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Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Ok, but please don't post generic flamebait yourself. It's just as against the site guidelines either way: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I didn't recognize that expression, so to save other's the search: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)#The_Butlerian...

> As explained in Dune, the Butlerian Jihad is a conflict taking place over 11,000 years in the future[7] (and over 10,000 years before the events of Dune), which results in the total destruction of virtually all forms of "computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots".

and thus if you use "luddites" to describe people who push back against LLMs being the second coming, and further suggest that those folks want all computers thrown in the trash, then you are deeply unserious and I have fed the troll

And Herbert is himself alluding to Samuel Butler, author of the anti-technological utopian novel Erewhon:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon>

Full text: <https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-butler/erewhon>

It's such a wild clash of (sci-)fi dis-/utopias. It's almost dialectic.

The original "Luddites" had very valid concerns about the impending reduction of quality of the clothing they were making and subsequent working conditions with the advent of automated looms.

Likewise many people today, myself included, have very valid concerns about the actual use of AI, where it's going, and how it can and will be misused.

We would love to have these discussions, but calling us "Luddites" and then referencing a situation where a robot literally killed a child to prove a point is not how to start that.

> referencing a situation where a robot literally killed a child

Is this part of the deep Dune lore that I never read, or did they edit their comment?

Comment seems to be flagged and gone, but yes they referenced wanting a "Butlerian Jihad".

Calling people who have legitimate grievances over a new technology "Luddites", as if the Luddites were stupid assholes, makes me absolutely sick with sadness for the impact on people in my society. It's a lazy, tremendously over-used metaphor, and you can disagree with an opinion without this low-effort inhumanity.

If you could point to a single instance in human history where the "Luddites" of the day proved right in the long run by literally attacking technology, it might help you make your case for rehabilitating them. Or at least it might serve as an interesting basis for discussion.

Sure - the Luddites were correct.

Unless you're defining "correct" as "stopped the development of a disruptive technology", which would be, of course, ignorant.

Edit: The post I'm replying to was edited to redefine the context to be the defense of Luddites specifically for destroying machines. I may have used different words/tone in that case, but my opinion is still qualitatively the same. Just know I am speaking holistically.

Edit: To be more specific (and less snide): Inevitability does not making something universally good, and people negatively affected are correct and justified to react negatively.

Sorry, I felt it necessary to clarify my point. The Luddites were justified in asking for a share of the fruits of their labor, just as as any of of us are, but in a larger sense their attack on the machinery of progress was an attack on just that... progress.

How is your position distinguishable from any other phrasing of the broken-window fallacy? Humans shouldn't aspire to do a robot's job. We have better things to do.

>"Attack technology"

Nobody is blowing up data centers.

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