#luddite — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #luddite, aggregated by home.social.
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A messy illustration of chaos - the original painting by Hugo Vogel was likely helped by colour of flames. Chaos - people objecting to being put out of work by new technology.
#vintageEngraving #luddite #destructionOfPresses #earlyPrinting #fobo #GIMP
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A messy illustration of chaos - the original painting by Hugo Vogel was likely helped by colour of flames. Chaos - people objecting to being put out of work by new technology.
#vintageEngraving #luddite #destructionOfPresses #earlyPrinting #fobo #GIMP
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I'm reading Thomas Dekeyser's "Techno-Negative" (h/t to my friend Anna for this).
https://www.thomasdekeyser.com/techno-negative
Here is Thomas talking to @parismarx on #TechWontSaveUs:
https://techwontsave.us/episode/337_tech_refusal_has_a_very_long_history_w_thomas_dekeyser
Also check out his documentary "Machine in Flames:" https://youtu.be/qGVMu5OPu7E
The full #Luddite package. It's a perfect time now to be #technonegative, that's for sure.
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I'm reading Thomas Dekeyser's "Techno-Negative" (h/t to my friend Anna for this).
https://www.thomasdekeyser.com/techno-negative
Here is Thomas talking to @parismarx on #TechWontSaveUs:
https://techwontsave.us/episode/337_tech_refusal_has_a_very_long_history_w_thomas_dekeyser
Also check out his documentary "Machine in Flames:" https://youtu.be/qGVMu5OPu7E
The full #Luddite package. It's a perfect time now to be #technonegative, that's for sure.
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These look delightful, @tg might even approve of them
cf The Last Quiet Thing
https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing
(As a #luddite who thinks technology should help us rather than make us serve them, these seem like tech-the-good-parts to me - though note I have not tried them)
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These look delightful, @tg might even approve of them
cf The Last Quiet Thing
https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing
(As a #luddite who thinks technology should help us rather than make us serve them, these seem like tech-the-good-parts to me - though note I have not tried them)
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How the #Amish Let #Technology in Without Letting It Take Over
After three years studying the community, I came to see that the real question isn't what technology can do, but what it asks us to give up.
By: Lindsay Ems, July 27, 2026
Excerpt: "I first began studying the Amish in 2012 as a doctoral researcher of media studies at Indiana University, located within a few hours of settlements in Elkhart, LaGrange, and Daviess counties. Going into the project, I knew what most everyone else did: that the Amish prized simple living, communal values, and religious discipline, while resisting certain technologies such as cars, TV, and electricity. In my initial conversations with Amish leaders, they told me that they were worried that new technology might diminish the sense of purpose people in their communities feel. They worried that new communication tools, such as smartphones and social media, would disrupt rituals, traditions, and their established communication patterns. Above all, they wanted to preserve their shared culture in which each person felt spiritually connected to their neighbors and the #NaturalWorld."
[...]
"In Joe’s settlement, the #BlackBoxPhone was developed in response to a very specific social problem: Roughly 100 crews left the settlement daily for their construction jobs and needed a way to communicate while away from home. At the same time, several ministers believed that the cell phones already adopted by many community members should be abandoned. They worried that private text messages could facilitate extramarital relationships. And #smartphones, they feared, tempted users to access unfiltered, immoral content such as pornography, which could undermine human intimacy.
"The black-box phone, by contrast, was a happy medium that posed threats to community members’ social and spiritual health. Its design reflects that: The phone is an intentionally bulked-up contraption that enables mobile communications from a vehicle but is highly inconvenient to carry. It only allows public, audible conversations — no texting or internet access. It is also shared among the crew members. Ministers in the settlement hoped that adopting these devices would make individual cell phone ownership among their constituents unnecessary.
"As a substitute for cell phones, the black-box phone is a distinctively Amish modification of an existing technology that better aligns with their values. It forces public communicative arrangements, allowing peers to hold each other accountable for their actions. Additionally, this device enables the Amish to achieve their goals and adhere to their social norms without submitting to the individualizing, privatizing, and attention-fragmenting logic of #BigTech."
Read more:
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-the-amish-let-technology-in-without-letting-it-take-over/#SolarPunkSunday #LowTech #LoTech #SmartPhoneAddiction #TechAddiction #Communication #Luddite #Connections #ConnectingWithCommunity #ConnectingWithNature
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How the #Amish Let #Technology in Without Letting It Take Over
After three years studying the community, I came to see that the real question isn't what technology can do, but what it asks us to give up.
By: Lindsay Ems, July 27, 2026
Excerpt: "I first began studying the Amish in 2012 as a doctoral researcher of media studies at Indiana University, located within a few hours of settlements in Elkhart, LaGrange, and Daviess counties. Going into the project, I knew what most everyone else did: that the Amish prized simple living, communal values, and religious discipline, while resisting certain technologies such as cars, TV, and electricity. In my initial conversations with Amish leaders, they told me that they were worried that new technology might diminish the sense of purpose people in their communities feel. They worried that new communication tools, such as smartphones and social media, would disrupt rituals, traditions, and their established communication patterns. Above all, they wanted to preserve their shared culture in which each person felt spiritually connected to their neighbors and the #NaturalWorld."
[...]
"In Joe’s settlement, the #BlackBoxPhone was developed in response to a very specific social problem: Roughly 100 crews left the settlement daily for their construction jobs and needed a way to communicate while away from home. At the same time, several ministers believed that the cell phones already adopted by many community members should be abandoned. They worried that private text messages could facilitate extramarital relationships. And #smartphones, they feared, tempted users to access unfiltered, immoral content such as pornography, which could undermine human intimacy.
"The black-box phone, by contrast, was a happy medium that posed threats to community members’ social and spiritual health. Its design reflects that: The phone is an intentionally bulked-up contraption that enables mobile communications from a vehicle but is highly inconvenient to carry. It only allows public, audible conversations — no texting or internet access. It is also shared among the crew members. Ministers in the settlement hoped that adopting these devices would make individual cell phone ownership among their constituents unnecessary.
"As a substitute for cell phones, the black-box phone is a distinctively Amish modification of an existing technology that better aligns with their values. It forces public communicative arrangements, allowing peers to hold each other accountable for their actions. Additionally, this device enables the Amish to achieve their goals and adhere to their social norms without submitting to the individualizing, privatizing, and attention-fragmenting logic of #BigTech."
Read more:
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-the-amish-let-technology-in-without-letting-it-take-over/#SolarPunkSunday #LowTech #LoTech #SmartPhoneAddiction #TechAddiction #Communication #Luddite #Connections #ConnectingWithCommunity #ConnectingWithNature
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“We are interested in building alternative social infrastructure that allows us to be no longer reliant on Big Tech”👌🏻😍
“The new Luddites seek not to abandon technology entirely, but build new infrastructure that embraces proximity and in-person human relationships, instead of alienation and doom-scrolling” 👈🏻 My favourite quote from the entire article! It's pure 👨🏻🍳💋
Wearing my #Luddite badge with pride 🤘🏻😎
#DigitalAutonomy #DigitalSovereignty #SovereignByDesign #FuckTheAlgorithm #GenAI #Luddites
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“We are interested in building alternative social infrastructure that allows us to be no longer reliant on Big Tech”👌🏻😍
“The new Luddites seek not to abandon technology entirely, but build new infrastructure that embraces proximity and in-person human relationships, instead of alienation and doom-scrolling” 👈🏻 My favourite quote from the entire article! It's pure 👨🏻🍳💋
Wearing my #Luddite badge with pride 🤘🏻😎
#DigitalAutonomy #DigitalSovereignty #SovereignByDesign #FuckTheAlgorithm #GenAI #Luddites
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The luddites were not angry about the new industrial tech. They were angry about abusive labor practices used by capitalist owners.
...basically.
So yeah - call me a #Luddite too I guess..
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The luddites were not angry about the new industrial tech. They were angry about abusive labor practices used by capitalist owners.
...basically.
So yeah - call me a #Luddite too I guess..
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Please stop calling yourselves Luddites every time some new technology that you don't like or understand pops up. https://youtu.be/h9jySZkBQ94?si=OKCOdq7VOehVrq9d
#luddite #ludditeClub #ludditeRevolutionNow -
One difference is that someone actually grows real food and (at least currently) industrially-processed food is much worse (both nutritionally and taste/quality-wise) than human-grown and human-cooked food.
Yes, currently, the clothing we wear is industrially made, not hand-constructed, but when the weaving machines were introduced, they produced crappy clothes relative to what experts could do. (The #luddite s were not anti-technology. They were anti-crappy-technology that was being pushed on them by corporate CEOs interested in the bottom line over quality work.)
I think the answer to these arguments is that we are a long long long way from AI providing human-quality scholarship.
1/2
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One difference is that someone actually grows real food and (at least currently) industrially-processed food is much worse (both nutritionally and taste/quality-wise) than human-grown and human-cooked food.
Yes, currently, the clothing we wear is industrially made, not hand-constructed, but when the weaving machines were introduced, they produced crappy clothes relative to what experts could do. (The #luddite s were not anti-technology. They were anti-crappy-technology that was being pushed on them by corporate CEOs interested in the bottom line over quality work.)
I think the answer to these arguments is that we are a long long long way from AI providing human-quality scholarship.
1/2
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I remember when Netflix was too good to be true. Mind you, I used to feel that way about Google, once.
While venture capital demands ever increasing profits based on eternal growth, the world eventually refuses to work that way. Now that the commodification of TV drama has reached its peak, fully AI-generated TV series can't be far behind. In the way that Spotify slops AI-generated music into playlists.
@Antigrav is right and boycotting the US is a moral choice I actively support. But revulsion with everything Trumpine is only a part of it.
For ethical reasons I cancelled Netflix and Spotify in 2020 and weaned myself off all big tech. I'm old and grumpy and I've reached a happy stage where nobody can enshittify my digital life, because I hardly have one.
Living in an area with no cellular reception helps -- I don't own a cellphone. I've run my own web and mailservers since 1995, have never used "the cloud" and don't own any device which phones home. Thanks to uBlock I never see a single advertisement anywhere. Not one. Ever. Mastodon is my only social media.
Some may see that as a sad life. In my defence, my collections of books and CDs remain conveniently algorithm-free. Film festivals are a delight and libraries have again become magical places.
For fifteen years I've described myself as an accidental Luddite. These days I'm a decidedly deliberate one.
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I remember when Netflix was too good to be true. Mind you, I used to feel that way about Google, once.
While venture capital demands ever increasing profits based on eternal growth, the world eventually refuses to work that way. Now that the commodification of TV drama has reached its peak, fully AI-generated TV series can't be far behind. In the way that Spotify slops AI-generated music into playlists.
@Antigrav is right and boycotting the US is a moral choice I actively support. But revulsion with everything Trumpine is only a part of it.
For ethical reasons I cancelled Netflix and Spotify in 2020 and weaned myself off all big tech. I'm old and grumpy and I've reached a happy stage where nobody can enshittify my digital life, because I hardly have one.
Living in an area with no cellular reception helps -- I don't own a cellphone. I've run my own web and mailservers since 1995, have never used "the cloud" and don't own any device which phones home. Thanks to uBlock I never see a single advertisement anywhere. Not one. Ever. Mastodon is my only social media.
Some may see that as a sad life. In my defence, my collections of books and CDs remain conveniently algorithm-free. Film festivals are a delight and libraries have again become magical places.
For fifteen years I've described myself as an accidental Luddite. These days I'm a decidedly deliberate one.
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I was thinking about the term "Luddite" today. I've read @brianmerchant's work and I identify with the historical movement, but not the colloquial term. I was reflecting on the difficulty of explaining the difference.
Then I recalled the Orphan-Crushing Machine meme. That one is so simple!
I'm not opposed to technology or AI. I love it. But I am opposed to orphan-crushing. I see a dangerous enthusiasm for orphan-crushing in the tech industry today.
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Inside the #Luddite Festival Harnessing Gen Z’s Rage Against #BigTech
New York City’s Summer of Ludd festival is teaching people how to live offline amid the suffocating presence of Big Tech.
#privacy #genz #nyc #summerofluddhttps://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harnessing-gen-zs-rage-against-big-tech/
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Inside the #Luddite Festival Harnessing Gen Z’s Rage Against #BigTech
New York City’s Summer of Ludd festival is teaching people how to live offline amid the suffocating presence of Big Tech.
#privacy #genz #nyc #summerofluddhttps://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harnessing-gen-zs-rage-against-big-tech/
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@MissConstrue You know, the marching song of the original Luddites remains almost completely appropriate today. You'd just need to change "cutting and coating and squaring" in the last verse to "cutting and coding and pasting."
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@MissConstrue You know, the marching song of the original Luddites remains almost completely appropriate today. You'd just need to change "cutting and coating and squaring" in the last verse to "cutting and coding and pasting."
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#Meta conducted a secretive program that directed hundreds of contractors to pose as children while bombarding its competitors’ #AI models with disturbing prompts ranging from suicide to cannibalism.
Internally known as “#Cannes,” the project, run by Meta contractor #Covalen, targeted #OpenAI’s #ChatGPT, #Google’s #Gemini, and #Character.AI chatbots using throwaway under-18 accounts.
Prompts focused on suicide and self-harm, eating disorders, and sex or romance, all written from the perspective of a child.
Wanna know where some child porn is coming from? #Zuckerberg is building it in to every AI he can pay to touch.
Eat the rich. Kill the #AIs. #Luddite the data centers.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-contractors-pretending-to-be-teens-chatbot-testing/ -
#Meta conducted a secretive program that directed hundreds of contractors to pose as children while bombarding its competitors’ #AI models with disturbing prompts ranging from suicide to cannibalism.
Internally known as “#Cannes,” the project, run by Meta contractor #Covalen, targeted #OpenAI’s #ChatGPT, #Google’s #Gemini, and #Character.AI chatbots using throwaway under-18 accounts.
Prompts focused on suicide and self-harm, eating disorders, and sex or romance, all written from the perspective of a child.
Wanna know where some child porn is coming from? #Zuckerberg is building it in to every AI he can pay to touch.
Eat the rich. Kill the #AIs. #Luddite the data centers.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-contractors-pretending-to-be-teens-chatbot-testing/ -
Police forcibly remove 14 year old girl from data center meeting.
#DataCenters #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Luddite #NeoLuddite
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Police forcibly remove 14 year old girl from data center meeting.
#DataCenters #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Luddite #NeoLuddite
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The "AI revolution", summed up in a civil sabotage manual from WWII:
https://mastodon.social/@simple_sabotage/116861733036039197 -
Will Humanity’s Future Be Cosmic Exploration Or A.I. Slop Robots?
Humanity has the potential for greatness. We also have the potential to destroy ourselves either through the most obvious methods of traditional warfare and nuclear annihilation, or by various longer-term means. One of these longer-term means is a much newer, yet possibly greater existential threat, but I’ll get to that later on after I discuss something more positive. A few weeks ago there was a fantastic gathering of experts in Boulder, Colorado. It was the “Humans to Titan Summit […] -
Will Humanity’s Future Be Cosmic Exploration Or A.I. Slop Robots?
Humanity has the potential for greatness. We also have the potential to destroy ourselves either through the most obvious methods of traditional warfare and nuclear annihilation, or by various longer-term means. One of these longer-term means is a much newer, yet possibly greater existential threat, but I’ll get to that later on after I discuss something more positive. A few weeks ago there was a fantastic gathering of experts in Boulder, Colorado. It was the “Humans to Titan Summit […] -
What is it to be UNSUPERVISABLE
It's a desire to be not only unmanageable but also unmonitorable. About getting off the big social platforms and finding privacy at the edges. It's about blocking the ads, using privacy controls and choosing better software. It's about being a ghost in the machine and finding small ways to jam up those cogs. But above all it's about not complying in advance, and saying fuck you to every fascist that demands your obedience. This all started as a deep need to push back and to bite the hand […]https://unsupervisable.vivaldi.net/2026/06/30/what-is-it-to-be-unsupervisable/
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What is it to be UNSUPERVISABLE
It's a desire to be not only unmanageable but also unmonitorable. About getting off the big social platforms and finding privacy at the edges. It's about blocking the ads, using privacy controls and choosing better software. It's about being a ghost in the machine and finding small ways to jam up those cogs. But above all it's about not complying in advance, and saying fuck you to every fascist that demands your obedience. This all started as a deep need to push back and to bite the hand […]https://unsupervisable.vivaldi.net/2026/06/30/what-is-it-to-be-unsupervisable/
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@cmccullough @nifta “it would be a shame if those GPUs were to overheat.” is the sort of thing a modern #Luddite might be heard to mutter from time to time.
#Sangamon from #Zodiac would have #MonkeyWrenching ideas.
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@cmccullough @nifta “it would be a shame if those GPUs were to overheat.” is the sort of thing a modern #Luddite might be heard to mutter from time to time.
#Sangamon from #Zodiac would have #MonkeyWrenching ideas.
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RE: https://mastodon.online/@shaedrich/116828527750164363
Hier das nächste Beispiel wie ein #Luddite einen wichtigen Thread spengt und das Thema an sich reißt. 🤬
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The Luddite Club, The Documentary:
A film teacher and her high school student take stock of a post-COVID landscape, where tech-addled teens are experiencing a public mental health crisis and New York City is suing Meta for fueling the flames. Amid the chaos are The New York Times-profiled Luddites, teens who are rejecting smartphones and social media in order to rediscover the value of IRL connections.
https://www.ludditeclubdoc.com #Luddite #neoLuddism -
As AI gets more life-like, a new #Luddite movement is taking root https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/08/business/ai-luddite-movement-screens
#neoLuddism -
As AI gets more life-like, a new #Luddite movement is taking root https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/08/business/ai-luddite-movement-screens
#neoLuddism -
Almost too bleak to post.
"The Guardian’s examination of data-collection practices across six factories in five states found that workers wearing devices ranging from meta smart glasses to head-mounted cameras received no compensation for generating footage that would later be sold to technology companies."
... to build robots to take their jobs.
""Sometimes they give us a soft drink,” says Lalita, who earns about $200 a month at the factory."
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The #gowanus interview with #hasanminhaj is the best thing I've seen on the internet in a while.
It left me feeling encouraged in my efforts to divest from the surveillance state and help my communities do the same.
I deleted Facebook the other day after the beeswaxgate incident. I want a local/hyperlocal swap meet type of setup that does not involve Facebook Marketplace. I hate that the #buynothing communities are largely using Meta to operate. Anyone have ideas or success stories about how to create something like this that is manageable to operate without big tech?
I'm looking right now for a used laser printer. I know they're all over FBM for between $20-50. But how do I find one otherwise???
#luddite #lowtech #freecycle #swapmeet #buyused #thrift #solarpunk #optout
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This was absolutely fantastic!
I highly recommend everyone to watch this interview when you have the time. If you're on the Fediverse, I think you're gonna love it.Thank you Gowanus,
I love you too ❤️ -
I mean - technology can help. Like image recognition helping with tedious inspections of cast parts for possible casting faults with humans still making the final decisions. Astronomers also would be lost without machines analyzing petabytes of image data to help with later analysis of possible findings. But that's always *very* specific, limited, well-defined tasks.
Add autonomous driving, maybe. A machine keeping the cameras on the road and surroundings *all* the time can't be as bad and it's not insanely complex anyway. Seems entirely doable, at least. We do it as a subroutine while talking and having our brains focused on other stuff altogether.All the hyped, generative shit merely copying the work of artists, raping them of the fruits of their labour, however? Answering machines, suggesting to be your competent friend while they're rigged for fascism, lying with utter confidence while actually being stupid af and having no actual understanding whatsoever?
Robots, devaluing labour, basically only ever enriching capitalists as their mechanical army of slaves, implied by the very name already? That also raises a lot of red flags.
Just sign me up for a #ButerianJihad any day and call me a #luddite, because luddites, after all, weren't against technology. They simply knew they would end up as slaves and they were right. They fucking knew it.
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"AI Deep-research agents can be poisoned via user-generated content"
Ouais ben i'z'avaient qu'à pas commencer ! #luddite
