{"id":33158,"date":"2022-01-14T18:38:07","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T18:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.blog\/?p=33158"},"modified":"2022-01-14T18:38:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T18:38:07","slug":"the-luddites-werent-against-technology-they-were-protesting-industrialization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2022\/01\/14\/the-luddites-werent-against-technology-they-were-protesting-industrialization\/","title":{"rendered":"The Luddites weren&#8217;t against technology, they were protesting industrialization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2018\/03\/10\/2c74f509-2406-49bb-be00-577652fa4522\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/9104e74420211d5a439314df9006614c\/luddites-promo-295918.jpg?w=525&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Almanac: The Luddites - CBS News\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whenever someone is opposed to or criticial of technology &#8212; or even just not that familiar with it &#8212; we often call them Luddites. But what does this term mean? Science-fiction writer (and Canadian) <a href=\"https:\/\/locusmag.com\/2022\/01\/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature\/\">Cory Doctorow wrote about this term recently<\/a>, and how misplaced our current use of it is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>From 1811-1816, a secret society styling themselves \u201cthe Luddites\u201d smashed textile machinery in the mills of England. Today, we use \u201cLuddite\u201d as a pejorative referring to backwards, anti-technology reactionaries. This proves that history really is written by the winners. In truth, the Luddites\u2019 cause wasn\u2019t the destruction of technology \u2013 no more than the Boston Tea Party\u2019s cause was the elimination of tea, or Al Qaeda\u2019s cause was the end of civilian aviation. Smashing looms and stocking frames was the Luddites\u2019&nbsp;<em>tactic<\/em>, not their&nbsp;<em>goal<\/em>.<\/p><p>The Luddites weren\u2019t exercised about automation. What&nbsp;<em>were&nbsp;<\/em>they fighting about? These new machines&nbsp;<em>could&nbsp;<\/em>have allowed the existing workforce to produce far more cloth, in far fewer hours, at a much lower price, while still paying these workers well. Instead, the owners of the factories \u2013 whose fortunes had been built on the labor of textile workers \u2013 chose to employ fewer workers, working the same long hours as before, at a lower rate than before, and pocketed the savings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/locusmag.com\/2022\/01\/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature\/\">via Locus magazine<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever someone is opposed to or criticial of technology &#8212; or even just not that familiar with it &#8212; we often call them Luddites. But what does this term mean? Science-fiction writer (and Canadian) Cory Doctorow wrote about this term recently, and how misplaced our current use of it is: From 1811-1816, a secret society &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2022\/01\/14\/the-luddites-werent-against-technology-they-were-protesting-industrialization\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Luddites weren&#8217;t against technology, they were protesting industrialization&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}