@tommorris Luddism was never about rejecting technology, it was about fighting wealth inequality engendered by technological change, i.e. proto-socialism.

That's why they were the object of a campaign of vilification by proto-capitalists and of actual repression by the State (more British soldiers were quelling the Luddite uprising than were fighting Napoleon, and breaking a machine loom was made into a capital offense people were hanged for).