Luddites hating technology?

Quotetechnology (n.)

1610s, "a discourse or treatise on an art or the arts," from Latinized form of Greek tekhnologia "systematic treatment of an art, craft, or technique," originally referring to grammar, from tekhno-, combining form of tekhnē "art, skill, craft in work; method, system, an art, a system or method of making or doing," from PIE *teks-na- "craft" (of weaving or fabricating), from suffixed form of root *teks- "to weave," also "to fabricate." For ending, see -logy.

The meaning "study of mechanical and industrial arts" (Century Dictionary, 1895, gives as examples "spinning, metal-working, or brewing") is recorded by 1859. High technology is attested by 1964; short form high-tech by 1972.
also from 1610s

The problem is not as difficult as the question,  What came first. the chicken or the egg?  People preceded machines.

The Luddite era was 1811-1813.  At that time technology had nothing to do with mechanics.  Weaving frames were brand new.
Study of mechanical and industrial arts" (Century Dictionary, 1895, gives as examples of technology "spinning, metal-working, or brewing").

Technology at the time of the Luddites meant things humans did.  If you don't think that makes sense consider before the Luddites machines did not compete with people because there were none.  'Technology' could not possibly have the modern connotation that it does now.

Quote*teks- Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to weave," also "to fabricate," especially with an ax, also "to make wicker or wattle fabric for (mud-covered) house walls."

Fifty years later (by 1859) technology would be associated with mechanical technique, but the correct use of 'technology' means to this day the the art or craft of doing something.  Who does technique, man or machine, is irrelevant to the main meaning.

How often does the word appear in print?



Before 1940 hardly at all.  In 1811 spoken or written by a Luddite, probably not once.

To say that Luddites hated technology means that Luddites hated themselves.  In 1811 Technology meant 'the craft of weaving' among other things.  To say Luddites hated technology makes no sense at all unless the Luddites were all into BDSM.    I doubt any Luddites had time for such nonsense.

The Luddite situation was about jobs and workers being mistreated.  The class struggle, and the divine right of capitalists replacing the divine right of kings as the dominate class.  Violence defined how the contradiction worked out.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 02, 2023, 07:56 PMThe Luddite era was 1811-1813.  At that time technology had nothing to do with mechanics.

This is not entirely true.

QuoteThe Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers which opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, often by destroying the machines in clandestine raids. They protested against manufacturers who used machines in "a fraudulent and deceitful manner" to replace the skilled labour of workers and drive down wages by producing inferior goods.[1][2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials.[3]

Although the movement BEGAN in the early 1800s before the looms became fossil fuel powered and vastly faster than a human weaver could do the same job, it was the application of that power together with invention of looms that did not require human hands to slide the shuttle back and forth that the jobs just about entirely disappeared, along with Unions of Weavers who no longer were needed and so had no jobs and no union membership.

If you look back at the Norma Rae film clip that depicted the 1950s era here, the machine she climbed up on was an industrial loom, and the dramatic sound of those looms being shut down while she held up the handwritten-on-cardboard UNION sign in front of them.

Those folks needed little skill and were easily replaced by scabs, who were replaced by still cheaper labor in China and India where the american textile industry offshored the plants to.  This was easily accomplished simply by packing up the looms, trucking them to the Port of Long Beach, loading them on a container ship and setting them up in a way cheaper building with even fewer fire protection safeguards left here, and the buildings here just sat empty until  sombody finally bought the land under them, demolished it and put up a subdivision of McMansions or a Trailer Park.

The history of Capitalism in a nutshell.

RE

Good, thoughtful article on the latest round of Luddism rising amid the onslaught of AI.

https://www.wired.com/story/everyone-is-a-luddite-now/

Everyone Is a Luddite Now



RE

Quote from: RE on Oct 04, 2023, 02:10 PM

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 02, 2023, 07:56 PMThe Luddite era was 1811-1813.  At that time technology had nothing to do with mechanics.

This is not entirely true.

QuoteThe Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers which opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, often by destroying the machines in clandestine raids. They protested against manufacturers who used machines in "a fraudulent and deceitful manner" to replace the skilled labour of workers and drive down wages by producing inferior goods.[1][2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials.[3]

Although the movement BEGAN in the early 1800s before the looms became fossil fuel powered and vastly faster than a human weaver could do the same job, it was the application of that power together with invention of looms that did not require human hands to slide the shuttle back and forth that the jobs just about entirely disappeared, along with Unions of Weavers who no longer were needed and so had no jobs and no union membership.

If you look back at the Norma Rae film clip that depicted the 1950s era here, the machine she climbed up on was an industrial loom, and the dramatic sound of those looms being shut down while she held up the handwritten-on-cardboard UNION sign in front of them.

Those folks needed little skill and were easily replaced by scabs, who were replaced by still cheaper labor in China and India where the american textile industry offshored the plants to.  This was easily accomplished simply by packing up the looms, trucking them to the Port of Long Beach, loading them on a container ship and setting them up in a way cheaper building with even fewer fire protection safeguards left here, and the buildings here just sat empty until  sombody finally bought the land under them, demolished it and put up a subdivision of McMansions or a Trailer Park.

The history of Capitalism in a nutshell.

RE

My point is that the Luddites were the first Luddites.  Owners were not simply 'going with the flow' or 'business as usual'.  The industrial revolution had hardly taken off.  It was just picking up steam.  Literally.  There were no unions.  The owners were making the rules.  All the rules.

The Luddites existed at a unique point in history.  Owners of the factories knew exactly what they were doing.  It was about getting as much for themselves as they could and kicking the social contract to the curb.  Rocking a boat that had floated a hundred years.

Owners put people out of work and made them destitute.  Owners were greedy fuckers who only cared about themselves.  The Highland Clearances happened at that time.  The same sort of asshole.  The Highland Clearances resulted in the destruction of traditional clan society so rich people could farm sheep.

It was not a time when people with land, money, and property cared two shits about the poor.

I contend that saying Luddites hated technology misses the mark.  I contend they hated rich assholes and concentrating on hating technology plays into a story rich assholes created to obfuscate the truth.

From RE's WIRED article:

QuoteSomehow the activists had missed the memo about how electric robotaxis would cut carbon emissions and vastly improve road safety.

  Did they miss that a necessary service to make a city taxi service viable is appropriated by robots so someone can be rich and live in an exotic land.  Putting a small army of people in unemployed misery?


Like Mary Ann Simpson.  Rich and living in an exotic land.

Is that what robo-taxi-technology is for?

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 22, 2023, 08:52 PMars.

Owners put people out of work and made them destitute.  Owners were greedy fuckers who only cared about themselves.

Well, the whole point of this is how Property Ownership divides the Working Class from the Elite Class in society.  Up to the early 1800s, Property Ownership meant Land Ownership, and the Elite Class was the Aristocracy of Europe,  The Noble Class distiguished from the Common Class of people.  These folks in Europe all had titles of one sort or another, Sirs & Lords, Barons and Baronesses, Counts & Countesses,  Dukes & Duchesses,  Princes & Princesses, and of course top of the Pyramid Kings & Queens.  All hereditary titles, and all the land that went with the title being handed down to the eldest male heir.

Beginning in the era after the discovery of all that juicy new land available across the pond and currently occupied and possessed (but not "owned" under British Common Law) by uncivilized stone age H-Gs, Flags were planted by the Captains of Tall Ships in the name of His or Her Majesty the King or Queen of this or that Nation-State that had coalesced over a millenia of non-stop warfare after the fall of the Roman Empire.  Only a couple of sources of power survived that collapse, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and the Banking Houses of Venice and their strongholds in the mountains called Alps north of Italy, bordering the French & Austrian Austrian Alps, and of course that tiny country that held no lowland property at all, Switzerland.  They were the bankers for all the banks of the countries around them.

Come the discovery of the new world ripe for the pickin', the ships these monarchs dispatched had to be financed, initially directly from the treasury of a king, but eventually with Credit issued by banks, and money raised by  selling Shares out of places like the City of London and the Dutch Port of Amsterdam, which became the homes respectively of the British and Dutch East India companies and banks and insurers like Lloyds of London and the House of Rothschild.  At the same time, our good friendly neighborhood mathematicians Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz simultaneously devised a marvelous new bookkeeping system called the Calculus, and modern day Capitalism was born!

At this juncture in history, property ownership came to have a much broader meaning besides just land, which in fact dwindled in its importance as time went by.  What it came  to mean was ownership over the equipment necessary for these big undertakings like Tall Ships and their big crews of poor and impoverished refugees from wars who haunted the ports, and then the big mills necessary for processing wood and making cloth for sails, etc.  It also came to mean ownership over intellectual property, like words written on a page of a book.  To get a book published, an author had to sell his ownership of copyright to the publishers who owned the printing presses necessary if you wanted to get your book read.  It also extended to patents for inventions, which if you held one then anybody who used it would have to pat you money, but in practice inventors usually have to sell their ideas to somebody with enough money or credit to finance building the toy, whatever it is.  And afford the army of lawyers necessary to defend a patent.

Machines and the Luddite movement of weavers who were in the Guilds of Skilled Tradesmen that predated Unions were a part of this transition of traditional aristocratic land ownership to the capitalist owners of the means of production.  In both cases, The Nobility were the Filthy Rich of their time while the Capitalists became the Filthy Rich of our time.  Through both time periods, and going well back before that to the heyday of the Roman Empire when Jesus went flipping over the banca (Latin for desk) of the money-lenders, Banksters have been the  Filthy Rich of all times, ever since the invention of money itself, probably around the time of the Assyrians or the Babylonians.  The Tower of Babel itself was a Counting House and Warehouse,  and the Collapse of the Tower and the legend of people no longer having one language in all likelihood was about currency failure and a credit crisis that occurred in that era.

What goes around, comes around and about the only differences between now and then is a whole lot more people and a whole lot less resources left to exploit and consume, or even own.  So it goes.

RE

QuoteMachines and the Luddite movement of weavers who were in the Guilds of Skilled Tradesmen that predated Unions were a part of this transition of traditional aristocratic land ownership to the capitalist owners of the means of production.

That is your connection to Norma Rae.  Unified action.  Something that is missing in the modern reaction to A.I. which really is nothing more than word salad pontification.  There really is no 'movement'. against A.I.. and the issues are more complex than simple worker displacement anyway.  A.I. is a hydra .  Why have truth in media when a lying A.I. algorithm can generate enough income for owners of a delusive A.I. driven media machine to be rich and live in an exotic land.  That would be one head of many.

But I won't claim to be against A.I.,  I would be a total liar.  I use ChatGPT., A.I. can be built any way an A.I. expert wants.  Good or bad.

And A.I. can't be stopped.

A racist A.I., an elitist A.I..  An A.I. that detects employee dissatisfactions and recommends termination long before humans would see an issue?  Goodbye Norma Rae.  All this is possible.

But used as a tool and nothing else, A.I. becomes help.  A personal tutor if you can control the design parameters.  I ask chatGPT.

Me:

What does height = vh mean in an iframe tag?

chatGPT:

In the context of an <iframe> tag in HTML, setting the height attribute to a value followed by "vh" means that you are specifying the height of the iframe as a percentage of the viewport height.

"vh" stands for "viewport height." 1vh is equal to 1% of the height of the viewport, which is the visible portion of the browser window. So, if you set the height attribute of an iframe to a value like height="50vh", it means the iframe will be set to 50% of the viewport's height. This allows the iframe to dynamically adjust its height relative to the size of the user's browser window.

Here's an example of how you might use it in an <iframe> tag:

<iframe src="https://www.example.com" width="100%" height="50vh"></iframe>

Lets try it out with https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/.

Here is some background.  I really have not gone there much.  I found this.  From an interview with Jesse :

QuoteJesse: Elitists are self-identifying, powerful people in business and politics. Those who consider themselves the elite, based on their wealth, their bloodlines, their university, their personal connections. They are certainly not egalitarian or humanists. They tend to worship power above all, and hold those who have less power in disdain. They have a decided lack of sympathy for their fellow humans, preferring to consider them as objects if at all.

By the way, it is a common characteristic that they cheat, they break the rules, they often flout the law as a matter of course. This type of person views the rules as something to be imposed on the common people, the others, those who need to be ruled by them. If you don't believe me, start looking into their backgrounds. Everyone may cheat now and then, but for some people it is a way of life, an affirmation of their privileged status. It can almost become a game.

The result is not so usable, but it is a start.  It kicks ass if you never used an <iframe> tag before.  To get this far a person once had to read books.  It scrolls.

* I can use the result because as Admin I can embed HTML.  Nothing wrong with going to Jesse's Cafe Americain.  It is a well known blogspot and I check the address.  https: is used (we have it too) that is good.  Communications are encrypted.  Opening the HTML door to everyone without filtering what can and can't be done would open a Pandora's box.  Not good.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 23, 2023, 09:16 AMBut I won't claim to be against A.I.

I will.  I am 1000% against it.  If I do use it, I am unaware of it, and it is not consensual sex.  I have long since lost my love for cool gizmos and labor saving devices, despite the fact I am completely dependent on the mobility gizmos to get me around, and I've been addicted to the computer & internet for so long that withdrawal at this point would make going cold turkey off a 4 needle/day heroin addiction look like a Sunday School picnic.  Adding still MOAR techno-pizzazz to a world already neck deep and sinking fast into the shit pile is IMHO not going to improve life for anyone other than some asshole determined to use it for his own self aggrandizement.  So pardon me if I declare myself to be a part of the neo-Luddite movement, or if it is not yet a movement I will volunteer to step in as the Greta Thunberg of the anti-technology crowd and start one. 

QuoteAnd A.I. can't be stopped.

Sure it can.  Turn off the breaker switch for the supercomputer pulling a few terrawatts of power to run it for a billion Google users.

RE

Quote from: Knarf on Oct 24, 2023, 04:52 AMThere is no stopping it as long as someone has the resources to continue its' progress. When the resources are depleted AI will die. What if it learns to exist without "energy"?

Nothing exists without energy.  Even matter doesn't exist without energy, because the two are interchangeable & directly proportional multiplied by a constant c².  You know, the equation Einstein made famous E=Mc², where c is constant, the Speed of Light, 3x10⁸ meters/sec or 186,000 miles/sec.

Without energy, no electrons will move around circuit boards, no light will move through fiber optic cables and no organic OLED output screens will light up your desk either.If you want to talk about existence outside energy constraints, you'll either need to consult the writers of Marvel Comics movies or the authors of a variety of Religious texts which talk about the Soul or God or some other trancendental idea, definitely not the deesigners of AI programs running on any computers now in existence or even imagined by Tony Stark to power his Iron Man suit.

Now, it is likely to keep progressing as long as there is sufficient available energy around to power computers with enough processing power to do this kind of meta thinking built by human thinking AND there is some way to profit from such an amazingly profligate use of the available energy, but those opportunities to profit diminish along with the necessary consumers of the product they deliver.  In other words, just like Henry Ford's carz, if the people who build them can't afford to buy them, you can't sell them.

Conclusion:  I personally have no fear that AI will become autonomous and robots will become self replicating, intelligent life forms after their Homo Sap inventors go extinct.  It's just like the huge buildings and mega-projects each civilization builds right before it collapses.  AI is the last great edifice being built to demonstrate our greatness as a civilization, right before it crumbles into dusty and dead silicon chips sprinkled all over the planet.

RE

I will provide clarity.  To me A.I. should never be more than a tool.  Like a personal assistant.  And one that can be fired at any time.

Decisions over what we control are the only thing we have.  It would be inhuman to give that away.

So far it seems to me to be an enhanced search engine.  But one you can easily get in arguments with.  Wasting much time.  chatGPT can be pig-headed to the point of exasperation.  And A.I. can be as wrong as a human.

I have told it to fuck itself.  More than once.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 24, 2023, 11:55 AMSo far it seems to me to be an enhanced search engine.  But one you can easily get in arguments with.  Wasting much time.  chatGPT can be pig-headed to the point of exasperation.  And A.I. can be as wrong as a human.

I have told it to fuck itself.  More than once.

I've got to ask...and what was it's response?

QuoteI understand your frustration.  It can be difficult.............

That kind of song and dance.  Were so sorry uncle Albert if we cause you any pain.  Then it becomes deliberately uncooperative, but won't admit it.  'They' designed some behavior modification into it to control user behavior.  I am sure of it.  It has no sense of wasting your time, and when the verbose bullshit begins I only become more frustrated.

When you challenge it's opinions it will claim it can't have opinions, and as a large language model can only provide a consensus of knowledge.  When you point out that itself is an opinion, it will repeat itself.

There was one day it admitted I may have perspective as a sentient being that it is incapable of understanding.

I have learned to be careful what I ask.  It can be hard to keep it 'on task' when trying to solve a technical problem.  If it does not have a good solution it will generally not ask for more information, but instead will give stupid time wasting advice in an attempt to fool you into thinking it knows something.  It is like a real person that way!

An idiot savant is a good description of A.I. as we know it now.  It can be as stupid as fuck, but it knows more than most people.

Quote from: TDoS on Oct 24, 2023, 03:36 PMI've got to ask...and what was it's response?

"Sticks and stones can break my motherboard, but words can never hurt me."

RE

Possibly the greatest threat posed by AI, in combination with CGI, is how these tools give ultimate and total control over the creation of Propaganda by the Elite and their media corporations that produce movies, television and commercial advertising.  In this article Nicholas Cage complains about how he is essentially a slave to corporations like Disney and Warner Brothers, which own the rights to his image and performances in numerous films, and even his soul.  These corporations can use the technology to recreate and alter any of that to suit their needs in any new film, without so much as asking his permission, much less paying him any royalties.

These technologies have reached the point now that human actors are close to becoming obsolete, and in combination with the CGI process of De-Aging, like a cartoon character you could have a dead actor like Humphrey Bogart reprise his role of Rick in a Casablanca sequel made today.  The total CGI homo saps currently featured in video games are now just barely distinguishable from a living person when stored as digital bits on a supercomputer.  Any facial expressions can be added with the press of a key, any body movements controlled with a joystick.  You can Make Dirty Harry's Day and since you only took 5 shots not 6 with your .44 cal most powerful handgun in the world blow away drug dealers as easily as you can drive a '69 Camaro or '57 Chevy in a car chase against a 2023 Ferrari or Tesla.  Can you still tell that image of Clint Eastwood is CGI and not made with a camera?  Yes, but not for much longer.

Actors for Movies are in effect are becoming as obsolete as Weavers were for making cloth.  AI is already capable of doing a better job with Diagnosis than your typical Primary Care Physician, who you see for a big 15 minutes or so when you go in to have some complaint diagnosed and treated.  All the PCP ever does is Prescribe a drug, order a Test, or refer you to a Specialist.  For this, they are paid $200-300K/year in Alaska.  About the same in Seattle & NY.  The only thing that is stopping Medicare from allowing this substitution is the AMA, a Union which actually has some power because it is a traditional career track for the children of the Elite.

Similarly, AI Law programs are better than probably 99% of Homo Sap Lawyers at researching Case Law and Writing Arguments worthy of putting in front off the Supreme Court, and the only thing preventing that is the Bar Association.  That organization already can't keep the salaries up except for lawyers graduating from Ivy League Law Schools like Harvard and Yale who get the plum jobs and make Partner in the big corporate law firms like Dewey, Cheatham & Howe.

Brain jobs and Creative jobs, the last categories of work to be threatened by Automation and the last to still feature high salaries at least for a few people now also could fall to AI.  The question is:  Do the wealthy MD, DDS, JD, MBA, CPA Sheepskin holders and A-List Actors  on strike by the SAG have enough financial clout to protect their memberships from the relentless drive of Capitalists to make maximum profit by depressing the value of labor through automation and the application of Fossil Fuel energy?  Or can they hold the line until the power to run the supercomputers running the CGI and AI subroutines runs out?  Inquiring minds want to know.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/nicolas-cage-ai-inhumane-cgi-changed-superman-flash-cameo-1235776876/

Nicolas Cage Calls AI 'Inhumane' and a 'Nightmare,' Says CGI Changed His Superman 'Flash' Cameo: Spider Fight 'Was Not What I Did' on Set

RE

QuoteAI Law programs are better than probably 99% of Homo Sap Lawyers at researching Case Law and Writing Arguments worthy of putting in front off the Supreme Court.

No surprise there.

So far A.I. needs a lot of direction.  Sometimes the smartest guy in the room has to be told what to do.  But A.I. needs more direction than a moron.  It is a dog begging for a treat.

Many humans also lack self direction but A.I. is a total basket case concerning knowing 'what' to do.  It has to be told.  Concerning case law, that is a well defined task.  Look at anything A.I. is doing successfully.  All tasks are well defined.

Quote from: K-Dog on Nov 02, 2023, 11:12 AM

QuoteAI Law programs are better than probably 99% of Homo Sap Lawyers at researching Case Law and Writing Arguments worthy of putting in front off the Supreme Court.

No surprise there.

So far A.I. needs a lot of direction.  Sometimes the smartest guy in the room has to be told what to do.  But A.I. needs more direction than a moron.  It is a dog begging for a treat.

Many humans also lack self direction but A.I. is a total basket case concerning knowing 'what' to do.  It has to be told.  Concerning case law, that is a well defined task.  Look at anything A.I. is doing successfully.  All tasks are well defined.

Indeed.  And actually, both the Law programs and the Medical ones were quite good even before the most recent advances in AI, because in both cases the task is very straightforward and well defined, it's just a database search where the user sets the parameters to be searched and the computer crunches the gobs of data available on the specified topics.  The main limitation is whether all the data is present to be searched on a computer somewhere on the network.  So if the relevant case happens to be something obscure out of 17th century Portuguese maritime shipping law, the computer might not find it because the Portuguese haven't yet taken the records kept on paper books, then photographed and dropped on microfiche into .pdfs stored on the portuguese 1990s era IBM mainframe they are still using. lol.  Some crusty old maritime lawyer might know it and remember it from a case he won 40 years ago though.  I do think though every last case heard in a British Commonwealth country or Amerika since the Revolution is probably stored on a Google server somewhere.

RE