[lucumo]

The historical luddites were not heroes of the working class. They were a special interest that used violence to keep less skilled people out of their industry, so they could keep making more money than the hoi pollo.

Dumb or evil, either way they are not people to be celebrated.

[salawat]

>The historical luddites were not heroes of the working class. They were a special interest that used violence to keep less skilled people out of their industry, so they could keep making more money than the hoi pollo.

You mean like Doctors and lawyers? Make no mistake. Laws are threats. You can tell yourself it's about some imagined Quality concern, but the extreme resource burden to enter the field creates a stark class boundary that is in general very hard to get past.

If anything, the Luddites actually understood what society was doing even if that same society said they weren't.

The only difference between a craftsman destroying a machine, and a lawyer or doctor erecting entry barriers through political means is the tools being employed at the time.

>Dumb or evil, either way they are not people to be celebrated.

I see them as neither dumb, nor evil. I see them as both wise, intelligent, motivated, and thoroughly realistic about the direction society was headed and recognizing no one wanted to be on the hook for answering the question of "what about me?"

It's a natural response for a class suddenly evicted from a meta stability in the social order, and if anything should be vilified, it's the kind of rapid progress at all costs, bundled with lack of care who gets left behind by it that so characterizes the modern incarnation of tech-capitalism.

[lucumo]

> it's the kind of rapid progress at all costs, bundled with lack of care who gets left behind by it

As opposed to the status quo at all costs, bundled with a lack of care for who gets to stay in the gutter?

They were just another special interest group that wanted to keep more of the pie for themselves, at the expense of people poorer than them. And they used violence to try to achieve that.

[salawat]

>As opposed to the status quo at all costs, bundled with a lack of care for who gets to stay in the gutter?

How about slower incremental change with actual effort put into the costs and downstream effects/Externalities? I know, who has time for that though. Someone else's problem right?

>They were just another special interest group that wanted to keep more of the pie for themselves, at the expense of people poorer than them.

Ever heard the phrase "Every accusation an admission?" Often we end up projecting what we can't consciously think and work forward with through onto the intents of others. It's too destructive to the conscious narrative, so ends up externalized into the "other" in spite of blossoming just as fruitfully in the self. You've demonstrated to me, at least you see the game, and you recognize how it's played, and the consequences of not playing it.

>And they used violence to try to achieve that.

They broke machines. And they were beaten, strike broken, vilified and abused by capital wielders who were, in point of fact, not much poorer than them, as they could afford the machines in question, and when faced with the opportunity to divest themselves of the burden of doing business with those pesky tradesmen, were only so happy to do so.

Statistical voyeurism is a capitalist's favorite pass time. All the sexy of number go up, none of the burden of of the other side of balance sheet.

[krapp]

>They were a special interest that used violence to keep less skilled people out of their industry, so they could keep making more money than the hoi pollo.

So apart from the use of violence, the Luddites were essentially equivalent to modern tech culture. It's weird that they don't get more sympathy on HN.

Regardless, the complaints of the Luddites resonate because they would eventually apply to everyone, including the working class. It just happens that they came for the textile workers first.

[DerekL]

*hoi polloi