Having really been into computers since the mid-80s I've been facing my own acceptance of becoming a Luddite. A big concern of mine is planned obsolesence and the many forms it can take. I fought...
Exemplary
Having really been into computers since the mid-80s I've been facing my own acceptance of becoming a Luddite.
A big concern of mine is planned obsolesence and the many forms it can take. I fought getting a smart TV forever. When I finally did get one, half the apps stopped being supported (and thus started breaking) within a year. The implication was that I was supposed to just go buy a new TV with new apps. Apple has introduced software patches that degrades performance on older phones. Adding in a computer chip into a part to prevent 'right to repair'
The "everything as a service" model bothers me. As soon as they started introducing computer chips and "always online" into things I figured it was only a matter of time before companies would use that technology to perpetually drain money from users. Does the world really benefit from heated seat subscriptions to ink subscriptions? Will my next stove need a subscription to use the "preheat" function?
I think it should be illegal to change basic functions of a product after the sale and without consent. There are way too many stories of things like Sony and OtherOS, televisions that start showing banner ads after an update months after purchase, the above mentioned Apple "upgrades". I don'ty want the current system of "we'll pay a $30 million dollar fine and offer affected users $3 in credit if they jump through enough hoops after making $100 million+" but a real knock the company/CEO and/or parent company into the dirt type punishment. If a company made $100 million, fine them $300 million minimum and make them revert/rollback the changes. Any new "feature" like banner ads should be present on new models before purchase. You can't do this with physical goods so why is it ok to do with tech? Could you imagine if FORD suddenly disabled 2 cylinders on older cars and/or went around putting bumper sticker ads on their vehicles after they were purchased?
I often try to find the "dumbest" versions of things I want to buy because I'm odd in that I want to know what I'm buying today will be the same in a month, a year or a decade later.
This is a myth. What they did was underclock the processor after detecting unexpected power losses, due to the under-provisioned batteries not being able to handle voltage spikes from higher...
Exemplary
Apple has introduced software patches that degrades performance on older phones.
This is a myth. What they did was underclock the processor after detecting unexpected power losses, due to the under-provisioned batteries not being able to handle voltage spikes from higher activity bursts. (This isn't that different from thermal throttling.) Because it's generally better for the device to still be useful than to unexpectedly turn off constantly.
iOS still does this to this day. The difference is it now has messaging about what is going on, and they added the whole battery health menu in the settings. And newer phones don't have the same small, problematic batteries that the 6S did several years ago.
I mean, isn't that just semantics? They're not degrading the performance, they're just slowing it down? The reason there are messages today is that there were lawsuits about them sneaking the...
I mean, isn'tthatjustsemantics? They're not degrading the performance, they're just slowing it down?
The reason there are messages today is that there were lawsuits about them sneaking the first one in (and then denying it initially). On technical merit, the update might make sense but the capitalistic nature of how it was realeased (and hidden) just screams "Consumerism! Consumerism! Consumerism!"
They probably should’ve made a toggle from the start, but there were indeed reasons why a user might want the feature. Years ago when I was dead broke and job hunting, I was using an iPhone 4...
They probably should’ve made a toggle from the start, but there were indeed reasons why a user might want the feature.
Years ago when I was dead broke and job hunting, I was using an iPhone 4 that’d been mostly worn out already with a battery that might’ve had 40-50% of its original capacity on a good day. It was notorious for crashing and shutting off anywhere under 35% battery when on calls (due to voltage spikes mentioned by redwall_hp), which as you can imagine was a bit disastrous in my situation and hard to avoid unless I sat tethered to a wall all the time. I would’ve happily traded reduced performance for the phone not crashing in the midst of a call, but that feature wouldn’t debut until years later.
Probably not, regularly drawing too much current from degraded cells not only destroys them faster, but also turns them into a potential safety hazard. Besides, how many users would want a phone...
They probably should’ve made a toggle from the start
Probably not, regularly drawing too much current from degraded cells not only destroys them faster, but also turns them into a potential safety hazard. Besides, how many users would want a phone that just reboots itself any time you try to do something useful with it?
They fixed a bigger technical problem with a trade-off, effectively lengthening the life of devices that people may have opted to replace sooner due to them being unusable. The performance was...
They're not degrading the performance, they're just slowing it down?
They fixed a bigger technical problem with a trade-off, effectively lengthening the life of devices that people may have opted to replace sooner due to them being unusable. The performance was already degraded by the batteries that were inadequate for the voltage spikes, which would have generally prevented the CPU from bursting to those higher speeds in the first place; the fix was a band aid that preserved functionality in spite of that. Apple's huge on hiding complexity, so of course their default was to not loudly broadcast it.
The semantic game is the framing of it as maliciously "reducing performance," when the performance was already impaired by the battery. Since the additional performance was already precluded by the voltage spike causing a shutdown, Apple's fix took away nothing that already existed and added stability. Logically, that means they did something against their interest in driving consumerism, because leaving devices to randomly power off would have driven replacements sooner.
The lawsuits came from a position of ignorance, but had the effect of prompting some nice features in the form of the battery health page.
No, because you can have your battery replaced and then the throttling stops happening. It's not throttling based on what the device is, it's solely on the current state of your battery. There's a...
No, because you can have your battery replaced and then the throttling stops happening. It's not throttling based on what the device is, it's solely on the current state of your battery.
There's a different discussion to be had around battery pairing in more recent models, but as far as software throttling goes, you can fix it without tossing the phone.
I imagine the perception would be much worse if they didn’t have full OS updates for older devices. What apple is doing wrong is limiting 3rd party repair. If you could easily replace your old...
I imagine the perception would be much worse if they didn’t have full OS updates for older devices.
What apple is doing wrong is limiting 3rd party repair. If you could easily replace your old phone’s battery with an upgraded 3rd party part you wouldn’t need to worry about degraded battery performance.
Which would you prefer? Slower performance, or no performance? When you say "Apple introduces a software update that slowed down older phones", most people take that to mean that the only reason...
Which would you prefer? Slower performance, or no performance?
When you say "Apple introduces a software update that slowed down older phones", most people take that to mean that the only reason for such an update was to make your old phone seem shittier.
The problem was never the feature itself, but the messaging around it. iPhone users didn't know why their phone was slowing down, and pointed to the software update. Now iOS does exactly the same thing, but it gives you a notification explaining why your phone is slower.
The unfortunate truth is that, as an enthusiast, you will never be pandered to. Your hobby, the thing you have many opinions about, will be commodified and dumbed down to serve the lowest common...
The unfortunate truth is that, as an enthusiast, you will never be pandered to. Your hobby, the thing you have many opinions about, will be commodified and dumbed down to serve the lowest common denominator. And in the process, the thing you loved most about your hobby will be destroyed. It's not profitable, so it will be cast aside in order to cast the widest net. You are the outlier. The discerning customer. You know what you're buying and what you want from it. And there will never be a product for you that you don't make yourself.
Or I'm projecting. I feel you, though. I just want a fucking big TV with 5 HDMI ports and no godawful android home screen that takes 25 seconds to load and constantly shoves things I will never be interested in in my face.
Car companies are certainly trying to do exactly that tbh. BMW asking for a heated seats subscription. Installing ads on always connected screens is trivial...
Could you imagine if FORD suddenly disabled 2 cylinders on older cars and/or went around putting bumper sticker ads on their vehicles after they were purchased?
Car companies are certainly trying to do exactly that tbh. BMW asking for a heated seats subscription. Installing ads on always connected screens is trivial
My solution to the TV problem was to run everything through a receiver. While many receivers should allow streaming from your phone, I run all my media apps from my PS5 now. A single remote...
My solution to the TV problem was to run everything through a receiver. While many receivers should allow streaming from your phone, I run all my media apps from my PS5 now. A single remote controls it and the TV.
I don't use cable, but if I did, I could switch the receiver at any time to the TV input. I can also use any game consoles as well.
This way, no ads, no slow software, nothing. The TV is just a display.
Of course, I'm overpaying if the cost supposedly comes from the smart features, but I don't really have a better solution right now until I switch to a projector.
You are probably paying less because of those smart features. My Samsung TV remote has a Netflix button and an Amazon Prime Video button. They absolutely paid Samsung money to be featured on the...
You are probably paying less because of those smart features. My Samsung TV remote has a Netflix button and an Amazon Prime Video button. They absolutely paid Samsung money to be featured on the remote. By not using those features you are probably costing the TV manufacturer money they were hoping to make back in advertisements through the smart tv interface. I refuse to connect my TV to my WIFI and just use my PS5 for a better experience then the TV could hope to provide.
Your solution absolutely works, but you've invested more capital in it than others would or can. (Please do not take offense at the rest of this comment, I am not attacking you for being able to...
Your solution absolutely works, but you've invested more capital in it than others would or can. (Please do not take offense at the rest of this comment, I am not attacking you for being able to afford to do things the way you want.)
You can run an XBOX or PS5 as a media center through a receiver. That keeps you from having to connect your relatively inexpensive "smart" TV to your network and you can still enjoy all the content you want. Someone that can't afford the extra technology to make their situation better is now stuck with ads and whatever else the TV manufacturer decides to throw their way.
I really think there's an interesting discussion that can be had around how a consumer's access to capital can increase their security and privacy, and decrease friction when adopting technology in our current system.
Apple is a good example here as well. Apple touts privacy as a feature, but their devices cost more than similar Android devices. But shouldn't everyone that owns a cell phone or other technological device get the same level of protection? I would argue that yes they should, especially when it comes to privacy as we generally accept privacy as a basic human right.
This is the kind of stuff that I think modern Luddites should focus on. Getting the US government to understand these things is nearly impossible when the majority of our elected officials are already rich enough to not have to deal with these problems, but on top of it are getting all of their information from lobbyists and special interests that only give them one side or only play up the benefits and not the downsides.
This is tricky though, because cheap devices are cheap because they’re subsidized by adware, bundleware, etc because the margins at that end of the scale are so thin. Without that, you’d probably...
Apple is a good example here as well. Apple touts privacy as a feature, but their devices cost more than similar Android devices. But shouldn't everyone that owns a cell phone or other technological device get the same level of protection? I would argue that yes they should, especially when it comes to privacy as we generally accept privacy as a basic human right.
This is tricky though, because cheap devices are cheap because they’re subsidized by adware, bundleware, etc because the margins at that end of the scale are so thin. Without that, you’d probably see pricing closer to being inline with Apple’s (e.g. starting at $429US with iPhone SE) unless manufacturers made the cheap models even weaker/older than they currently are (e.g. cheap phones lagging behind 5-7+ years in terms of specs).
In some ways I if wonder if maybe this subsidization has made for unrealistic price expectations.
I think you're on to something here. Cheap phones have a built in subsidy that most people don't or can't fully understand, especially the trade-offs they're making in regards to their privacy. It...
In some ways I if wonder if maybe this subsidization has made for unrealistic price expectations.
I think you're on to something here. Cheap phones have a built in subsidy that most people don't or can't fully understand, especially the trade-offs they're making in regards to their privacy. It is in Google's best interest to rope people into giving up privacy for the cheaper phone.
And now we live in a world where if you do not have some sort of mobile PC in your pocket, you are seriously hampered in everyday life. That said, would a cheap phone that is 5 years behind technologically really hamper you that much? Probably depends on the apps and software at that point, but Apple and/or Google could mandate that all apps be supported on all hardware that is currently sold.
As a mobile dev, I’d say that from a dev support perspective ~5 year old hardware doesn’t pose much of an issue on iOS but with Android it’s a different story due to the wide gulfs in power...
As a mobile dev, I’d say that from a dev support perspective ~5 year old hardware doesn’t pose much of an issue on iOS but with Android it’s a different story due to the wide gulfs in power between phones there.
An Android flagship from 5 years ago would be fine but mid-midrange and below of the same vintage are likely to see significant performance problems with newer apps.
For the record, I am doing something similar with a small Linux machine that only cost 90 euros when it was new. It has internet en a browser, I can stream anything and it is faster than any smart...
Your solution absolutely works, but you've invested more capital in it than others would or can.
For the record, I am doing something similar with a small Linux machine that only cost 90 euros when it was new. It has internet en a browser, I can stream anything and it is faster than any smart tv I have ever seen.
If you don't need the best of the best (i.e. 4K, or 8K) you can make do with anything that can do 1080p over HDMI. I think even old Raspberry Pi's can do that.
In case anyone is curious, I use a small wireless keyboard/mouse combo to control it. I ripped my blu rays and play them with mpv and project them on a big screen with my beamer. I like nice audio and video, but this part of the setup was a no-brainer: cheap and simple.
I have a few HP elitedesk G2 mini computers hooked up to my tvs running Linux and they serve all our needs much better than any TV app ever will. Even my tech-unsavvy parents are asking for me to...
I have a few HP elitedesk G2 mini computers hooked up to my tvs running Linux and they serve all our needs much better than any TV app ever will. Even my tech-unsavvy parents are asking for me to hook them up.
Logic K400 attached to a gaming PC built from mostly leftover parts. Not only can it handle everything but I can also game on it. There was a small learning curve for the rest of the house but...
Logic K400 attached to a gaming PC built from mostly leftover parts. Not only can it handle everything but I can also game on it. There was a small learning curve for the rest of the house but they can play Wordle on the big screen, they're happy.
The trick with smart TVs is to not use them as smart TVs. The center of my living room setup is a 2018 model Sony TV. It’s not once been connected to the internet even though it’s a smart TV....
The trick with smart TVs is to not use them as smart TVs.
The center of my living room setup is a 2018 model Sony TV. It’s not once been connected to the internet even though it’s a smart TV. Instead all streaming is done through an 2017 model Apple TV 4K box.
This has worked beautifully for the past 5 years and is still going strong because of how overkill the SoC used in the Apple TV is (multiple times more powerful than what’s shipped in smart TVs and other streaming boxes even today), which lets it be just as snappy and usable as the day I unboxed it. It even got a major software update yesterday.
A set-top box does help separate the smart from the TV, but it doesn't solve the whole problem. The only real workaround is to never connect it to the Internet - Even if you don't use the apps,...
A set-top box does help separate the smart from the TV, but it doesn't solve the whole problem. The only real workaround is to never connect it to the Internet - Even if you don't use the apps, they're still sending information about what you're watching back to the manufacturer.
I'm not entirely sure I see the benefit of an internet-connected TV, other than convenience. But is it so much more convenient than plugging in your old laptop with a HDMI cable?
I'm not entirely sure I see the benefit of an internet-connected TV, other than convenience. But is it so much more convenient than plugging in your old laptop with a HDMI cable?
That is where the set top streaming boxes I mentioned come in. More convenient than a laptop, better designed and longer shelf life than the crap built-in to your TV.
That is where the set top streaming boxes I mentioned come in. More convenient than a laptop, better designed and longer shelf life than the crap built-in to your TV.
My TL;DR / what I take home from this: Luddites were not against technological changes, but the negative societal changes that were forced upon them. Society changed from a crafstman model to a...
My TL;DR / what I take home from this:
Luddites were not against technological changes, but the negative societal changes that were forced upon them. Society changed from a crafstman model to a factory worker model, and with it a loss of skill, skill progression (no more apprentice to journeyman path, and I assume no journeyman to master either), quality (at the high end I guess ?) in favor of quantity.
As someone who worked in IT for several years, I have gradually turned into a Luddite as things have gotten increasingly more rotten and greedy in the IT space. I don't care about smart connected...
As someone who worked in IT for several years, I have gradually turned into a Luddite as things have gotten increasingly more rotten and greedy in the IT space. I don't care about smart connected junk, or smart TVs, and my fridge doesn't need a touchscreen to buy more crap I don't need. I realize now most of these "tech advancements" really do nothing for the customer and serve no purpose but to line the coffers of people who already have too much money. We really need to go back to making decent products that last and aren't infested with potential security problems by being online for no reason other than mining data from us.
I don't remember the source but I read an insightful essay once about how the medieval world was full of people who obstructed commerce by extracting rent on for example use of roads and rivers...
I don't remember the source but I read an insightful essay once about how the medieval world was full of people who obstructed commerce by extracting rent on for example use of roads and rivers and mountain passes. The essay compared trends in tech development to the medieval frequently rent extracting world.
This is exactly how mobile app stores work. Apple builds and maintains the "road" (i.e. servers, software, etc.) to allow others to put their "carts" (i.e. apps and software) on. Google does the...
This is exactly how mobile app stores work. Apple builds and maintains the "road" (i.e. servers, software, etc.) to allow others to put their "carts" (i.e. apps and software) on. Google does the same with Android, although Android has other ways around this restriction and some manufacturers like Samsung just run their own stores.
I think there are valid arguments to be made that by maintaining the roads, they are enabling new products and services to be sold more easily, thereby lowering the barrier to entry. The problems arise when that control starts to erode the benefits. Then you get into monopolistic/oligoplic (is that even a word? lol) practices which are most definitely a barrier to progress and innovation.
So really, the idea is not new, just the technology in use has changed over time.
I honestly think there are very few "original" ideas. Most new ideas are just revisions of an old one using new technology, processes, or methods. This idea applies all over the place, even in crime and scams.
to clarify a little bit, the analysis I have seen of how rent extraction was problematic in the Middle Ages in Europe, came from the fact that each small lord or mayor or town council could and...
to clarify a little bit, the analysis I have seen of how rent extraction was problematic in the Middle Ages in Europe, came from the fact that each small lord or mayor or town council could and did extract maximum rents. When you are trying to take goods by boat from Heidelberg to Rotterdam or Dusseldorf, if there is a castle around every bend in the river, that is a lot of tax to pay and it impedes commerce.
I feel like there is an easy counter argument to the author’s argument in favor of being a Luddite: coal miners and oil rig workers. Both of these fields have provided for many families for...
I feel like there is an easy counter argument to the author’s argument in favor of being a Luddite: coal miners and oil rig workers. Both of these fields have provided for many families for generations and are skilled but dangerous work. We are actively trying to remove both of these fields with green technology and telling these workers to retrain. Should they take the author’s suggestion and start smashing solar panels and wind farms?
I find the author’s argument is narrowly scoped to the gig economy and is hard to justify beyond. I like technological progress. I don’t think that something was lost because we replaced people with the cotton gin, I feel more was gained because they could become skilled in something else. But I also feel for people who earned a living being quickly swept aside because it was cheaper and faster to let tech take over. I don’t think the solution is digging our heels in and stopping tech though.
I think your comment misses the heart of the author's argument. The author is getting at the notion that the Luddites protested the attempt to systematically devalue their labor and skill through...
I think your comment misses the heart of the author's argument.
The author is getting at the notion that the Luddites protested the attempt to systematically devalue their labor and skill through the introduction of factories and new technology. The point is that we're in a modern parallel (which I've seen some call the Second Gilded Age). There is still value in the labor of rig hands and miners. If any industry would have automated away its labor, it would be the energy industry.
The gig economy represents a turning point in tech company messaging (see: What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub) where they claim to be something new, but are actually something that already exists (Uber to taxis, tesla tunnels to subways). Mentioning the gig tech companies only highlights the recent shift labor violations throigh flashy messaging. Now, we are seeing another inflection point where AI represents a potential opportunity for employers to continue devaluing skilled (mostly intellectual or creative) labor. Pointing to the SAG AFTRA strike for digital likenesses is a perfect example of this. Industry has repeatedly demonstrated that advancements in labor efficiency do not result in less work.
To me, an analogous method of smashing factory hardware is poisoning an AI model. We can also take a stand as consumers. Don't buy AI art, don't take Uber, support indepenent repair, source local and seasonal food, eat at restaurants paying a living wage, quit using AI for everything at work, don't buy on Amazon (especially next-day shipping), and so on.
There are some taxi companies that have developed their own apps. Personally when I have the option I choose Lyft over Uber because Uber has made some choices I find abhorrent but I agree it's not...
There are some taxi companies that have developed their own apps. Personally when I have the option I choose Lyft over Uber because Uber has made some choices I find abhorrent but I agree it's not an easy or possible choice for many people and everyone should exercise their own judgement as a consumer
The difference is that coal mining and oil rig work is gruelling, punishing stuff that doesn't meaningfully improve neither the lives of people nor the quality of the end product. Meanwhile, the...
The difference is that coal mining and oil rig work is gruelling, punishing stuff that doesn't meaningfully improve neither the lives of people nor the quality of the end product. Meanwhile, the skilled labor of weavers is fulfilling work which does produce a higher quality end product than the automated version, which instead turns the work into gruelling, punishing stuff.
But that's not even the point of the argument. The point is that the people who meaningfully benefit from the automation of labor are the people who own the machines, not the people who work them OR the people who need the end products.
Basically, the last sentence of the article sums it up.
I disagree that the end result should justify anything. Coal mining and oil rig work is all the things you say, but it absolutely does pay a wage and feed families. West Virginia is clinging to...
I disagree that the end result should justify anything. Coal mining and oil rig work is all the things you say, but it absolutely does pay a wage and feed families. West Virginia is clinging to coal mining because they have few things else that pays well.
The last sentence of the article is that everyone should benefit from the technology. Well, what if that technology makes your career field obsolete? Coal miners get the indirect benefit of clean energy and a step closer to a healthy climate, but their career and experience is worthless. I ask again, should they smash wind and solar farms?
I want to make clear: I am not pro coal, I very much see it as a dirty and dated method of getting energy. I don’t like the gig economy. I think artists should be paid for their work, I don’t think that AI replacing writers for TV and movies will produce much more than trash. What I’m arguing against is this narrowly scoped pro Luddite view.
I see your point, but yes, if the end result benefits the rest of society more (like, for example, not killing millions of people due to climate change) then yes, the short-term harm to the people...
I see your point, but yes, if the end result benefits the rest of society more (like, for example, not killing millions of people due to climate change) then yes, the short-term harm to the people who work there is acceptable. Ideally it would come with a strong social net so those people can live while they figure out what they can do next.
This is all only a problem because our current economic system requires people to be employed to have access to food, water, shelter, and security.
I think, fundamentally, the article is not just about the Luddites. They did what they could for their own situation and were demonized for it. The article is warning us that it will happen again, regardless of what side of the conflict an individual supports. That's why it needs to be curbed.
The way it's going, in the current system, the ones in power try to do their best to automate, to not require people, to increase production. But that is in inherent conflict with the other side of the system, which is, if you don't have money or resources to invest, you have to work and earn a wage.
What happens when so much is automated that huge swathes of the population cannot be employed? This is terrible for the earnings of the people who own companies because then the people who buy products have no money to spend.
It's a system that's designed to eat itself and the only reason it hasn't is because there have been concessions made to curb its more self-destructive tendencies, like creating jobs and positions that have no productive impact and are often an impediment to actual work getting done.
But this is like putting a bandaid on an infected wound. Sure, you stop bleeding, but nothing got solved.
The invention of the Cotton Gin was one of the largest drivers drivers of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the United States. The Cotton Gin greatly increased the speed of cotton production, leading to...
I don’t think that something was lost because we replaced people with the cotton gin
The invention of the Cotton Gin was one of the largest drivers drivers of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the United States. The Cotton Gin greatly increased the speed of cotton production, leading to more fields of cotton being planted, and more African people being enslaved to match production. The invention of the Cotton Gin lead to massive losses of life, and cultural genocide, so it is fair to say that "something" was lost with it's invention.
Of course the solution isn't to just not have new technology, but rather to realize that the inherent competitive nature of technology leads to new technologies quickly being twisted and used to gain market shares and power over the consumer.
Green technology shouldn't mean that all coal miners and oil rig workers are just left jobless. In a just society, they could be given resources to be educated to work new roles, and their livelihoods provided for while the changeover from fossil fuels to green technology happens. Instead, that won't happen because we've set up our society to just not have safety nets. In reality, coal has declined naturally, meaning people have already lost their jobs, and then Pharmaceutical companies used the communities to sell addictive painkillers, effectively gutting the region.
Yeah, the comment you've responded to is conflating the argument of "devaluation of labor which benefits only the wealthy should not be confused for progress" with "any technology that decreases...
Yeah, the comment you've responded to is conflating the argument of "devaluation of labor which benefits only the wealthy should not be confused for progress" with "any technology that decreases any paycheck is wrong".
Okay, I can see that. My example is not the best following this line of thought. Perhaps a better example may be that postal workers should smash computers because email has replaced the bulk of...
Okay, I can see that. My example is not the best following this line of thought. Perhaps a better example may be that postal workers should smash computers because email has replaced the bulk of their job delivering mail? Your argument though is making me feel like I may have missed something.
You definitely have missed the essence of these things. Sure, in an amoral and contextless sense, if you support luddites smashing autolooms because it hurts them, then you should support the...
You definitely have missed the essence of these things. Sure, in an amoral and contextless sense, if you support luddites smashing autolooms because it hurts them, then you should support the example you've described. However, the difference there is that the benefit to society of an autoloom is limited to one thing: lower prices, and they are only lower today than yesterday because of reduced labor hiring. The previous employees are now without income, and in that time, didn't have many options to acquire one. In your example, the infrastructure "replacing" USPS (this is a much more subtle relationship of competing services which provide distinct benefits, but I'll pretend it's 1:1 for these purposes) is the internet and personal computers, which has myriad uses beyond reducing the cost of running a for-profit industry.
Obviously, we shouldn't be trying to build moral rules that operate on such strict black-and-white thinking. If the autoloom had been installed in the textile industry of Britain via some sort of buyout, stock- or profit-sharing model for the former employees, then it wouldn't have been as cheap for the consumers of the fabrics, but the loomworkers would be free with their days, retain income, factory owners would've retained or increased their profits, and it's hard to imagine the displaced workers not accepting a moderate cut in wages in return for doing no work, let alone destroying the autolooms. But that is not what happened. Instead, the factory owners dismissed all the workers, leaving them in the lurch, and suctioned up the windfall. So, Nate Ludd broke some equipment in retaliation.
I won't say I'm 100% convinced, but I see your point. I feel like unionizing would be a better goal at this point than promoting ludditism, but perhaps that is outside the scope. I can see the...
I won't say I'm 100% convinced, but I see your point. I feel like unionizing would be a better goal at this point than promoting ludditism, but perhaps that is outside the scope. I can see the benefits of AI, but I can also see the potential for businesses dismiss and replace and reap the profits like the textile industry of old.
To give an alternative take, the British Empire ruled over India for like a hundred years or so, and before that the East India Company. The occupation of India was very heavily based on economic...
To give an alternative take, the British Empire ruled over India for like a hundred years or so, and before that the East India Company.
The occupation of India was very heavily based on economic and resource extraction.
To that end, Britain intentionally crippled the local thriving industries of India. India had incredible textiles that were coveted around the world. Indian ships established trade routes across oceans. But none of that was in the interest of Britain. So they sent soldiers to smash Indian looms and intimidate local weavers to quash local craftsmen.
Then, once they had no way to provide for themselves, Britain would buy up raw resources using tax revenue, send it back to Britain to be processed into finished goods, then would sell them back to India to get even more money from them.
The British weaving industry that the Luddites were protesting against losing was built in part on the destruction of a pre-existing hand weaving industry that already existed in India before them.
Luddites didn't want to go ALL the way back. They still wanted to have their goods be in high demand so they could live well off their trade. And they had that high demand because of artificial scarcity, scarcity that came by smashing looms and breaking fingers. Violence and suppression of technology was a double edged sword that was weilded in both directions.
Eventually the industrial revolution contributed to the continued marginalization of Indian skilled workers, as it gave even more economic advantage to Britain in addition to the imposed taxes and tarrifs. So its not like technology is what saved India from colonial rule. But neither was rebelling against the industrial revolution motivated in a desire to undo the unfair distribution of power in society.
Do you know an accessible, readable book that isn't too dry that goes into the economic dominance imposed by the British Empire on India? The Anarchy by Dalrymple is a great book about the origin...
Do you know an accessible, readable book that isn't too dry that goes into the economic dominance imposed by the British Empire on India?
The Anarchy by Dalrymple is a great book about the origin of the East India Company and the conquest of India but what you are talking about came later.
Still later Gandhi and his movement waged his economic war against the empire which inspired many social movements around the world including the US Civil Rights movement.
I think the article is at its best in drawing attention to the ways the tech industry big players are working to consolidate power, impose rent extraction on use of their products, replace skilled workers with unskilled or semi-skilled.
When economic upheavals like this have happened in the past it can take decades before large numbers of new skilled, highly paid jobs become available, and the people displaced and made destitute in the past are not necessarily the ones who benefit from the new jobs in the future, if they even happen within one economy rather than a different more politically dominant one as you point out with your example from the history of India.
A lot of people deflect economic criticism with the mantra progress is inevitable and progress provides the best possible economic outcomes. It's like Candide with the best of all possible worlds. History is written by the winners and economic suffering gets glossed over or justified as necessary grist for the mill of progress.
I dont know any good books on the subject. My family is from India so I just hear about this kind of thing from them, and most of them learned this stuff from textbooks in school, which are...
I dont know any good books on the subject. My family is from India so I just hear about this kind of thing from them, and most of them learned this stuff from textbooks in school, which are probably too much in the "dry" variety.
I think progress IS inevitable, but doesn't provide the best outcomes. Which is not to say that anti-progress does provide the best outcomes. One way to think of Pangloss style optimism is to focus on the part where it says "the best of all possible worlds". There are better worlds that could be theoretically achieved, but none of those worlds are possible, because everything that happens in the real world happens as a consequence of something else. There wasn't any other way things could have turned out without rewriting history so that the conditions would be different. Everyone who makes the "wrong" choice has internal motivations that were shaped by the world they grew up in.
Selfish greedy people exist and unless you retroactively solve that, every time things change there will be people working to leverage that change selfishly and make it a bad change.
Now, if you can fix all those people and resolve their anxieties and insecurities, then all those corrupting influences might go away and you could create a much better world. But that's sort of a chicken and egg situation where you need to create a utopia before you have the conditions where you can create a utopia.
The story the author tells here just sounds like bog standard conservatism to me. The underclass realized that the upper class didn't care about them and rebelled, but ultimately they just wanted...
The story the author tells here just sounds like bog standard conservatism to me. The underclass realized that the upper class didn't care about them and rebelled, but ultimately they just wanted to go back to a time when they were higher up on the food chain.
It's like when people want to go back to the 50s because things were good back then, and it's all modern politics that's causing societal decay. But it's not, the problems have been there all along. Social stratification is a hallmark of the Neolithic age in different communities and societies across history.
What this Luddism does is take a longstanding problem and all of the issues it's caused for ages and ascribing that to the newest thing so that it feels like fighting against that one thing will solve the problem forever.
Everytime a new innovation or discovery is added to the sum of human knowledge, there will be people who try to manipulate that thing for their own advantage. Because there are always people trying to manipulate the world for their own advantage. It's why we can't have nice things. That applies to basically everything though.
There's a story in the Bible about the Tower of Babel where God apparently created different languages so that people couldn't work together and achieve their ambitions to climb to the heavens. Not because getting to heaven was necessarily a bad thing. Rather, because God only had one valid goal in mind for humanity, to keep their focus on him. He didn't want them to do whatever they wanted, he wanted them to do what HE wanted, and the way he went about that was by obstructing their path whenever humanity moved off the path he wanted for them. That's how I interpreted that story, anyway.
Interesting, that's quite different from how I read it - more as a criticism of capitalism, where new technologies are implemented by capital holders to cencentrate more wealth and leave less for...
The story the author tells here just sounds like bog standard conservatism to me. The underclass realized that the upper class didn't care about them and rebelled, but ultimately they just wanted to go back to a time when they were higher up on the food chain.
It's like when people want to go back to the 50s because things were good back then, and it's all modern politics that's causing societal decay. But it's not, the problems have been there all along. Social stratification is a hallmark of the Neolithic age in different communities and societies across history.
Interesting, that's quite different from how I read it - more as a criticism of capitalism, where new technologies are implemented by capital holders to cencentrate more wealth and leave less for the people doing the work. It could be used to make everyone's lives easier, rather than the few, but that's not the path we (as a society) have taken.
I don't want to go back to floppy disks and dial-up internet and 2G phones, but I do want to push back on the use of technology to monetise as much of our lives as possible by using dark design patterns.
Yeah, I agree that that is the wrong takeaway from the article. It's a criticism of how the rich and greedy use new technologies to enrich themselves when they should be enriching everyone. Nobody...
Yeah, I agree that that is the wrong takeaway from the article. It's a criticism of how the rich and greedy use new technologies to enrich themselves when they should be enriching everyone. Nobody is saying we should go back to banging rocks together to make fire (though I'm sure there's someone who does), but new advancements should benefit all of society, not just make the rich richer.
I think there are ways, as a technically inclined person, to avoid many of the downsides of consumer tech while still using it. And I think this is a separate issue from the wider political...
I think there are ways, as a technically inclined person, to avoid many of the downsides of consumer tech while still using it. And I think this is a separate issue from the wider political concerns of technology.
Personally, use an adblocker, restrict time on social media, put your IoT things on their own VLANs and control their connectivity where possible. My google apps run in my work account on my 5 year old, used, rooted, unlocked phone running LineageOS 20 (latest android) that I just replaced the screen, USB port, and battery on and plan to keep for as long as parts are available. My car is 23 years old and I do all work on it. I'm considering rebuilding my own transmission. Etc. I'm not often bothered by the whims of the billionaires because I have the knowledge to take what I want out of all the poisoned apples companies pump out. Even on the AI front, my hobby produces neuromorphic hardware beyond the state of the art, in case OpenAI's superintelligence needs a talking to.
That's great for me! The real problem I see is the exploitation of people who are less fortunate. In that case, I think the most important part of a "Luddite" movement is the social aspect of the movement itself. I'm sure the smashing of looms was never expected to actually cause the change. The awareness the shocking act produces is the real point. I think a lot of people fail to understand this sort of thing. For example, the Occupy Movement. Or when people smash bank windows. No one is expecting to inconvenience the billionaires. The expectation is to start a conversation.
My takeaway from some control of chaos and complex system experiments I've done is that one way to control a system, maybe like society, is to give it many little pushes in the direction you want. It's easy to say "oh that's pointless, the billionaires don't care that you're protesting!" But it could be, and probably once in a great while it is true, that smashing a loom is the first step on a journey that ends quite unfavorably for the billionaires in question.
Anyway, I think it's important to point out the difference between a movement and not buying lightbulbs with servers in them. They're both important but very different things.
I agree. Also there is a long complex history of social movements that have succeeded and ones that have failed. The tensions between the wealthy, skilled labor, small business, unskilled labor...
I agree. Also there is a long complex history of social movements that have succeeded and ones that have failed. The tensions between the wealthy, skilled labor, small business, unskilled labor and the destitute are ever present. The system changes but the dynamics remain similar and conflicts emerge repeatedly.
Twenty first century tech industry is just a continuation of free market absolutist experiments of the 20th century. It's framed in terms of tech == freedom/liberty. As opposed to the 20th century...
Twenty first century tech industry is just a continuation of free market absolutist experiments of the 20th century. It's framed in terms of tech == freedom/liberty. As opposed to the 20th century framing of free markets == freedom versus socialism == oppression. The absolute free market winds up with power and wealth concentrated at the hands of the few. We're seeing the same thing all over again.
Paradoxically the digital words began as global collaborative efforts. Over time individuals amassed resources for themselves until they held majority market share. And then declared it was their rugged individualism that got them where they are. All while proclaiming everyone else can do the same. Because technology is supposed to enable anyone to do so just as they did.
That's not funny at all. I'm surprised this is upvoted. You have to pay for journalism anywhere else, why would it be free just because it's online? I'd much rather news was beholden to its...
That's not funny at all. I'm surprised this is upvoted.
You have to pay for journalism anywhere else, why would it be free just because it's online?
I'd much rather news was beholden to its readers/consumers, than having to rely on ad money from huge companies.
It's obvious quality reporting has to be paid for and can't simply be free. That's not sustainable.
my only thought about this is that it puts quality information out of reach for people that can't afford to pay. meanwhile, disinformation is freely available to all.
my only thought about this is that it puts quality information out of reach for people that can't afford to pay. meanwhile, disinformation is freely available to all.
In all of society, we get what we pay for. We could choose to tax-fund universally accessible, high quality, independent news. That would require taking information warfare seriously, and a will...
In all of society, we get what we pay for.
We could choose to tax-fund universally accessible, high quality, independent news. That would require taking information warfare seriously, and a will to hold politicians and others systematically to account for lies, half-truths and misrepresentations
We could also create nonprofits dedicated to news gathering and publishing. We do have partially or fully government funded organizations such as the BBC and National Public Radio
We could also create nonprofits dedicated to news gathering and publishing. We do have partially or fully government funded organizations such as the BBC and National Public Radio
There is an extension that will bypass many paywalls for you: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome (the link says Chrome, but there is also a Firefox extension download as well if...
There is an extension that will bypass many paywalls for you: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome (the link says Chrome, but there is also a Firefox extension download as well if you scroll down a bit)
It's open source, and not included in the usual official repositories, but in my experience is trusted and works well. Use your own judgment before installing, of course.
you can always disable java in your browser and reload the page, this makes the paywalls go away. it may break some other sites, but you can just switch it back on and reload to get back to normal.
you can always disable java in your browser and reload the page, this makes the paywalls go away. it may break some other sites, but you can just switch it back on and reload to get back to normal.
You might want to delete this. The thought is nice, but we try not to repost full text here, particularly when paywalled, to avoid any potential legal trouble.
You might want to delete this. The thought is nice, but we try not to repost full text here, particularly when paywalled, to avoid any potential legal trouble.
True, Tildes doesn't endorse piracy in any form. But copy pasting and therefore hosting the entire article probably goes against any copyright, while just pasting a link where the paywall is...
True, Tildes doesn't endorse piracy in any form. But copy pasting and therefore hosting the entire article probably goes against any copyright, while just pasting a link where the paywall is circumvented does not.
If I recall, the idea is that you can't really stop people from reading the article if they want to but not allowing a full copy paste at least discourages blatant copyright infringements.
Having really been into computers since the mid-80s I've been facing my own acceptance of becoming a Luddite.
A big concern of mine is planned obsolesence and the many forms it can take. I fought getting a smart TV forever. When I finally did get one, half the apps stopped being supported (and thus started breaking) within a year. The implication was that I was supposed to just go buy a new TV with new apps. Apple has introduced software patches that degrades performance on older phones. Adding in a computer chip into a part to prevent 'right to repair'
The "everything as a service" model bothers me. As soon as they started introducing computer chips and "always online" into things I figured it was only a matter of time before companies would use that technology to perpetually drain money from users. Does the world really benefit from heated seat subscriptions to ink subscriptions? Will my next stove need a subscription to use the "preheat" function?
I think it should be illegal to change basic functions of a product after the sale and without consent. There are way too many stories of things like Sony and OtherOS, televisions that start showing banner ads after an update months after purchase, the above mentioned Apple "upgrades". I don'ty want the current system of "we'll pay a $30 million dollar fine and offer affected users $3 in credit if they jump through enough hoops after making $100 million+" but a real knock the company/CEO and/or parent company into the dirt type punishment. If a company made $100 million, fine them $300 million minimum and make them revert/rollback the changes. Any new "feature" like banner ads should be present on new models before purchase. You can't do this with physical goods so why is it ok to do with tech? Could you imagine if FORD suddenly disabled 2 cylinders on older cars and/or went around putting bumper sticker ads on their vehicles after they were purchased?
I often try to find the "dumbest" versions of things I want to buy because I'm odd in that I want to know what I'm buying today will be the same in a month, a year or a decade later.
This is a myth. What they did was underclock the processor after detecting unexpected power losses, due to the under-provisioned batteries not being able to handle voltage spikes from higher activity bursts. (This isn't that different from thermal throttling.) Because it's generally better for the device to still be useful than to unexpectedly turn off constantly.
iOS still does this to this day. The difference is it now has messaging about what is going on, and they added the whole battery health menu in the settings. And newer phones don't have the same small, problematic batteries that the 6S did several years ago.
I mean, isn't that just semantics? They're not degrading the performance, they're just slowing it down?
The reason there are messages today is that there were lawsuits about them sneaking the first one in (and then denying it initially). On technical merit, the update might make sense but the capitalistic nature of how it was realeased (and hidden) just screams "Consumerism! Consumerism! Consumerism!"
They probably should’ve made a toggle from the start, but there were indeed reasons why a user might want the feature.
Years ago when I was dead broke and job hunting, I was using an iPhone 4 that’d been mostly worn out already with a battery that might’ve had 40-50% of its original capacity on a good day. It was notorious for crashing and shutting off anywhere under 35% battery when on calls (due to voltage spikes mentioned by redwall_hp), which as you can imagine was a bit disastrous in my situation and hard to avoid unless I sat tethered to a wall all the time. I would’ve happily traded reduced performance for the phone not crashing in the midst of a call, but that feature wouldn’t debut until years later.
Probably not, regularly drawing too much current from degraded cells not only destroys them faster, but also turns them into a potential safety hazard. Besides, how many users would want a phone that just reboots itself any time you try to do something useful with it?
They fixed a bigger technical problem with a trade-off, effectively lengthening the life of devices that people may have opted to replace sooner due to them being unusable. The performance was already degraded by the batteries that were inadequate for the voltage spikes, which would have generally prevented the CPU from bursting to those higher speeds in the first place; the fix was a band aid that preserved functionality in spite of that. Apple's huge on hiding complexity, so of course their default was to not loudly broadcast it.
The semantic game is the framing of it as maliciously "reducing performance," when the performance was already impaired by the battery. Since the additional performance was already precluded by the voltage spike causing a shutdown, Apple's fix took away nothing that already existed and added stability. Logically, that means they did something against their interest in driving consumerism, because leaving devices to randomly power off would have driven replacements sooner.
The lawsuits came from a position of ignorance, but had the effect of prompting some nice features in the form of the battery health page.
I think the difference is more than semantics. The implication here -
- is that Apple may be doing this maliciously. They are not.
No, because you can have your battery replaced and then the throttling stops happening. It's not throttling based on what the device is, it's solely on the current state of your battery.
There's a different discussion to be had around battery pairing in more recent models, but as far as software throttling goes, you can fix it without tossing the phone.
I imagine the perception would be much worse if they didn’t have full OS updates for older devices.
What apple is doing wrong is limiting 3rd party repair. If you could easily replace your old phone’s battery with an upgraded 3rd party part you wouldn’t need to worry about degraded battery performance.
Which would you prefer? Slower performance, or no performance?
When you say "Apple introduces a software update that slowed down older phones", most people take that to mean that the only reason for such an update was to make your old phone seem shittier.
The problem was never the feature itself, but the messaging around it. iPhone users didn't know why their phone was slowing down, and pointed to the software update. Now iOS does exactly the same thing, but it gives you a notification explaining why your phone is slower.
The unfortunate truth is that, as an enthusiast, you will never be pandered to. Your hobby, the thing you have many opinions about, will be commodified and dumbed down to serve the lowest common denominator. And in the process, the thing you loved most about your hobby will be destroyed. It's not profitable, so it will be cast aside in order to cast the widest net. You are the outlier. The discerning customer. You know what you're buying and what you want from it. And there will never be a product for you that you don't make yourself.
Or I'm projecting. I feel you, though. I just want a fucking big TV with 5 HDMI ports and no godawful android home screen that takes 25 seconds to load and constantly shoves things I will never be interested in in my face.
Car companies are certainly trying to do exactly that tbh. BMW asking for a heated seats subscription. Installing ads on always connected screens is trivial
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07/no-bmw-is-not-making-heated-seats-a-subscription-for-us-cars/
My solution to the TV problem was to run everything through a receiver. While many receivers should allow streaming from your phone, I run all my media apps from my PS5 now. A single remote controls it and the TV.
I don't use cable, but if I did, I could switch the receiver at any time to the TV input. I can also use any game consoles as well.
This way, no ads, no slow software, nothing. The TV is just a display.
Of course, I'm overpaying if the cost supposedly comes from the smart features, but I don't really have a better solution right now until I switch to a projector.
You are probably paying less because of those smart features. My Samsung TV remote has a Netflix button and an Amazon Prime Video button. They absolutely paid Samsung money to be featured on the remote. By not using those features you are probably costing the TV manufacturer money they were hoping to make back in advertisements through the smart tv interface. I refuse to connect my TV to my WIFI and just use my PS5 for a better experience then the TV could hope to provide.
Your solution absolutely works, but you've invested more capital in it than others would or can. (Please do not take offense at the rest of this comment, I am not attacking you for being able to afford to do things the way you want.)
You can run an XBOX or PS5 as a media center through a receiver. That keeps you from having to connect your relatively inexpensive "smart" TV to your network and you can still enjoy all the content you want. Someone that can't afford the extra technology to make their situation better is now stuck with ads and whatever else the TV manufacturer decides to throw their way.
I really think there's an interesting discussion that can be had around how a consumer's access to capital can increase their security and privacy, and decrease friction when adopting technology in our current system.
Apple is a good example here as well. Apple touts privacy as a feature, but their devices cost more than similar Android devices. But shouldn't everyone that owns a cell phone or other technological device get the same level of protection? I would argue that yes they should, especially when it comes to privacy as we generally accept privacy as a basic human right.
This is the kind of stuff that I think modern Luddites should focus on. Getting the US government to understand these things is nearly impossible when the majority of our elected officials are already rich enough to not have to deal with these problems, but on top of it are getting all of their information from lobbyists and special interests that only give them one side or only play up the benefits and not the downsides.
This is tricky though, because cheap devices are cheap because they’re subsidized by adware, bundleware, etc because the margins at that end of the scale are so thin. Without that, you’d probably see pricing closer to being inline with Apple’s (e.g. starting at $429US with iPhone SE) unless manufacturers made the cheap models even weaker/older than they currently are (e.g. cheap phones lagging behind 5-7+ years in terms of specs).
In some ways I if wonder if maybe this subsidization has made for unrealistic price expectations.
I think you're on to something here. Cheap phones have a built in subsidy that most people don't or can't fully understand, especially the trade-offs they're making in regards to their privacy. It is in Google's best interest to rope people into giving up privacy for the cheaper phone.
And now we live in a world where if you do not have some sort of mobile PC in your pocket, you are seriously hampered in everyday life. That said, would a cheap phone that is 5 years behind technologically really hamper you that much? Probably depends on the apps and software at that point, but Apple and/or Google could mandate that all apps be supported on all hardware that is currently sold.
As a mobile dev, I’d say that from a dev support perspective ~5 year old hardware doesn’t pose much of an issue on iOS but with Android it’s a different story due to the wide gulfs in power between phones there.
An Android flagship from 5 years ago would be fine but mid-midrange and below of the same vintage are likely to see significant performance problems with newer apps.
For the record, I am doing something similar with a small Linux machine that only cost 90 euros when it was new. It has internet en a browser, I can stream anything and it is faster than any smart tv I have ever seen.
If you don't need the best of the best (i.e. 4K, or 8K) you can make do with anything that can do 1080p over HDMI. I think even old Raspberry Pi's can do that.
In case anyone is curious, I use a small wireless keyboard/mouse combo to control it. I ripped my blu rays and play them with
mpvand project them on a big screen with my beamer. I like nice audio and video, but this part of the setup was a no-brainer: cheap and simple.I have a few HP elitedesk G2 mini computers hooked up to my tvs running Linux and they serve all our needs much better than any TV app ever will. Even my tech-unsavvy parents are asking for me to hook them up.
Logic K400 attached to a gaming PC built from mostly leftover parts. Not only can it handle everything but I can also game on it. There was a small learning curve for the rest of the house but they can play Wordle on the big screen, they're happy.
The trick with smart TVs is to not use them as smart TVs.
The center of my living room setup is a 2018 model Sony TV. It’s not once been connected to the internet even though it’s a smart TV. Instead all streaming is done through an 2017 model Apple TV 4K box.
This has worked beautifully for the past 5 years and is still going strong because of how overkill the SoC used in the Apple TV is (multiple times more powerful than what’s shipped in smart TVs and other streaming boxes even today), which lets it be just as snappy and usable as the day I unboxed it. It even got a major software update yesterday.
Just don't use the "smart TV" features? There are really good set top boxes that offer better UX and much longer support lifecycles.
A set-top box does help separate the smart from the TV, but it doesn't solve the whole problem. The only real workaround is to never connect it to the Internet - Even if you don't use the apps, they're still sending information about what you're watching back to the manufacturer.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/29/what-your-smart-tv-knows-about-you-and-how-to-stop-it-harvesting-data
If you're not using the smart tv features, then what reason do you have to connect your TV to the internet?
I'm not entirely sure I see the benefit of an internet-connected TV, other than convenience. But is it so much more convenient than plugging in your old laptop with a HDMI cable?
That is where the set top streaming boxes I mentioned come in. More convenient than a laptop, better designed and longer shelf life than the crap built-in to your TV.
My TL;DR / what I take home from this:
Luddites were not against technological changes, but the negative societal changes that were forced upon them. Society changed from a crafstman model to a factory worker model, and with it a loss of skill, skill progression (no more apprentice to journeyman path, and I assume no journeyman to master either), quality (at the high end I guess ?) in favor of quantity.
As someone who worked in IT for several years, I have gradually turned into a Luddite as things have gotten increasingly more rotten and greedy in the IT space. I don't care about smart connected junk, or smart TVs, and my fridge doesn't need a touchscreen to buy more crap I don't need. I realize now most of these "tech advancements" really do nothing for the customer and serve no purpose but to line the coffers of people who already have too much money. We really need to go back to making decent products that last and aren't infested with potential security problems by being online for no reason other than mining data from us.
I don't remember the source but I read an insightful essay once about how the medieval world was full of people who obstructed commerce by extracting rent on for example use of roads and rivers and mountain passes. The essay compared trends in tech development to the medieval frequently rent extracting world.
This is exactly how mobile app stores work. Apple builds and maintains the "road" (i.e. servers, software, etc.) to allow others to put their "carts" (i.e. apps and software) on. Google does the same with Android, although Android has other ways around this restriction and some manufacturers like Samsung just run their own stores.
I think there are valid arguments to be made that by maintaining the roads, they are enabling new products and services to be sold more easily, thereby lowering the barrier to entry. The problems arise when that control starts to erode the benefits. Then you get into monopolistic/oligoplic (is that even a word? lol) practices which are most definitely a barrier to progress and innovation.
So really, the idea is not new, just the technology in use has changed over time.
I honestly think there are very few "original" ideas. Most new ideas are just revisions of an old one using new technology, processes, or methods. This idea applies all over the place, even in crime and scams.
to clarify a little bit, the analysis I have seen of how rent extraction was problematic in the Middle Ages in Europe, came from the fact that each small lord or mayor or town council could and did extract maximum rents. When you are trying to take goods by boat from Heidelberg to Rotterdam or Dusseldorf, if there is a castle around every bend in the river, that is a lot of tax to pay and it impedes commerce.
I feel like there is an easy counter argument to the author’s argument in favor of being a Luddite: coal miners and oil rig workers. Both of these fields have provided for many families for generations and are skilled but dangerous work. We are actively trying to remove both of these fields with green technology and telling these workers to retrain. Should they take the author’s suggestion and start smashing solar panels and wind farms?
I find the author’s argument is narrowly scoped to the gig economy and is hard to justify beyond. I like technological progress. I don’t think that something was lost because we replaced people with the cotton gin, I feel more was gained because they could become skilled in something else. But I also feel for people who earned a living being quickly swept aside because it was cheaper and faster to let tech take over. I don’t think the solution is digging our heels in and stopping tech though.
I think your comment misses the heart of the author's argument.
The author is getting at the notion that the Luddites protested the attempt to systematically devalue their labor and skill through the introduction of factories and new technology. The point is that we're in a modern parallel (which I've seen some call the Second Gilded Age). There is still value in the labor of rig hands and miners. If any industry would have automated away its labor, it would be the energy industry.
The gig economy represents a turning point in tech company messaging (see: What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub) where they claim to be something new, but are actually something that already exists (Uber to taxis, tesla tunnels to subways). Mentioning the gig tech companies only highlights the recent shift labor violations throigh flashy messaging. Now, we are seeing another inflection point where AI represents a potential opportunity for employers to continue devaluing skilled (mostly intellectual or creative) labor. Pointing to the SAG AFTRA strike for digital likenesses is a perfect example of this. Industry has repeatedly demonstrated that advancements in labor efficiency do not result in less work.
To me, an analogous method of smashing factory hardware is poisoning an AI model. We can also take a stand as consumers. Don't buy AI art, don't take Uber, support indepenent repair, source local and seasonal food, eat at restaurants paying a living wage, quit using AI for everything at work, don't buy on Amazon (especially next-day shipping), and so on.
There are some taxi companies that have developed their own apps. Personally when I have the option I choose Lyft over Uber because Uber has made some choices I find abhorrent but I agree it's not an easy or possible choice for many people and everyone should exercise their own judgement as a consumer
The difference is that coal mining and oil rig work is gruelling, punishing stuff that doesn't meaningfully improve neither the lives of people nor the quality of the end product. Meanwhile, the skilled labor of weavers is fulfilling work which does produce a higher quality end product than the automated version, which instead turns the work into gruelling, punishing stuff.
But that's not even the point of the argument. The point is that the people who meaningfully benefit from the automation of labor are the people who own the machines, not the people who work them OR the people who need the end products.
Basically, the last sentence of the article sums it up.
I disagree that the end result should justify anything. Coal mining and oil rig work is all the things you say, but it absolutely does pay a wage and feed families. West Virginia is clinging to coal mining because they have few things else that pays well.
The last sentence of the article is that everyone should benefit from the technology. Well, what if that technology makes your career field obsolete? Coal miners get the indirect benefit of clean energy and a step closer to a healthy climate, but their career and experience is worthless. I ask again, should they smash wind and solar farms?
I want to make clear: I am not pro coal, I very much see it as a dirty and dated method of getting energy. I don’t like the gig economy. I think artists should be paid for their work, I don’t think that AI replacing writers for TV and movies will produce much more than trash. What I’m arguing against is this narrowly scoped pro Luddite view.
I see your point, but yes, if the end result benefits the rest of society more (like, for example, not killing millions of people due to climate change) then yes, the short-term harm to the people who work there is acceptable. Ideally it would come with a strong social net so those people can live while they figure out what they can do next.
This is all only a problem because our current economic system requires people to be employed to have access to food, water, shelter, and security.
I think, fundamentally, the article is not just about the Luddites. They did what they could for their own situation and were demonized for it. The article is warning us that it will happen again, regardless of what side of the conflict an individual supports. That's why it needs to be curbed.
The way it's going, in the current system, the ones in power try to do their best to automate, to not require people, to increase production. But that is in inherent conflict with the other side of the system, which is, if you don't have money or resources to invest, you have to work and earn a wage.
What happens when so much is automated that huge swathes of the population cannot be employed? This is terrible for the earnings of the people who own companies because then the people who buy products have no money to spend.
It's a system that's designed to eat itself and the only reason it hasn't is because there have been concessions made to curb its more self-destructive tendencies, like creating jobs and positions that have no productive impact and are often an impediment to actual work getting done.
But this is like putting a bandaid on an infected wound. Sure, you stop bleeding, but nothing got solved.
The invention of the Cotton Gin was one of the largest drivers drivers of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the United States. The Cotton Gin greatly increased the speed of cotton production, leading to more fields of cotton being planted, and more African people being enslaved to match production. The invention of the Cotton Gin lead to massive losses of life, and cultural genocide, so it is fair to say that "something" was lost with it's invention.
Of course the solution isn't to just not have new technology, but rather to realize that the inherent competitive nature of technology leads to new technologies quickly being twisted and used to gain market shares and power over the consumer.
Green technology shouldn't mean that all coal miners and oil rig workers are just left jobless. In a just society, they could be given resources to be educated to work new roles, and their livelihoods provided for while the changeover from fossil fuels to green technology happens. Instead, that won't happen because we've set up our society to just not have safety nets. In reality, coal has declined naturally, meaning people have already lost their jobs, and then Pharmaceutical companies used the communities to sell addictive painkillers, effectively gutting the region.
The villain, as always, is capitalism.
Yeah, the comment you've responded to is conflating the argument of "devaluation of labor which benefits only the wealthy should not be confused for progress" with "any technology that decreases any paycheck is wrong".
Okay, I can see that. My example is not the best following this line of thought. Perhaps a better example may be that postal workers should smash computers because email has replaced the bulk of their job delivering mail? Your argument though is making me feel like I may have missed something.
You definitely have missed the essence of these things. Sure, in an amoral and contextless sense, if you support luddites smashing autolooms because it hurts them, then you should support the example you've described. However, the difference there is that the benefit to society of an autoloom is limited to one thing: lower prices, and they are only lower today than yesterday because of reduced labor hiring. The previous employees are now without income, and in that time, didn't have many options to acquire one. In your example, the infrastructure "replacing" USPS (this is a much more subtle relationship of competing services which provide distinct benefits, but I'll pretend it's 1:1 for these purposes) is the internet and personal computers, which has myriad uses beyond reducing the cost of running a for-profit industry.
Obviously, we shouldn't be trying to build moral rules that operate on such strict black-and-white thinking. If the autoloom had been installed in the textile industry of Britain via some sort of buyout, stock- or profit-sharing model for the former employees, then it wouldn't have been as cheap for the consumers of the fabrics, but the loomworkers would be free with their days, retain income, factory owners would've retained or increased their profits, and it's hard to imagine the displaced workers not accepting a moderate cut in wages in return for doing no work, let alone destroying the autolooms. But that is not what happened. Instead, the factory owners dismissed all the workers, leaving them in the lurch, and suctioned up the windfall. So, Nate Ludd broke some equipment in retaliation.
Does that clarify anything?
I won't say I'm 100% convinced, but I see your point. I feel like unionizing would be a better goal at this point than promoting ludditism, but perhaps that is outside the scope. I can see the benefits of AI, but I can also see the potential for businesses dismiss and replace and reap the profits like the textile industry of old.
That's totally fair! The important thing is we all know what each other are talking about.
To give an alternative take, the British Empire ruled over India for like a hundred years or so, and before that the East India Company.
The occupation of India was very heavily based on economic and resource extraction.
To that end, Britain intentionally crippled the local thriving industries of India. India had incredible textiles that were coveted around the world. Indian ships established trade routes across oceans. But none of that was in the interest of Britain. So they sent soldiers to smash Indian looms and intimidate local weavers to quash local craftsmen.
Then, once they had no way to provide for themselves, Britain would buy up raw resources using tax revenue, send it back to Britain to be processed into finished goods, then would sell them back to India to get even more money from them.
The British weaving industry that the Luddites were protesting against losing was built in part on the destruction of a pre-existing hand weaving industry that already existed in India before them.
Luddites didn't want to go ALL the way back. They still wanted to have their goods be in high demand so they could live well off their trade. And they had that high demand because of artificial scarcity, scarcity that came by smashing looms and breaking fingers. Violence and suppression of technology was a double edged sword that was weilded in both directions.
Eventually the industrial revolution contributed to the continued marginalization of Indian skilled workers, as it gave even more economic advantage to Britain in addition to the imposed taxes and tarrifs. So its not like technology is what saved India from colonial rule. But neither was rebelling against the industrial revolution motivated in a desire to undo the unfair distribution of power in society.
Do you know an accessible, readable book that isn't too dry that goes into the economic dominance imposed by the British Empire on India?
The Anarchy by Dalrymple is a great book about the origin of the East India Company and the conquest of India but what you are talking about came later.
Still later Gandhi and his movement waged his economic war against the empire which inspired many social movements around the world including the US Civil Rights movement.
I think the article is at its best in drawing attention to the ways the tech industry big players are working to consolidate power, impose rent extraction on use of their products, replace skilled workers with unskilled or semi-skilled.
When economic upheavals like this have happened in the past it can take decades before large numbers of new skilled, highly paid jobs become available, and the people displaced and made destitute in the past are not necessarily the ones who benefit from the new jobs in the future, if they even happen within one economy rather than a different more politically dominant one as you point out with your example from the history of India.
A lot of people deflect economic criticism with the mantra progress is inevitable and progress provides the best possible economic outcomes. It's like Candide with the best of all possible worlds. History is written by the winners and economic suffering gets glossed over or justified as necessary grist for the mill of progress.
Inglorious Empire by Sashi Tharoor leans a little polemical, but might be of interest.
I dont know any good books on the subject. My family is from India so I just hear about this kind of thing from them, and most of them learned this stuff from textbooks in school, which are probably too much in the "dry" variety.
I think progress IS inevitable, but doesn't provide the best outcomes. Which is not to say that anti-progress does provide the best outcomes. One way to think of Pangloss style optimism is to focus on the part where it says "the best of all possible worlds". There are better worlds that could be theoretically achieved, but none of those worlds are possible, because everything that happens in the real world happens as a consequence of something else. There wasn't any other way things could have turned out without rewriting history so that the conditions would be different. Everyone who makes the "wrong" choice has internal motivations that were shaped by the world they grew up in.
Selfish greedy people exist and unless you retroactively solve that, every time things change there will be people working to leverage that change selfishly and make it a bad change.
Now, if you can fix all those people and resolve their anxieties and insecurities, then all those corrupting influences might go away and you could create a much better world. But that's sort of a chicken and egg situation where you need to create a utopia before you have the conditions where you can create a utopia.
The story the author tells here just sounds like bog standard conservatism to me. The underclass realized that the upper class didn't care about them and rebelled, but ultimately they just wanted to go back to a time when they were higher up on the food chain.
It's like when people want to go back to the 50s because things were good back then, and it's all modern politics that's causing societal decay. But it's not, the problems have been there all along. Social stratification is a hallmark of the Neolithic age in different communities and societies across history.
What this Luddism does is take a longstanding problem and all of the issues it's caused for ages and ascribing that to the newest thing so that it feels like fighting against that one thing will solve the problem forever.
Everytime a new innovation or discovery is added to the sum of human knowledge, there will be people who try to manipulate that thing for their own advantage. Because there are always people trying to manipulate the world for their own advantage. It's why we can't have nice things. That applies to basically everything though.
There's a story in the Bible about the Tower of Babel where God apparently created different languages so that people couldn't work together and achieve their ambitions to climb to the heavens. Not because getting to heaven was necessarily a bad thing. Rather, because God only had one valid goal in mind for humanity, to keep their focus on him. He didn't want them to do whatever they wanted, he wanted them to do what HE wanted, and the way he went about that was by obstructing their path whenever humanity moved off the path he wanted for them. That's how I interpreted that story, anyway.
Interesting, that's quite different from how I read it - more as a criticism of capitalism, where new technologies are implemented by capital holders to cencentrate more wealth and leave less for the people doing the work. It could be used to make everyone's lives easier, rather than the few, but that's not the path we (as a society) have taken.
I don't want to go back to floppy disks and dial-up internet and 2G phones, but I do want to push back on the use of technology to monetise as much of our lives as possible by using dark design patterns.
Yeah, I agree that that is the wrong takeaway from the article. It's a criticism of how the rich and greedy use new technologies to enrich themselves when they should be enriching everyone. Nobody is saying we should go back to banging rocks together to make fire (though I'm sure there's someone who does), but new advancements should benefit all of society, not just make the rich richer.
I can see that. I guess this narrative framing just isn't really for me.
Brian Merchant was a guest on Wednesday's episode of 99PI too. Interesting listen in case someone wants to hear more about the Luddite movement.
I second this suggestion, it's a great episode about a misunderstood movement.
I think there are ways, as a technically inclined person, to avoid many of the downsides of consumer tech while still using it. And I think this is a separate issue from the wider political concerns of technology.
Personally, use an adblocker, restrict time on social media, put your IoT things on their own VLANs and control their connectivity where possible. My google apps run in my work account on my 5 year old, used, rooted, unlocked phone running LineageOS 20 (latest android) that I just replaced the screen, USB port, and battery on and plan to keep for as long as parts are available. My car is 23 years old and I do all work on it. I'm considering rebuilding my own transmission. Etc. I'm not often bothered by the whims of the billionaires because I have the knowledge to take what I want out of all the poisoned apples companies pump out. Even on the AI front, my hobby produces neuromorphic hardware beyond the state of the art, in case OpenAI's superintelligence needs a talking to.
That's great for me! The real problem I see is the exploitation of people who are less fortunate. In that case, I think the most important part of a "Luddite" movement is the social aspect of the movement itself. I'm sure the smashing of looms was never expected to actually cause the change. The awareness the shocking act produces is the real point. I think a lot of people fail to understand this sort of thing. For example, the Occupy Movement. Or when people smash bank windows. No one is expecting to inconvenience the billionaires. The expectation is to start a conversation.
My takeaway from some control of chaos and complex system experiments I've done is that one way to control a system, maybe like society, is to give it many little pushes in the direction you want. It's easy to say "oh that's pointless, the billionaires don't care that you're protesting!" But it could be, and probably once in a great while it is true, that smashing a loom is the first step on a journey that ends quite unfavorably for the billionaires in question.
Anyway, I think it's important to point out the difference between a movement and not buying lightbulbs with servers in them. They're both important but very different things.
I agree. Also there is a long complex history of social movements that have succeeded and ones that have failed. The tensions between the wealthy, skilled labor, small business, unskilled labor and the destitute are ever present. The system changes but the dynamics remain similar and conflicts emerge repeatedly.
Twenty first century tech industry is just a continuation of free market absolutist experiments of the 20th century. It's framed in terms of tech == freedom/liberty. As opposed to the 20th century framing of free markets == freedom versus socialism == oppression. The absolute free market winds up with power and wealth concentrated at the hands of the few. We're seeing the same thing all over again.
Paradoxically the digital words began as global collaborative efforts. Over time individuals amassed resources for themselves until they held majority market share. And then declared it was their rugged individualism that got them where they are. All while proclaiming everyone else can do the same. Because technology is supposed to enable anyone to do so just as they did.
Funny, can't read article that's probably criticizing tech because of a paywall.
This is an archive link.
Even funnier ... I cannot access the archive link because the Captcha doesn't believe I'm not a robot.
I am never able to use any of the common archive sites due to this problem.
That's not funny at all. I'm surprised this is upvoted.
You have to pay for journalism anywhere else, why would it be free just because it's online?
I'd much rather news was beholden to its readers/consumers, than having to rely on ad money from huge companies.
It's obvious quality reporting has to be paid for and can't simply be free. That's not sustainable.
my only thought about this is that it puts quality information out of reach for people that can't afford to pay. meanwhile, disinformation is freely available to all.
In all of society, we get what we pay for.
We could choose to tax-fund universally accessible, high quality, independent news. That would require taking information warfare seriously, and a will to hold politicians and others systematically to account for lies, half-truths and misrepresentations
We could also create nonprofits dedicated to news gathering and publishing. We do have partially or fully government funded organizations such as the BBC and National Public Radio
There is an extension that will bypass many paywalls for you: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome (the link says Chrome, but there is also a Firefox extension download as well if you scroll down a bit)
It's open source, and not included in the usual official repositories, but in my experience is trusted and works well. Use your own judgment before installing, of course.
you can always disable java in your browser and reload the page, this makes the paywalls go away. it may break some other sites, but you can just switch it back on and reload to get back to normal.
Do you mean disable javascript or disable Java?
Javascript
javascript! sorry for the confusion. i have an extension set up where it's just a button toggle that says java lol
Do not trust an extension maker who does not know the difference between Java and Javascript. :-)
haha! too right
I do this in Firefox on Android, and often have to refresh the page in reader mode, but it definitely works.
You might want to delete this. The thought is nice, but we try not to repost full text here, particularly when paywalled, to avoid any potential legal trouble.
I find that a bit strange considering most of this thread is dedicated to circumventing the same paywall.
True, Tildes doesn't endorse piracy in any form. But copy pasting and therefore hosting the entire article probably goes against any copyright, while just pasting a link where the paywall is circumvented does not.
If I recall, the idea is that you can't really stop people from reading the article if they want to but not allowing a full copy paste at least discourages blatant copyright infringements.