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Your comments fall into exactly the trap the article talks about. The luddites were painted as being against automation. That's only partially true, at best. Destroying machines was not the point. It was just the only thing that hurt and got remembered.

It was not layoffs that caused the revolts much worsening working conditions. They wanted things like getting paid in the promised time frame, and not having their children killed. It seems the protests were sprawling and later integrated every disappointment under the sun.

The other side took that as an opportunity to paint them as being generally anti progressive and against all forms of mechanization, but from what I understand there's not much to suggest that was actually true. Yes, machines were broken but so were a lot of other things as the protests turned violent.

Our lesson from the luddies should be that winners write history, we should not reiterate a centuries old smear campaign.

> It was not layoffs that caused the revolts much worsening working conditions.

I read the article (twice - it's interesting), and I wrote "spend all the time they do have in a ludicrous war".

For the workers of the time it looked probably like a fast combination of things. Which the author kinda summarizes as "the inequitable profitability of machines". Things likely included: at first a boom in employment: the factories started at the same time the old, somewhat distributed production method mostly continued - but probably with minimal worker freedom of choice as to who went to which. Then layoffs as the old method just about disappears and more factories start or fail in seemingly (to the workers) random occurences. Then working conditions as factories no doubt did not start safe or comfortable. Then like you say every complaint under the sun.

I don't think it matters actually: the workers reacted to upheaval and probably felt they had no time to be heard. That's the complaint we hear now: "The current jobs are going and that's not right". That's the point of my response: "How does that help anything or anyone?". The lesson should be to try responses that actually have a chance to succeed as opposed to getting in the papers for (metaphorically) breaking frames. Denmark and Co seem to have thought up something in the right general direction.

At times, the destruction was also quite utilitarian. For example, if you destroyed a piece of agricultural equipment, and it took three months to get another one up from London, you and your chums had work for the season. That's an entirely rational course of action (though not necessarily the most effective or moral one).

Well put.

To note, luddites' issues were not just losing their job. Let's remember that the earlier machines were very crude, safety was absolutely not in their design, and a worker life's also didn't have much weight. So, the early days of machine assisted production were in inhumane conditions, people losing limbs, kids getting killed in them (less skills needed also meant kid labour was a viable option) etc.

So yes, regulation on how the machines work, how much they get introduced, how the workers are impacted, trial periods to see the impacts etc. should help a lot in all respects. The difficult part being that those all mean putting breaks on profit making.

Even more cynical, small kids were sent into said machines to conduct maintenance while the machine was running!

Yes to this chain. Noticing this absurd lack of machine safety and doing something about it would have helped everyone. And the government reaction to the whole thing was equally absurd.

> the government reaction to the whole thing was equally absurd.

It, however, would later give Marx a nice example of how the government is the tool that the ruling class uses to oppress the working classes and get their way: because when seen from this angle, the reaction was entirely reasonable.

While originating in Marxism, this thought is also exposed by Libertarians in their critique of government. Giving too much power to the government is basically the same as giving power to elites and thus it is a move against freedom.

Ironic how most egalitarians are themselves elites. They want less government, when it hinders them. For all other reasons, government is good. E.g. fighting wars to get oil...

The “Libertarianism” that you refer to here is a word stolen from the Anarchist tradition (e.g. Chomsky), a socialist tendency that has nothing to do with the radical right-wing ideology of entities like the Libertarian Party in the US.

Such “Libertarianism” can't even claim that their own name originates with themselves.

So it seems things can only originate from leftist thought, but only after Marx, nothing before matters. The world began in 1800. Marx gave light, and created the world.

Right-Libertarianism came after Marx.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/27/us-leg...

https://www.wdam.com/2023/07/20/should-not-have-been-hired-m...

To add to your note: iirc the Luddites were also concerned because the quality of the cloth produced by the machines was worse than the handmade stuff, beyond all of the labor abuses and job losses. Another parallel to the AI age.

> quality of the cloth produced by the machines was worse than the handmade stuff

Yes, it was, but it was far cheaper. You can still get extraordinarily good fabrics today, extremely well-made hand-sewn leather goods. But a standard size carry-on suitcase made of high-quality leather in the US will run you around $1000-1500. You can buy a crappy mass-produced plastic one of the same size for around $100, or a well-made nylon one from Asia for around $300.

Yes, it was cheaper. And lower quality. What's your point.

Sometimes, you don't actually need good quality, and price is the only thing you care about. Without the machines, even the low-quality stuff is expensive.

Is it a surprise that producers of X claim people really want X and only their X? If true no government action is necessary. If false then government action forces consumers to buy something they don't want.

Note that sometimes government action forcing people to do things they don't want is necessary e.g. paying taxes and protecting the environment. That's hardly ever the case, though.

I didn't say anything about government, but it should be clear that the involvement of organization is inevitable. The industrialists ensured that by organizing the firm. To say that after that point we should just let the market decide is to say that only the industrialists are allowed to organize. This is folly.

Under the current regime jobs can be automated away and the businesses will reap 100% of the profit unless there is a union standing in its way: AI could be used on footage of a day's work some actor and recreate their likeness forever. Paid for one day, then the derived work is owned by the business forever.

We could for example say that 90% of jobs get automated away. The benefit for the businesses are astronomical as all those jobs get turned into direct profit. Meanwhile the workers get the change to... upskill? Yeah, so they just have to “upskill” forever while the businesses get free profit because they sit on the means of automation. (Remind me how the businesses have to put in work, here? Seems like they only get the upsides while the workers get all the downsides.)

Until there is nothing to upskill into anymore because only 12% of the labor pool is needed for actual work.

The notion that workers and employers are anywhere near to being peer competitors is bizarre.

Your proposed solution doesn't solve anything, it only delays it.

As long as workers are not self-organizing, top to bottom, up to and including what to produce, how much to priduce and how to produce it, the domination will exist. What is the added value to the society of having bosses ? Of having people not producing but deciding how to produce ?

Scratch the destruction of machines, the sudden uprise, the distinction between what group acted and what group negotiated. The real lesson to learn from this all: society doesn't need someone telling you what to do if they're not also a worker.

I remember the mantra of some in the tech field of "no problem - just learn to code" when blue collar jobs in the manufacturing in the US was on the wane as production moved to cheaper locations overseas.

I think that is a good point to bring up, but it is orthogonal.

Production moving overseas is not the same as technological advancement. One can be against outsourcing but in favor of domestic technological progress.

We all want our cheap TV's at Walmart but sadly people in general don't think of the bigger consequences of wanting low bargain basement prices for consumer good or paying low to little tax.

Yet they complain about joblessness and how the education system and their neighborhood/towns are going to the balls.

Taxes is also a big part of why manufacturing is expensive in some places. If they were removed, the savings could be passed on to the customers.

You really think that the savings will actually be passed onto the consumer rather than the company gobbling up that extra value? Also, if taxes are lowered on businesses, the tax burden will be passed to the working poor/middle class.

> You really think that the savings will actually be passed onto the consumer rather than the company gobbling up that extra value?

Absolutely yes. Compare gas prices in countries with high taxes on gas and countries with low taxes on gas. Compare products that are subject to vice taxes. It is not hypothetical, it's reality.

> Also, if taxes are lowered on businesses, the tax burden will be passed to the working poor/middle class.

All taxes on businesses are passed onto the consumers already. For businesses that sell products and services that everybody uses, that means the taxes are passed on the working poor and middle class. The only way to have taxes explicitly excluding the poor and middle class is to have tariffs on luxury goods, and maybe vice taxes since those products are not essential.

There's no doubt that many company owners would try to use any tax reduction to make more profit for themselves, but that leaves space for competitors to take market share.

"We all want"

Let me push back on that. We are all TOLD to want, using psychologically manipulative tactics. Advertising as corporate/Capitalist propaganda.

It is in fact the same from the economic point if view.

You are replacing labor input with capital input, whether it's buying a machine or offshoring the work. Workers offshore can be thought of as a machine.

Not that it's bad either way! But the labor economics are the same.

It's exactly the same. It was a sudden upheaval of the established way to make a living. Not even very sudden. And responded to in the usual low-thought primary manner (except for a few places like Denmark). Few frames got broken, but lots of strikes no doubt contributed to accelerate the process even in cases where it shouldn't have been economically optimal.

So, can we use "just learn to use promps" for white collar folks and software devs risk loosing their jobs because of AI?

We've been using it for the artists and writers and everyone else, so what's good for the goose is good for the gander I guess.

I thought it was “just go into the trades”.

Woah woah woah buddy you’ve got that completely backwards. Journalists started that whole learn to code bullshit and then got justly lampooned about it when there were a bunch of media lay offs afterwards. It was a huge meme a while back so I’m not sure how you missed it.

It doesn’t matter who said it, people bought it, used it and spread it.

Yeah but he's correcting the parent, who said "the mantra of some in the tech field", which is wrong.

No need to look too far back, the similar big bait and switch by ClosedAI/Microsoft is happening right now.

It turns out manufacturing is actually doing fine in the US as an industry. Just very different and probably employing higher skilled machinists (and at CNC machines).

But meanwhile Denmark has been making a go at a constructive, thought out, response. Perhaps let's look at how that works - who retrains for what? (Which I don't know in detail.)

Hu? The "learn to code" was not coming from the tech field itself (programmers know that coding is hard and FAANG are not hiring coal miners), but used as a dig against out-of-touch journalists who wrote articles like that:

https://imgur.com/TKX47O3

… and, well, infamously Joe Biden in his 2019 campaign:

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/47...

> Biden said, “Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well… Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!” According to Weigel, the comment was met with silence from the audience.

>> to recognize a looming availability of human workforce which might be useful for some (other) business opportunity.

In other words: a cheap labor force of people now desperate enough to accept lower compensation that their previous employment. If these later employers were able/willing to pay a similar wage, they would have already been doing so. Predicting a forthcoming a wave of despite people as a business opportunity, a chance to pay people lower wages tomorrow than you would have to today ... that is a dark sentiment. I think twitter is going to fail, but I'm going to wait on launching my new startup until the market is flooded with x-twitter employees willing to work for peanuts. Dark.

You can call it dark, or you can hire the many fine software people laid off from the twitter ridiculosity. Your choice.

The job market is strange currently. Low unemployement rate (in part because of how many people withdrew). Businesses complaining they can't find people (some in part because they offer too little money). Many perenially underemployed. Absurd hiring processes (because of perceived cost of hiring the wrong person rather than nobody at all.)

My point is that simply "calling it dark" is not helpful to any of the participants.