#progresswithoutpeople — Public Fediverse posts

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> Those engines of mischief were sentenced to die
By unanimous vote of the trade
And Ludd who can all opposition defy
Was the grand executioner made
> And when in the work he destruction employs
Himself to no method confines
By fire and by water he gets them destroyed
For the elements aid his designs
https://genius.com/Chumbawamba-the-triumph-of-general-ludd-lyrics
#CultOfInformation #Technopoly #MonkeyWrenchGang #ProgressWithoutPeople
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> They did not believe in technological progress nor could they have: the alien idea was invented after them, to try and prevent their recurrence. In light of this invention[ideology/world view], the Luddites were cast as irrational, provincial, futile, and primitive...[They] were perhaps the last people in the West to perceive technology in the present tense, and to act upon that perception.

p. 4 #ProgressWithoutPeople #DavidNoble #Technology #Progress #SandInTheWheels #TheWellSweep

> Unencumbered by any alien and paralysing notion of of technological progress, they simply tried to arrest this assault upon their lives in any way they could. The had nothing against machinery, but they had no undue respect for it either. When choosing between machines and people.. between the capitalist's machines and their own lives, they had little problem deciding which came first --- p. 5 #ProgressWithoutPeople #DavidNoble #Technology #Progress

For the the dehumanizing power loom
(the advantage was not "reduced cost of production" but "more immediate control and management and prevention of embezzlement")
J.H. Sadler proposed and alternative, a "pendulum hand-loom on behalf of the weavers. It was designed to preserve the skills and jobs of the weavers and enable them to avoid the degrading conditions of factory life." p.6 of #ProgressWithoutPeople by #DavidNoble with #MaxineBerg make me see Scheme programming over #OfficeSoftware

> ... the weavers raised "a powerful and impressive critique of machinery, a critique that carried a genuine belief that technical change was not a 'given' but could be tempered and directed to match social ideals." They... consistently... demanded a social policy on technology. (They proposed, for example, a tax on power looms and a host of other legislative measures to protect the lives of weavers.)
#MaxineBerg on p.6 of #ProgressWithoutPeople by #DavidNoble on #TheMachine #Technology