#luddites

See tagged statuses in the local BookWyrm community

RE: https://mastodon.social/@workingclasshistory/115490945003829832

"As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines. But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” [...] They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/

"He is one of a growing number of people who are actively resisting: people who are terrified of the power of and its potential for harm and don’t want to feed the beast".

People refusing + + become more, with good arguments: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/03/creatives-academics-rejecting-ai-at-home-work

Including the author: "this piece was handcrafted using organic words from my artisanal writing studio. (OK, I mean bed.)"

is there an existing umbrella term for the following movements? (apologies for all the hashtags I'm only doing ones with active use in the last week lol)

or , tiny internets, (new?) luddism from (new?) , , , low-tech, boring tech, computing within limits, collapse informatics, salvage computing, etc? (send me more movements for the list!!)

thanks to https://damaged.bleu255.com/ for more obscure terms.

would very much appreciate boosts

Today in Labor History March 11, 1811: Luddites attacked looms near Nottingham, England, because automation was threatening their jobs. At the time, workers were suffering from high unemployment, declining wages, an “endless” war with France and food scarcity. On March 11, they smashed machines in Nottingham and demonstrated for job security and higher wages. The protests and property destruction spread across a 70-mile area of England, reaching Manchester. The government sent troops to protect the factories and made machine-breaking punishable by death.

Luddite in a vest, smashing looms with a sledge hammer.

reviewed Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant

Brian Merchant: Blood in the Machine (Hardcover, 2023, Little Brown & Company)

The true story of what happened the first time machines came for human jobs, when …

Ned Ludd was right then, and he's right now

A vividly told narrative of the Luddite uprisings of the early 19th Century. Brian Merchant expertly connects the struggles of textile workers then with workers of every stripe today whose jobs are continually under threat by the bosses using the smokescreen of technology.

#labor #labour #laborhistory #labourhistory #luddites

Today in Labor History February 27, 1812: Poet Lord Byron gave his first address as a member of the House of Lords. In his speech, he spoke out in support of Luddite violence against industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire. He spoke specifically against the Frame Breaking Act, which gave the death penalty to anyone guilty of breaking a machine. The state hanged 60-70 Luddites during the time the law was on the books. However, most of the time, the courts used other laws to convict them.

@bookstadon

Frame-breakers, or Luddites, smashing a loom with sledge hammers. Machine-breaking was criminalized by the Parliament of the United Kingdom as early as 1721, the penalty being penal transportation, but as a result of continued opposition to mechanisation the Frame-Breaking Act 1812 made the death penalty available: see "Criminal damage in English law". By Chris Sunde; original uploader was Christopher Sunde at en.wikipedia. - Original unknown, this version from http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/cpp/luddites.htm (archive), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4150391

quoted Rage Inside the Machine by Robert Elliott Smith

Robert Elliott Smith: Rage Inside the Machine (2019, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc) No rating

We live in a world increasingly ruled by technology; we seem as governed by technology …

Instead of the proletariat we now have the precariat: a class of people with insecure jobs afraid to ask for pay rises or improved working conditions. And, just like the Luddites before them, workers insist that they are not against innovation, technology or flexibility, they just want some basic rights and security.

— Rage Inside the Machine by  (Page 144)

#luddites #entreprecariat #uber #glovo

After reading @pluralistic 's recent posts on Luddites, I was reminded of this gem by Johnny Cash that deals with the theme of machines replacing humans.

"Did the Lord say that machines ought to take the place of living, then what's a
subsitute for bread and beans? I ain't seen it. Do engines get rewarded for their steam?"

https://youtu.be/Ppa__7ZLAU8?si=jGNIbYK2UlFt0yRM