Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor From: db@itspna.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry) Newsgroups: comp.society Subject: Luddites Message-ID: <2179@hplabsc.HP.COM> Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 17:42:28 EDT Article-I.D.: hplabsc.2179 Posted: Mon Jul 6 17:42:28 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Jul-87 01:37:13 EDT Sender: taylor@hplabsc.HP.COM Distribution: world Lines: 21 Approved: taylor@hplabs Several people use the word "Luddite" quite freely to denigrate an opposing point of view. I think this ignores several aspects of the Luddite movement. There is research showing that the textile machines which the Luddites were rebelling against were specifically designed to remove the workers control of their working lives. See for example papers included in "The Social Shaping of Technology", edited by Donald Mackenzie and Judy Wadjceman (sp?). Furthermore, several people lost their jobs, and therefore their income, through the introduction of this technology. Bear in mind that this was before the welfare state. Thus although the Luddites may have expressed their fears in religious and anti-technological terms, their fears were not groundless. Even though society as a whole, including ourselves, may have benefitted from the new technology, many people suffered as a result. To accuse these people of ignorance because they protested against this suffering, in the only ways they knew how, seems rather unsympathetic. The question I would like to see more work on is this: can we minimise the sufering from the development of new technologies without hindering that development?