
I think they were right. When new technology is introduced, it should be used to make life better for all of society, not to make the rich richer and eliminate the need for other economic classes. Mechanization and new technology have always promised that the work day would get shorter, safer, and easier. So why are so many people working 12 hour days at multiple jobs?
Most of us are lucky; we are the technological elite and we like our jobs. But too frequently, people (like us) have introduced new technologies without thinking about the social impact. In the case of the Luddites, clever engineers figured out how to make an electric loom. But noone figured out how the textile producing population of England was supposed to support itself. I think the whole point of being 'human' is in looking to higher goals than feeding yourself for one day. Introducing technology that is more efficient and makes you money and more secure is a good thing-- but if the cost is destroying the livelyhood of large parts of your society, it's time to figure out a plan for them to succeed as well.
Now, the modern "Luddites" tend to be the exact opposite of this. They are protecting large, abusive corporations from technologies that would liberate many people both intellectually and financially. I think it is insulting to the original Luddites to call these new folks "Luddites."
-m
Mainstream media hypes problems, such as isolated acts of school violence, to such an extent that people who point out crime is going down are given funny looks. 'Conventional' wisdom tells us we are living in horrible times with our children under fire at school, and under attack by Hollywood and the Net.
Conventional wisdom is dead wrong. For this, I blame the mainstream media. Now that we have access to news on the Net, from a wide variety of sources, I'm constantly amazed at the emptiness of the nightly newscasts. So many interesting stories are happening around the world, and they report instead on Al Gore sneezing in Michigan or something.
Just when the corporations got full control over the mainstream media and managed to eviscerate it, the Net came along and gave us access to more information. Now they are going after the Net. If they succeed, we will all be dumbed-down.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
And how many on "dotcompreneurs" who are growing filthy rich? Go on, count the times you've seen Bezos and his ilk gassing on TV about the e-information age...
As far as the violence goes, it is perception that counts. And that is something Katz has conveniently skipped in this ill though out piece of flamebait.
There is a saying "no news is good news". Ever wonder where that came from? Originally, in the formative days of the BBC, if there were no disasters or bad news to convey, all that would be broadcast would be "there is no news today".
But in this day and age of more and more saturated TV coverage, enabled by our better communications and logistics, could you imagine CNBC or the BBC broadcasting that?
When was the last time you saw a news programme where there were solely "good" events happening, instead of the quirky 20 second slot on some news shows? And why is that? Because it doesn't make for good viewing figures, and that is what the news agencies depend on for funding.
I have given up watching the news, reading papers for this exact purpose. My current affairs knowledge is now minimal, but I am happier. Because can I really make [insert tragedy here] not have happened? Can I un-drown all those people lost at sea off Greece? (I only know this because the guy who sits next to me at work is Greek, BTW)
And those that Katz derides as Luddites (BTW, Sherwood Forest is _in_ Nottinghamshire), maybe they're looking at the 80+ hour week pressure cookers some of us high tech workers are in... And want something different. However, they don;t seem to understand that we can walk away from these furnaces at any time. The Luddites were still in a feudal system; the Lord of the land basically owned you, you did his bidding. And that is why the Luddites didn't want the tech.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
The original Luddites were selfishly fighting to keep their unproductive jobs. This would have kept clothing expensive for everyone else. Instead, they lost out, and people got affordable woolens. And in a generation, the industry grew back to its former employment levels.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
As a minor point of interest...
1. Do those people run around naked or they make their own clothes out of natural products by hand?
2. Do they walk from one state to another?
3. How about TV? Surely their speeches go on the air. Being true to their values...shouldnt they abolish cameras and TV, and so not be able to get their word out?
If answer is Yes to all 3 points above, I'll believe they are true to their views. If not, they are full of shit.
Ryn.
While Internet and other modern technologies may be changing our society, I would suggest that television is still the biggest influence. People watch an enormous amount of television. Besides pushing products, television influences our beliefs about the "real world".
Alright, Jon, I normally like/tolerate your stuff...but HOW do you get off saying that the current "Luddites" are (insert negatives here) while the "original Luddites" were the ones who were "heros" and "fighting to preserve a way of life" or somesuch?
The modern Luddites are trying to protect a way of life also...as they always have...they want to keep information that THEY don't like out of the hands of everyone. Whether it's sex ed/AIDS ed for kids, substance abuse information, etc etc etc...the modern Luddites are trying to force their view of the world on everyone NOT by proclaiming their own position but by censoring others'.
Workers were being offered heavy, regulated, industrial work in exchange to a farming lifestyle. But to characterise the exchange as uniformly bad is probably unfair.
Farming is hard. It involves long hours, in all weathers. The results are far less predictable than factory work - bad conditions can mean famine. Many farmers lived in poverty. The plight of the Irish was particularly desparate.
Some people were being offered worse jobs in exchange for better ones. But I think that many of the Luddites were, as commonly characterised, afraid of change.
Kids today have no respect This music kids listen to is inappropriate The way kids dress today is very inappropriate There is way too much violence today (not like when I was growing up) Said by your Grandma to your Mom. Said by your Mom to you. Said by you to your kids?
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Programmers don't follow standards. Programmers adhere to APIs when it suits their purposes.
There are plenty of standards of behavior in our real lives. Laws against libel, slander, assault, conspiracy, kiddie porn, adultery and all those nasty things apply just fine to the Internet.
What your average Slashdotter objects to is the needless passing of MORE laws to prevent the protection of speech that, as much as a majority of people may not like it, is a valid viewpoint and deserves to exist. Virtually every kind of technology potentially usable to "verify" internet identities or "filter" or "secure" does only one thing -- remove liberty from individuals.
I'll concede that they may not do so very much -- but that they invoke a slippery slope -- once we give up a little, we'll have to give up a lot. I assure you of that.
I had been one of the (few?) people on
This one, however, has made me join many of the other readers in filtering out Katz posts now. Katz has completely crossed the line of even editorializing here, and has wandered off the deep end into the realm of zealotry and conspiracy theory.
I don't come to
Great. And how do these articles, TV news stories, books, and news stories get published? Oh yes, the entire media system is part of the Neo-Luddite conspiracy, isn't it?
Great. So Al Gore and George W. Bush are both leading the Neo-Luddite campaign to our doorstep. Technology as we know it is doomed if we vote for either one of them. I'm surprised Katz doesn't present us with someone running for president to stop the Neo-Luddite menace. Any volunteers Katz?
And it's interesting how Katz invokes the same morality as a shield against his own zealotry. This article reads as little more than a long-winded governmental conspiracy theory against Neo-Luddites. Let me guess, Bill Gates is part of the Neo-Luddite conspiracy too, since he supports the highly restrictive and probably unconstitional DMCA? Please. There are plenty of reasons for politicians to vote for laws that restrict our rights and privledges. They don't need to be members of an anti-technology conspiracy to do it.
If you're going to construct conspiracy theories, I suggest you read the Illuminatus Triology. You'll learn a lesson or two in conspiracy theories as taught by the Grand Illuminated Masters themselves.
These are just few examples but here's the point. The fear is justified because people are rightfully discerning that technologies are being developed/used that directly (and increasingly adversely) impact their lives and this application of technology to (or against) their lives is out of their own personal control. People are beginning to feel victimized by technology, and not empowered by it. Victimization on a mass basis (and technology is giving us the ability to victimize people in numbers never seen before) is the stuff from which revolutions are wraught, even Luddite revolutions.
EMUSE.NET
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
I think a lot of neo-Luddites are rather the same. They don't have any well thought out objections to technology per-se, they're just people who are losing out to the rapid pace of change in the world, driven by human nature as much as by computers, and they lash out at having to change or having their profit stream threatened.
Look at how hard the MPAA fought against VCRs. The movie industry isn't anti-technology, they're about as high-tech as you can get, innovating constantly throughout this entire century. They just had a good profit scheme going and they'd rather try to keep the status quo they've been winning at than work to sieze the new opportunities present.
It really depends on how you define a Luddite. If a Luddite is a person who values his life, his culture, his identity over that of pop-mash-culture, over technology and gadgets and constraints, over someone else's fairy tales, then a cyber-column on the internet in a public forum is one of the better places to do this sort of discussion.
If you define a Luddite as a technology fearing/hating/avoiding individual, against change, against growth, against 'progress', then yes, you're quite funny.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I don't think is fair (as some posters suggest) that the original Luddites were entirely selfish. The move from an agrarian to an industrial economy caused an immense amount of social upheaval. Cities like Nottingham experienced huge population increases, but often without a corresponding increase in their boundaries or facilities, leading to terrible housing, poor health, food shortages, etc. In this sense the Luddites were justified in their actions. However, over time, industry has on balance improved things!
It is interesting to compare these changes to those occuring in England over the last 20 years, as we have moved from an industrial to a service economy. Whole industries (e.g. mining, textiles) have been wiped out in Nottinghamshire, with consequential poverty. Try talking to some of those people about the information revolution ...
"What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death."
The problem JohnKatz with discrediting the analogy is that it is JohnKatz's analogy. It's no mean feat to claim a ridiculous fact and then disprove it.
The modern foes of Freedom in politics are just that, foes of Freedom, not technology. They have embraced technology that is changing the world, they encourage it and propogate it as much as possible. The problem, of course, is that they want to be in control.
Try to focus on real arguments instead of semantic tricks portraying your enemies as dishonest and hypocritical.
Sure, that's why the Industrial Revolution led to the repeal of the anti-poor Corn Laws, the inclusion of non-landowners in the House of Lords, and the first time in history people could have some freedom over where they lived. What if the "social customs" entail burning the houses of Catholics or Jews? Before the IR, you couldn't move away -- you grin and bear it. And the idea that the IR killed individual freedom is ridiculous. The House of Commons gained its first real powers during the IR. Coincidence?
It's chic to bash the IR. But without it, >50% of jobs today would be agricultural (compared to around 2% now). On the other hand, Katz does seem to have a talent for laying down fertilizer, so perhaps that explains his enthusiasm.
Having worked independently on their own farms, they grasped that they would be forced to use complex, dangerous machines in noisy, smelly factories, enduring long hours for slave wages, and that the trade was not in their favor.
Oh PLEASE. "Their own farms", no doubt, were wondrously safe, quiet, fragrant places to work. If Katz seriously believes this then I don't think he has a clue what farming entails. And as for "the trade not being in their favor," yeah, it was undoubtedly much easier to deal with a landlord who took half your harvest but shouldered little of the risk -- and who dictated to you to whom and for how much you could sell your crops.
The fact of the matter is that the IR enormously improved the lives of almost everyone in Britain (and everywhere else it was adopted), and the Luddites were a middle class interest group who supported laws that kept the price of food and wool high (thus enriching themselves at the expense of people who had to buy those necessities). They also objected to the idea that one could become wealthy without owning land. They were not "heroes" in any sense of the word, unless one is a columnist who has built his reputation on bashing free enterprise, and who is willing to pay any price in bad arguments and inept rhetorical flourishes ("slave wages" is a contradiction) to further that end.
-BBB
Kurzwiel uses an excellent quote from a well-known manifesto to illustrate his main point: that technology enthusiasts (like us) are Luddites as well. Being a Luddite is not about fearing technology - it's fearing the application of technology. I, then, am a Luddite, along with Bill Joy.
These other people are, as you said, opportunists, and those who fear any organization of people. They fear communication among people. They don't fear the application of technology.
Indeed, the Luddites are returning, but in the guise of you and me - those who love technology but fear what people will do with it. I, for one, hate most of the 'net. It's a stinking pile of capatalist dung. Does that make me a Luddite? Yes. Do the people you named like the 'net as a stkinking pile of capatalist dung? Yes. They hate the aspects of the 'net that I like. They hate communication. That's not being a Luddite - just a power-hungry politician.
Jon, do yourself a favor, and pick up a copy of Kurzwiel's Age of Spiritual Machines. You won't regret it. Maybe you might even change your message to be a bit more positive.
Ah, guns are not a social problems. They are a technology, like the computers you use daily.
Abusing a child, or an adult for that matter, is not good. A gun, knife, etc. is niether good or bad.... it all depends on how it's used.
The group of outwardly violent people who feel the need to kill, for pleasure or business, are a social problem.
Begin Personal Rant
Additionally guns, like computers, were origianlly designed to do work, and are now [constructively] used for work and play.
Are there folks using 'guns' for bad? -yes. Are there folks using computers for bad? -yes... Does that mean that they should be taken away from private law-abiding citizens? -no
And for all of those times when someone makes a stab at ESR, consider this:
you know when you hear about the 'supercomputer export restrictions' to black-labeled countries? --what does the average slashdotter think "...jeez all you need to do is buy a bunch of Intel hardware and set up a B'wolf cluster just like the 20 US universities who show you their projects online... they can build their own 'supercomputer'..."
Point is, if someone wants to get around it [partial disarmament], they will. New York City and Washington, DC have outlawed firearms/handguns for over a decade (15 years??) and GEE GUESS WHAT the bad guys still have them.
if you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have them.
If she floats, she's a witch.
Y'know, that's kind of neat. Why? Because I agree with both Al Gore and the Unabomber. Few have actually read the Unabomber's manifesto. While I don't condone violence, I'd say he certainly had some good ideas. It's too bad that Al Gore isn't the same person now.... every politician is a conservative, because money corrupts every politican!
I find it ironic that the original Luddite movement pitted the common man against an Industrial Revolution headed by rich upper class men, whereas the modern Luddites are fighting the common man in a Technological Revolution. Power to the people?
About 7% of the population at any given time believes in UFO abductions and Elvis is still alive.
54% of people polled recently by US News and World Report and MSNBC belive in the actual real existance of angels, ghosts & demons. That is, they are really here and excert a real influence on people.
The most banned books from US schools over the whole of the 1990's to present are the Harry Potter series because it is believed they promote Satanism, Devil Worship and general un Christian unacceptable thinking.
Today it was reported on national US news that one of the outcomes being seriously considered by the US Congress in response to the reports that movie companies market to children is that there should be only 2 movie ratings: G and NC-17. That is, there are either cartoon movies with talking animals or everything else that is absolutely forbidden to children even if their parents are present.
In a recent poll by CNN, ~27% of those polled would accept a fascist dictatorship if it meant that crime would be reduced and/or undesireable people (undefined) were removed from the United States.
In a recent poll by USAToday 45% of those polled would support the elimination of the separation of church and state as long as the church was Protestant/Fundamentalist.
In a recent poll by the NY Times 59% of those polled support religious education in public schools.
So it's not really a matter of technology or Luddism. It's a matter of slowly but surely sliding towards a dark dark ignorant world.
I agree very much with your comments. Most people don't get what the luddite movement was all about. The folks protesting the WTO meetings held all over the world are much closer in spirit and tactics to the followers of Ned Ludd than most who profess luddism today.
I also don't think that John Katz quite grokked the luddite movement. Very few luddites were farmers. Luddites were mostly skilled tradeworkers. Nor did they break into all factories to randomly smash machines. They broke into factories which had dangerous working conditions, unfair wages, and turned out a shoddy product. (British textiles went from being acclaimed throughout Europe to being the last pick of those who couldn't afford anything better as a result of many of the textile factories that put the hand laboring luddites out of work. Its hard enough to get by making hand made goods with a factory making the same goods next door at less than 1/4 the price, but when the market starts thinking that all the goods made in your area suck canal water, it gets almost impossible.)
Another thing that Katz misses is that while the luddite rebellion was bloody, the violence was almost entirely on the part of the establishment. The luddites broke machines. Capitalists and Sheriffs shot luddites. IIRC, there was only one case of a luddite shooting back during the entire course of the luddite rebelllion.
And anyone who thinks that the luddites should have just gotten a grip and taken up new trades has no clue to what working in a factory during the industrial revolution was like. Pay was subsistance level or less for inordinately long shifts. Sometimes entire families, including children, had to work just to buy enough food to get buy. The rebellion was not about people being upset about losing their jobs, it was about people being upset about being trampled on by factory owners seeking to maximize profits at the expense of the workers.
And no, contrary to what some posters have alleged, the luddites were not communists. They just wanted fair wages for a fair day's work.
On the other hand, we have the neo-luddites of today that aren't looking for a way to get by, but looking for a way to prevent others from getting by. Most (but probably not all) neo-luddites want to censor instead of propagate. They want the large IP corporations to be in charge of the rules governing music and software. They want to return to the good old days where a few large corporations have control over the means of the production of information.
Look at the past.
Before the industrial revolution most goods were made in cottage industries by skilled tradeworkers. Enter the industrial revolution, one person with capital can now control a large segment of the industry.
Look at the present.
Before the information revolution most IP was produced and controlled by a few large corporations with large amounts of capital. Enter the information revolution, content transforms into a cottage industry where skilled workers can have the same potential benefits as the media moguls.
The free software movement and groups like the EFF (and even 2600) have more in common with the luddite movement than the neo (or modern day) luddites that Katz describes.
have a day,
-l
have a day,
-l
This is a pretty false dichotomy, Jon. As if one's 'way of life' is or could be or should be distinct from one's moral and cultural vision of a good society.
Note that, according to Kirkpatric Sale, the Midlands artisans were not averse to technological innovation -- they had adopted many themselves. Where they objected was when the new technologies (backed up by goverment force) cleared the way for sweatshop factories and massive industrial pollution. In other words, the Luddites were rebelling against The Corporation, not Technology. And they were right -- the new machines did make "fewer masters." Ned Ludd had the right idea.
Factory owners and forement were allowed to beat the assembly line workers for virtually any reason they wanted to. Pay was subsistence level or less. Neither hours nor age was regulated (until after the luddite rebellion).
Honestly, Katz did a disservice in implying that luddites were agrarian. Most luddites were skilled tradeworkers put out of work by factories that could make the same types of goods at a far lower cost.
The other falacy is that most (but not all) people will think of modern assembly line jobs when they think of factory work. Factory work in the 1800's was mostly unregulated. Workers were often chained into the factories. There were no health standards, little or no air circulation. Often there was no heat in the winter. Breaks were seldom. Beatings for not meeting a quota were common.
Now, sure farm life can be difficult, especially in times of famine. But this is apples and oranges. The luddites weren't farmers that went to the city to find regular work. They skilled tradeworkers that had been apprenticed in a skilled trade and suddenly put out of work.
I think most /. readers would start breaking machines if they lost their well paying IT job and the only alternative to put food on the table was working in a dark, dirty factory for fifteen or sixteen hours at a stretch while the line supervisor often beat you for not working fast enough.
have a day,
-l
have a day,
-l
Ummmmm..... Pardon me but aren't guns technology too? It seems the author wants to shift the Luddite hysteria from the sacred internet, which he presumably likes, to the EVIL WICKED guns, which he presumably does not like.
I watch the Elephant and Jackass parties going round and round with this shit and it never ceases to horrify me:
Elephants: We need the gummint to censor Quake and violent internet sites so our kiddies won't go on killing sprees
Jackasses: We need the gummint to take people's guns away so our kiddies won't go on killing sprees.
As a gun and gaming nut they both drive me nuts.
--
--
Nothing to see here. Mooooove along...
Now this is John Katz at his best - worried about people and pissed at folks stomping on them. This is what made me like the Hellmouth series, and why I was disappointed in some of his recent work.
And, yes, there is a problem - people are blaming technology for every ill they can think of, instead of noticing that people use technology. A gun, a computer, a car, a knife - they're tools, but its people who put them to use.
However, frankly, it does seem Americans (at least politicians) don't want to take responsibility for their actions, but instead seek to justify them and demonize people. The net is seen as "Power to the Perverts" technology, guns are the cause of all violence (as opposed to irresponsibility), and so on. Demonize a technology and some of its users and bingo - instant reason to put the smack down on the Constitution.
Most people are just fine and responsible on their own, but we get the neo-Luddites and the Pat Robertsons and the rest of their ilk convincing them they need to find someone to blame. The average person, given a few days to think about an issue, will probably reach a rational, intelligent conclusion. Sadly, with all the alarmists, we rarely get time to think.
I'm also glad to see Katz call attention to child-rearing processes. That almost always seems to be ignored in discussions of violence - after all, we must be raising our children right and its only those weirdos with their technology causing problems . . .
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I am by nature a computer geek, I love computers and all the hours of fun they provide. I do not love them in K-12 classrooms though.
More and more I have seen school boards chant that they have to stay modern, and a wired school with computers in every classroom is absolutely essential. I don't know about anyone else, but that is the sigle dumbest idea ever.
Now don't get me wrong, having a pod of computers for student use is good, but they do not belong in the classroom. Simply because they do not educate students in anyway.
Whatever they could teach a kid about computers is going to be outdated in 5 years anyhow. Even learning to type might be a waste of time in the next decade.
Picture a parent asking their kid what they learned today. "Well today we were going to learn about division but my computer wasn't working so we learned how to scandisk, reboot, scan for viruses, reboot again, listen to Jermey get yelled at for unplugging Suzy's mouse, after the teacher spent 15min trying to figure out why it wasn't working."
The 3R's my friend. Let's teach our kids something useful for a change.
-- taking over the world, we are.
I maintain that there are plenty of neo-Luddites out there, from the followers of Ralph Nader, to the labor unions who oppose the WTO, to the Clinton administration banning work on human cloning, to the evangelicals who would like to see all childhood instruction on morality and sex done within the family. These groups are reacting to change by attempting to drag things back to the way they were. It's not only natural, it's expected.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
It's interesting how modern-day Luddites invoke morality as a shield to mask zealotry and ignorance.
I'm tired of this. Why is it that the conservatives are accused of zealotry and so-called intolerance?
The so-called liberals who embrace modern "tolerance" of ideas and beliefs are completely intolerant of ideas which differ from theirs.
This is exemplified by the motion brought before the USHouse of Representatives to revoke the Federal charter of the Boy Scouts. They did this based on the idea that the Boy Scouts rejection of homosexual scout leader candidates was "intolerant."
What is ludicrous is that the "liberals" are intolerant of the rights of the Boy Scouts to hold a view that differs from theirs!
Boy Scouts don't hate homosexuals, they just don't want them as role models for their sons. Whether you agree or disagree with them, that is their constitutional right as a private organization. They don't take actions against them, they simply ask them not to be a part of their organization. From a purely denotative meaning, they tolerate people who are different - even teach giving respect to others - even others different from you. Tolerating someone's differences is not the same thing as agreeing with or promoting them!
The so-called liberal tolerance is the real-life embodiment of Orwell's 1984 - where doublespeak has become so firmly enmeshed in our culture that in the process of stomping on the rights of a private organization, the "enlightened" demand that the members of that private organization think the same way they do.
This is neither liberal, nor tolerant.
</rant>
WRT violence - There is no question that the problem of violence is a broad one, and that computer games are not solely responsible. The answer doesn't lie simply in banning games or in warning labels for parents.
For that matter, it doesn't lie in changing TV, music and movies to remove violence. Finally it doesn't lie in removing the temptation and glorification of "extreme sports."
Those things are simply the symptoms of a deeper problem - that problem of a lack of real, intimate relationship between parents and children.
Building deeply intimate (emotionally, NOT sexually) relationships within families will resolve many of these issues.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
What Jon is talking about is the efforts of people to squash technology in order to maintain power. What he doesn't include is that the same people would use the very latest technology without binking an eye if it would help their situation. If they could, the MPAA would use 512-bit encryption on DVDs. That's no Luddite. From the dawn of humanity, people have been using technology to assert power over others. Guess what? The internet has brought in a whole bunch of new technologies in a short time. So we're seeing a frantic rush to embrace some technology, and stop others. Most people will use whatever technology they can to gain/keep power, and try to stop technology that gives power to others. Again, that's not Luddite behavior -- it doesn't stem from a pathological/philosophical problem with technology, it stems from fear and greed. You could possibly paint the slashdot crowd as Luddite if you only read articles about DoubleClick or RealNetworks. That's what Jon is doing. Ho-hum.
-------------
-------------
The truth is out th- oh, wait, here it is...
Says it all, really. Since when is Katz this cogent?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Katz hates this technology, calling it "corporatist". Katz is therefore, by his own definition, a neo-Luddite.
Whenever it is pointed out that certain atheistic (some proportedly "scientific") regimes of the 20th century have slaughtered more people, by orders of magnitude, than all the religious zealotry of the world's history, it is quickly pointed out that those numbers were a product of technology, not of philosophy. ("You witch-burners would have taken Spain and Turkey right off the map if you had the right weapons!")
And I would hardly consider any of the humanities ("philosophy, literature, political science, history") as irrelevancies. Science and technology can address some problems, but humans are not merely creatures of knowledge; we are also creatures of heart, of emotion and of purpose, and science cannot begin to tell us, personally, who we are.
And as for exorcism, well... that's another debate for another day.
In short: (-1, Flamebait)
If that is true, their actions certainly don't show it. It is not the role of government to:
- create a gigantic mandatory Ponzi scheme under the guise of a retirement plan
- dispense billions of dollars in corporate welfare
- use police-state tactics to imprison millions whose only crime was to ingest a substance they disapprove of
- censor the Internet "for the children"
And what people like Lieberman or most other moral-right politicians do is use their newfound Celebrity status to voice their opinions. That's all well and good, really. When you see legislation mandating that companies or citizens do something unconstitutional successfully working it's way through the legislative process, maybe you have the right to complain.
Lieberman and Gore have specifically said that if they're elected and Hollywood doesn't clean up its act in six months, they will try to get legislation passed to force them to. I think it's entirely reasonable to protest threats of censorship.
On the other hand, Gore and Lieberman subsequently attended tons of Hollywood fund raisers and curiously failed to bring the topic up, so it's possible they were just pandering to soccer moms for votes. So they are either liars, censors or both.
every other person you disagree with has that some right to freedom of Speech, and there is not reason that holding a government salary should prevent them from saying what they belive.
Absolutely. I have no problem with Lieberman saying he doesn't like what Hollywood produces. I have a huge problem with him threatening to imprison people if they produce things he doesn't like.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
The term "Luddite" gets thrown around whenever someone isn't all gung-ho about the latest technology. That's a warping of the term. The key is that progress for the sake of progress isn't always a good thing. For example, a lot of people like to play the upgrade game. They buy new CPUs, they buy new video cards, they recompile new kernels, they upgrade their applications and utilities whenever a new X.0Y verion is released.
For the most part, I don't get involved in this sort of thing. I keep puttering away, working on projects and code. There are excellent computer science books that could keep you busy for decades, yet they're not based around DirectX 8 or the capabilities of the GeForce 2. By general web-oriented terminology, I'm a Luddite, because I'm not obsessed with the latest and greatest. Perhaps a new term is needed here, something that means "is not interested in constant faux-improvements driven by people who have made a hobby of buying the fanciest consumer tech."
You're moral argument goes like this
Everything that is law is moral,
my action is within the law,
therefore, my action is moral.
first off, the law is changing constantly, and things that used to be in the law are not any longer because we found them to be immoral. Things such as slavery, Jim Crowes laws, women's rights. This shows that the law has not always been the ultimate source of morality, because it has been 1) wrong, and 2) changing.
You see, ultimate morality can never change, nor could it ever be wrong. Its contrary to the nature of being "ultimate".
Law is supposed to be based on the moral principle of Justice. HOwever, oftentimes the law is NOT JUST. For a discussion that is far better than anything i could write, go read Socrate's Euthyphro. Anybody got a link?
tagline
... hi bingo
I think you don't know what you are speaking of. Try reading the literature of some of the opponents of the WTO. One such paper is here.
Some excerpts:
Here is another article.
Some excerpts:
Aside from the reality of the severe effects of the WTO on the world, I really have to wonder how when people protest and are met by tear gas and billy clubs how the people doing the protesting are the 'fascists.'
have a day,
-l
have a day,
-l
Today, very few people work 12 hour days.
Glad you brought that historical point up. It's nice to see someone else who has some grasp that there is something called "history" and that in certain ways, things were different back then.
So a little while back I reread the Communist Manifesto, including the various prefaces I never read before, and when after Marx's death Engels wrote the preface to the 1890 English edition, he wrote...now wait, do you have a job, work for a living? or do you live, effort-free, upon the dividends of your or your parents's and grandparents's capital investments? If the latter, hang up now, I'm not talking to you, parasite; if the former, then this, brother, is what Marxism has done, historically, for you:
"...But that the eternal union of the proletarians of all countries created by it is still alive and lives stronger than ever, there is no better witness than this day. Because today, as I write these lines, the European and American proletariat is reviewing its fighting forces, mobilized for the first time, mobilized as _one_ army, under _one_ flag, for _one_ immediate aim: the standard eight-hour working day to be established by legal enactment, as proclaimed by the Geneva Congress of the International in 1866, and again by the Paris Workers' Congress of 1889. And today's spectacle will open the eyes of the capitalists and landlords of all countries to the fact that today the proletarians of all countries are united indeed.
"If only Marx were still by my side to see this with his own eyes!"
So, in the names of decency and gratitude, won't you please say "thank you" to the shade of old Uncle Karl? For having untightened somewhat the clamps and shackles of your wage-slavery, so that they don't bind so severely, or chafe so harshly, that after your working day you have no strength left to think straight.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
So how do you get out from wherever you live to wherever you hunt? I'm making the not-completely-implausible guess that you don't happen live in the deep woods of Montana or wherever. Why I surmise, you or your buddy drives a motor vehicle, right?
Now, suppose I take at face value your pangyric to the perfect virtues of hunting - OK, I'll admit that a.) I myself eat meat and b.) hunting one's meat with a rifle is a thousand times more morally justifiable than buying it out of the grocery freezer in cellophane and supporting that nightmarish factory industry which delivers it there. That aside, but taking into account the irrefutable logic that no 4x4 to drive you fifty miles from your house to the woods equals no thrilling hunting/male bonding experience, do you from that conclude that the state should not ever under any circs lift a finger to remove repeat drunk drivers, blind persons, young children and the stark raving mad from behind the wheels of cars?
Believe it or not there is a narrow pathway betwixt allowing the over-the-counter sales of Stinger anti-aircraft rockets and punishing possesion of a steak knife with decades in the federal slam. All I ask of the govt. is that all through the U.S.A. (where there are no internal customs stops) there should be a law regulating the sales of firearms so that felons can't buy them with impunity from so-called "private owners" at public gun shows.
I know it's a hassle for you gun lovers. I know the very notion of universal national handgun registration (together with almost seven decades worth of various legislation, like that which outlaws free commerce in Tommy Guns, but which nonetheless, strangely, the Supreme Court has found to pass muster) ruthlessly violates that old long dead letter the Second Amendment. I know, like the license tag laws, it opens up the possibility of abuse (I'm thinking here of the curious fact that the FBI through their informer allegedly informed the Alabama Ku Klux Klan of Viola Liuzzo's tag number). But the ugly fact remains that your favorite hobby object, the gun, is responsible for thirty thousand deaths and a quarter million injuries a year in this country. And while I know guns are themselves inanimate and blameless, still I refuse to buy the argument that any so perilous a technology should, on moral/ethical/constitutional grounds, be immune to effective regulation.
You allude to the ineffective gun laws in New York, etc. Have you ever visited a gun show in sunny Florida? I did once. No ID required, no background check, all the pistols and ammo you can carry, and they'll sell 'em to ya even if you still have on the stripy orange Raiford suit and the sawn handcuff-halves on your wrists. Now hop in the old car in Bradenton, I-275 to I-4 to I-95 and (if you've got enough methedrine) without stopping except at the Pump-n-Piss all the way to NYNY, where even including the costs of guns, gas and tire wear you can double your investment on their gun-controlled streets. Remember: no internal customs stops.
Now I really really really don't want to take away your goodole deer-huntin 30-06, much less my old buddy Tim Kurtz's fancy muzzle-loader. But seriously, answer me this, friend: it is asking too much to have the law put the likes of Hank Earl Carr out of business?
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net