reminder: the Luddites were not anti-*technology*.
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reminder: the Luddites were not anti-*technology*. They were anti-*factory owners firing weavers and replacing them with lower-paid loom workers*. They could have retrained the weavers and kept their pay high, but bosses gonna boss. We are all Luddites today.
The name later became a slur because the bosses won, and used propaganda to hide the history, and because smashing looms is a dramatic symbol, and humans like retelling dramatic stories, not depressing facts.
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@alexch I see a lot of left-leaning techies, like me, expressing enthusiasm for Luddism. Not because we hate technology, per se, but because we see how it's being used to enslave humanity and destroy the ecosystem.
The fact that "Luddite" has long been a common term of abuse in the tech industry adds to its power, ironically, as we want to directly challenge the ideology that progress is inevitable and unidirectional.
We should be able to decide our futures.
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@foolishowl @alexch Well, I don’t. No, not the ‘decide your future’ part, but the discontent towards capitalism being directed instead towards the technology itself. A lot of people here have shockingly reactionary attitudes about AI and automation, and I think that has less to do with the technology itself and more about the fact that our ruling class will definitely leave us all for dead.
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@foolishowl @alexch Whereas, popping on over to the Chinese Internet, people are noticeably more optimistic about a future where everyone works less and everything is automated. Over there, there is hope in the idea that AI has the potential to improve people’s lives. Over here, there is a deep-seated fear of AI replacing and discarding humanity.
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@foolishowl @alexch Although, that particular idea may not seem so far-fetched given that this has been the fate of the people indigenous to this very country. It’s probably not a coincidence that fears of an inevitable AI takeover and subsequent extermination of humanity sounds a lot like Manifest Destiny.
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@enoch_exe_inc @alexch Part of the reason "generative AI" appeals to a lot of entrepreneurs is that they have an ideological commitment to an incredibly reductive idea of humanity.
One side of the dual nature of the commodity is its use value. We can create use values because we are human and understand the desires of other humans.
"Generative AI" is a fantasy of a perfect slave that can create use values without actually having desires. But that's an incoherent concept.
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@foolishowl @enoch_exe_inc @alexch Personally, generative AI is fascinating to me because it’s like an uncensored magic mirror that reflects our collective souls.
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Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸replied to enoch_exe_inc last edited by
@enoch_exe_inc @foolishowl @alexch Only if you got an uncensored model though. Big models get heavily moderated since to prevent them from being sexist, racist or otherwise badly behaved (whatever they pick up). And honestly that's a good thing if properly done, otherwise this technology would drag down all of society the same way it drags down itself trying to learn from its own output.
Still fascinating to see culminations of societies worst characteristics, indeed.
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@alexch I went as a Luddite tonight, and handed out leaflets to people that I wrote up with exactly that
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Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸replied to enoch_exe_inc last edited by
@enoch_exe_inc @foolishowl @alexch To be fair, public chinese internet is as bad as the western one in telling you what society thinks… here we got profit-driven megacorps manipulating everyone for profit, thereby shoveling negative shit into everyones faces that fuel (negative) emotions. In China you got heavily censored public discussions with 'undesirable' topics being removed or its delivery prevented.
Not surprised people hope for less work though. Chinese people seem awfully overworked.
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enoch_exe_increplied to Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸 last edited by
@Natanox @enoch_exe_inc @foolishowl @alexch Not as censored as you think. At least I can talk about stuff there that would get me banned here.
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Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸replied to enoch_exe_inc last edited by
@enoch_exe_inc @foolishowl @alexch Big differences who enforces it, how they do it and of course which topics. There's quite a difference between the potential outcome as well; losing your social media account on one side and anything from losing access to services, neighborhood watch trouble or even police at your door on the other if you're too 'deviant' (e.g. openly criticizing the government).
Of course the topics that are deemed acceptable differ in general.
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Gegenwind :antifa:🇺🇳🖖replied to Alex Chaffee last edited by
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enoch_exe_increplied to Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸 last edited by
@Natanox @enoch_exe_inc @foolishowl @alexch Honestly, I think I prefer having China’s reasonable and non-trigger-happy cops at the door over the American secret police disappearing me into the night.
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@alexch oh! I think I may be a Luddite then...
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@enoch_exe_inc @Natanox @foolishowl @alexch
(Blink) You do realize there is a, for now, more prevelent secret police in China that dissappear many citizens and that is part of the suppressed information there.
And then we have the Chinese government's actions towards the Uyghurs in country and abroad.
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Natasha Nox 🇺🇦🇵🇸replied to InkySchwartz last edited by
@InkySchwartz @enoch_exe_inc @foolishowl @alexch This. There's nothing reasonable about either countries' law enforcement, one might kill you for looking weird, the other will disappear and strap you on a tiger chair.
It's something I, as European, find very strange when it comes to the whole "US vs China" thing. In the end both countries suck in their own ways, yet also weirdly similar. -
@alexch It's true that Luddites were not against technology (they don't exist anymore), but Neo-Luddites are.
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Sam Whitedreplied to Gegenwind :antifa:🇺🇳🖖 last edited by
@Gegenwind @alexch sounds like a Luddite to me! One if the things they did before the famous revolt was try to get the house of lords to take up a bill to introduce frames in such a way that it would result in less work but still maintain their standard of living as skilled frame operators and repairers with an apprentice program to determine who could take up the trade. Only Byron was in favor if it IIRC.
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