The Nib

> I feel like you people are intentionally misconstruing what "Luddite" means.

That’s a very unfair accusation to throw at someone off the cuff. Anyway, what you wrote is not what a Luddite is at all, especially not the anti-vaccine accusation. I don’t think you’re being deliberately deceptive here, I think you just don’t know what a Luddite is (was).

For starters: They were not anti-science/medicine/all technology. They did not have “blanket opposition to all technological improvement.” You’re expressing a common and simplistic misunderstanding of the movement and likely conflating it with (an also flawed understanding of) the Amish.

They were, at their core, a response against industrialization that didn’t account for the human cost. This was at the start of the 19th century. They wanted better working conditions and more thoughtful for consideration for industrialization took place. They were not anti-technology and certainly not anti-vaccine.

The technology they were talking about was mostly related to automation in factories, which coupled with anti-collective bargaining initiatives, led to further dehumanization of the workforce as well as all sorts novel and horrific workplace accidents for adults and children alike. Their call for “common sense laws” and “guardrails” are echoed today with how many of us talk about AI/LLM’s.

Great comic on this: https://thenib.com/im-a-luddite/

Congratulations on being very intelligent. Well done. Good job, even.

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Crikey. That comic is nearly 6 years old now. Heck, it was at least 16 years ago that Tom Morello pointed out:

> When you live in a capitalistic society, the currency of the dissemination of information goes through capitalistic channels. Would Noam Chomsky object to his works being sold at Barnes & Noble? No, because that's where people buy their books. We're not interested in preaching to just the converted. It's great to play abandoned squats run by anarchists, but it's also great to be able to reach people with a revolutionary message, people from Granada Hills to Stuttgart.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060526032423/http://www.ratm.de/faq/ragefaq.html

Doctorow himself has also said that he'd like to be able to sell his anti-Amazon audiobooks on Amazon - if Amazon would agree do so without DRM. Because that's where a lot of his customers are.

It's just that he, the author, doesn't want DRM on his audiobooks, and neither do his customers. He sells his audiobooks without DRM to his customers through other channels. All he wants from Amazon is for it to be a reseller, selling the thing he has to sell, to the people who want to buy it, in the place that people buy and sell things.

If you think anything is worth defending at all cost, that should give you pause.

You seem to understand that speech can persuade people of wrong things. Do you think it's possible you've been wrongly persuaded to hold the belief that free speech trumps all?

Maybe the same people that persuade you that you need free speech above all are also those that have the most to gain from being able to persuade you freely of whatever they want?

If you think incitement should not be a crime and likely think libel and slander should not be a crime, where do you draw the line if fee speech trumps all? What about lying under oath?

I'm going to guess (based on your name and the demographics of HN) you're American. Your nation's history is entirely written by itself and its only revolution was a secession which it was able to defeat.

Maybe your country just hasn't learned the lesson Germany has?

Just a thought: https://thenib.com/the-good-war

Describing the current CA system for TLS certificates as the peak of what is currently possible is simply untrue. As it happens, there is a solution, and I described it. Domain names can be tied to a strict key hierarchy using DNSSEC, and DNS for domains can in turn contain PGP keys (or any other kind of verification data). This way, a package could be directly verified as being issued by a current owner of a domain name.

The fact that we all use and trust CA-issued certificates today is not an argument for accepting that system as the best we could ever do in the future, or even today. And the fact that one wishes to improve the current situation does not make it wrong to use the current system as it is – to claim otherwise is to be Mister Gotcha (https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/).

Luddites would be an even better example of technology selectionism. Contrary to popular belief, the Luddite movement did not reject new technology or technology in full[0]. In fact, they were quite adept at using technology and were in favor of it. Rather, Luddites were fighting for better worker rights as it relates to introduction of new technology and automation. The real story of the Luddite is one of worker rights, the ending of child labor, safer working conditions and closing wealth inequality for all. Not the rejection of technology[1]

[0]: https://thenib.com/im-a-luddite/

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

Seems very heavily… leaning for sure. And interestingly, you can tell at first glance without reading any of the contents — it's the artstyles. I'm not sure what it is exactly, I wish I could put a finger on it, but there's just something about most political cartoons which makes them give away their alignment instantly (either way).

It's especially obvious if you look at the Authors page [0]. I don't think anyone can be in doubt as to where most of these artists stand. As a group for sure, but even the individual avatars when viewed isolated. This is somehow fascinating to me.

[0] https://thenib.com/authors/