[ska]

"The Luddite Fallacy" is a terrible name for this observation, because the Luddites weren't wrong. They were concerned that automation was going to destroy their economic prospects and way of life, and it did. For multiple generations, typically (we really should have a corollary, something like "The re-employment fallacy")

On the whole, it was still a net positive for the broader society, but you can't really blame the Luddites for not being concerned about that.

[edit] It's also worth noting that the Luddites themselves were not really pushing an anti-technology stance, or arguing against "technological unemployment" - it was more the threat of skilled work being replaced by less skilled work, quality goods replace by inferior but cheaper ones, and societal impact of the change in work and working conditions. They weren't arguing that newer methods wouldn't be more productive, but that this increase productivity wasn't worth it's price.

This could be referred to as "The Luddite Fallacy Fallacy", because the position attributed to the Luddites was never one they really held - their complaint was more nuanced than that, and one that nobody then or since has really come up with a good answer to.

[Fantastic_T]

I can't find anything to suggest that you are wrong. I can't find any evidence that the Luddites themselves believed in technological unemployment.

[RealityVoid]

But it did impovrish them. How big a percentage of the population needs to have it worse that automation becomes a burden on society?

I think automation will happen no matter what, but in the meantime, sometimes it might make sense to slow it down. Saying there is no such reason for slowing it down is a simplistic point of view.

EDIT: You edited your initial comment and I find it commendable you changed your stance based on new information. (relating to Luddites and technological unemployment)

[Fantastic_T]

Yep I assumed they believed in tech unemployment but I checked my assumption and couldn't find any evidence for it.

However I will say that in the long run it is very unlikely that the majority of Luddites were not far better off after the power loom than before. The quality of jobs available for the average person dramatically improved over the course industrialization, because automation increases human prosperity.

[ska]

But that is the actual point being missed, I think.

The "Luddites" themselves, who were a small majority of highly skilled, highly paid labor, were not better off. They were worse off. Their children had worse prospects because they grew up without the advantages they would have had, etc.

But they were not the average person. And eventually, everyone was on average better off.

So this is key lesson to take. It is perfectly reasonable to believe changes like this can lead to overall benefits that make it compelling. However, real people get really hurt in this process. Waving our hands about how "market forces" will sort things out doesn't help if that evolution takes longer than your working life to be effective.

And if a real person is standing up and saying "I'm going to get screwed by this" - it is incredibly naive to respond by saying "Don't worry, it will work itself out in the end". For that person, it is a very real possibility - in some cases a near certainty, that it won't.

From a policy point of view, as a society, you cannot avoid dealing with this. You either deal with it head on, or you deal with the fallout.