The Luds Are Alright
The Luddites… being called one nowadays has an inescapable insinuation: “Give up.” I’ve been called a ‘Luddite’, despite me knowing my TCP from my IP. I don’t mind. I’d rather be a Luddite than a Tech-Bro. Nowadays, there’s a Neo-Luddite movement cropping up. It might not be long before the yahoos are smashing server racks. I’m not sure whether that’s ever appropriate.1 Should they just give up before they start? I will argue ‘no’.
There are times when even a futile gesture is just the right medicine.
I won’t go into the history of the Luddites. Venice.ai can do that for you in a few seconds. I will highlight one common misbelief. The Luddites were not bumpkins. This was not a case of Medieval peasants raging against the young Machine. This was a case of small business owners fighting back hard against a new breed of oligarchs2 and their allies in parliament, the Whigs.
Small business was losing badly. Lord Byron said in parliament: ‘[The riots] have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalelled distress.’ Before Byron, nobody in power had cared. The oligarchs were setting up factories, disrupting communities, and causing sorrow.3 But... “progress!” There’s the problem right there.
When technology is seen as inevitable, so too the sorrow.
Before I go farther down this path, I want to make clear all the reasons for which any form of Ludditeism is off-target in my opinion.
I’m a big fan of cryptocurrency. I’m a big fan despite all the shenanigans, because I know the nuts-and-bolts of crypto, and I know the potential for it to help the plebs. If the Luds4 started taking baseball bats to bitcoin-mining-devices, they would be hitting themselves in the crotch. I mean, what would they be left with? Apple Pay, Visa, and Venmo. No matter how skeptical you are of bitcoin, if you think Venmo is better, you are deluded.
The second reason is similar. Violence often plays into the hands of the powers-that-be. It’s not usually the smart option. Say the Luds blow up an A.I. data center. That data center can be rebuilt, but maybe the rebels’ reputation will plunge. Easy for the media to claim there was a dog inside; an innocent victim of the ‘terrorists’.
My third and final reason is that Luddites don’t think systematically about incentives. “Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome,” said Charlie Munger. True; but even more importantly, every era supports some incentives and disables others. For example, in every era, there is an incentive for a young woman to ‘marry up’, so to speak. Only some eras furnish an environment for marrying-up to happen. This idea deserves a much deeper development. Suffice to say that the Luddites attacked the means only. You can’t just knock out a few instances of a means and not expect the end to heal and resume. The telos builds all things in nature. You can bet on that, even if you reached Orion’s Dog. The Luddites needed to ask why factories were becoming so popular. They needed to ask why the oligarchs were becoming so powerful.
For these reasons, I do think any kind of Ludditeism is futile. So why am I, on balance, pro the Luds?
It’s to do with the greatest barrier of all: the barrier of learned helplessness.
Tech-fatalism is rampant. It makes us all feel powerless. It gives the tech-overlords a cop-out. Mark Zuckerberg can shrug his shoulders, in effect, if asked a tough, ethical question. Here’s the horror of the kind of world we are being forced to accept:
- Sorrow is inevitable.
- Small business is for losers.
- Oligarchs control things.
- Our government is a failure always.
No! We need a cup of cold water in the face. We need a small group to show us that we’re acting like slaves.
It’s like sitting through a turd of a movie. You want to leave, but there’s a strong inertia; your bum is bonded to the seat. It’s social, because one person can break it, and then it seems easy to get up, and soon half the audience has left. The Luds are like this inertia-breaking force.
I am pro the Luds because, although they will be futile, their influence will not. Thought-leaders can offer pro-human technology, and change the incentive-structure; one may only hope. It’s better than slavish conformity.
- I don’t like mob violence. I don’t like wrecking of other people’s property. Unfortunately, I do know that lacking an option of— let’s put it as— ‘naked force’ is always noticed and exploited by a political opponent, when much is at stake. The peaceful shall inherit the earth...it’s true, but not the obviously vulnerable, who, like a sick antelope, will be chosen for slaughter.(Return)
- Lest you think I’m using this as a pejorative, I define it as a person in more or less the top 1% of wealth using that wealth selfishly to meddle in politics. (Return)
- Interesting rabbit holes here are the way that these oligarchs donated to the Whig party in order to tighten up patent law; and their links with the Nonconformist sects, e.g. the Presbyterians. (Return)
- I hate the prefix ‘neo-’ being applied to every revived political and cultural movement. (Return)