The term "Luddite" has become synonymous with "technophobe" but that's not what the Luddites were about. They were a labour movement that fought to give workers control over the technology that was advancing without oversight and rapidly automating them out of their jobs. Sound familiar?
"Luddite" as a pejorative was a technocrat PR coup.
@Wolven Well, yes, the mill workers who destroyed machinery that stomped on their livelihoods. They were stomped on in the end. But then, England would have been stomped on if they had failed to industrialize.
And there you have the tragic human condition. Propaganda aside, technological progress generally harms lives of masses of humans, but nations that try to resist get dominated.
Depressing. But the least we can do is have a little compassion for those who "progress" has harmed.
@toni @Wolven I am always in favor equality and opposed to authoritarianism.
But that does not change the central tragedy of what happened then and now. Technology altered the playing field as to the most efficient way to accomplish a particular thing, and those that resisted (on the company level or the national level) were going to get out competed.
Been going on since pre-historic times.
I hate it, but hating it doesn't change it.
Dr. Damien P. Williams, Magus
Fionas_Father
Toni Widmo