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by AngryData 319 days ago
The luddites were often the ones that built the mechanized looms. They had nothing against mechanized looms, they had everything against the business owners using their workers talents and knowledge to build an entire operation only to later undercut their wages and/or replace them with lesser paid unskilled workers and reduce the quality of life of their entire community.

Getting people to associate the luddites as anti-technology zealots rather than pro-labor organization is one of the most successful pieces of propaganda in history.
3 comments
Macha 319 days ago
People will also use "look society was fine afterwards" as proof the luddites were wrong, but if you look at the fact the growth of industrial revolution cities was driven by importing more people from the countryside than died of disease, it's not clear at all that they were wrong about it's impact on their society, even if it worked out alright for us in the aftermath.
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gruez 319 days ago
>The luddites were often the ones that built the mechanized looms.

Source? Skimming the wikipedia article it definitely sounds like most were made up of former skilled textile workers that were upset they were replaced with unskilled workers operating the new machines.

> They had nothing against mechanized looms, they had everything against the business owners using their workers talents and knowledge to build an entire operation only to later undercut their wages and/or replace them with lesser paid unskilled workers and reduce the quality of life of their entire community.

Sounds a lot like the anti-AI sentiment today, eg. "I'm not against AI, I'm just against it being used by evil corporations so they don't have to hire human workers". The "AI slop" argument also resembles luddites objecting to the new machines on the quality of "quality" (also from wikipedia), although to be fair that was only a passing mention.

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GJim 319 days ago
> Getting people to associate the luddites as anti-technology zealots

Interestingly....

..... the fact that luddites also called for unemployment compensation and retraining for workers displaced by the new machinery, probably makes them amongst the most forward thinking and progressive people of the 1800's.

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