It sounds like the Luddites would do well searching for new converts at DU

[PretzelWarrior]

it is amazing the amount of whining going on about automation, financial services, etc. on these boards. If you were to measure what the average American considers to be a "necessity" these days versus what they had 50 years ago, you'd be hard pressed to say modern technology is inherently bad. Modern economies based on global trade can be a good thing. All of it takes human oversight and regulation.

Credit default swaps? Bad idea. Currency trading? Good idea. Slave labor? Not good. trade across many nations? Good.

If you were an adult in 1960, your car probably wasn't nearly as safe or fuel efficient as the car you drive today. You didn't have a cell phone and if there was an emergency you had to hope you could find a pay phone or some restaurant was willing to lend you theirs. If your car was broken down 30 miles from the nearest phone? You were S.O.L.

In 1960, there were no angioplasties. Cancer was not nearly as curable as today. I could go on and on in the medical field, but I'll leave it at that other than to say medical technology is not to blame. It is the fact that our model around how medical developments occur today is too much in the hands of big private companies instead of the large grants to the sciences that used to be a part of our national budget.

In 1960, you could not read this message board. To look up important information and then format it, print it, etc. was a labor intensive process. The idea of connecting across the country let alone across the world via phone lines or fiber optics was only available to a few researchers, scientists, military. The power of the internet is still only just now being fully deployed to our advantage to increase our knowledge base, our connections to friends, our ability to optimize the resources used around the world.

In short, it is hard to see why returning to a cart and horse environment will truly make your life better. You are just the flip side of the coin from those conservatives who have built up a rosy picture of the past.

[Teaser]

1. yep. Tech rocks.

big fan.

[Xipe Totec]

2. I am a Luddite

I don't have an Iphone, a Blackberry, or an Ipod.

All I have is a plain old cell phone, a land line phone, and desktop PCs. I'm practically living in the stone age.

[Brigid]

9. Me too.

I'm hopelessly outdated.

[PretzelWarrior]

18. that doesn't make you a Luddite. I love my iPod because I love music

and I remember being just flat out amazed when I had loaded all of my many songs onto the first generation Nano. I could not comprehend that all that music was in such a tiny space and so portable.

I'm not an early adopter, and I think there is inherent risk in doing so. I do have wireless laptop at a time in history when wireless hotspots are much easier to find. So again it thrilled me to be working on office items from all over the United States in coffee shops and near the beach.

[hfojvt]

44. I don't have a cell phone, but I have an Ipod

I am a Luddite though in the sense that I usually prefer the low-tech way of doing things rather than ramming in with a computerize caterpillar bulldozer and calling that progress. That some people think cell phones and cable TV are 'necessities' looks like a problem to me, rather than an advance. I think computers, the internets, and Ipods are way cool, but they are toys, and not necessities.

[Blue_In_AK]

52. Me, too.

We don't even own a cell phone, but we'll probably get one to use just for long trips in Alaska in the winter. Sometimes it's a bit disconcerting when you don't see another vehicle for 100 miles. Makes you wonder if the road is closed ahead.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

57. I got rid of my cellphone and I barely ever use my conventional telephone

It got to the point where I couldn't stand hearing my cellphone ring. I realize some people need them for work but many people go overboard with them, talking just for the sake of talking ... everywhere they go. I love my old cars. I have a 1959 Renault 4CV that gets 50 miles per gallon. It's great and much more fun to drive than modern cars. I don't think that every change is for the better, although I don't want to live in the past. I think however that some Americans are obssessed with change. They need a new style hamburger in their mouth all the time, even if it's the same crap as before. They always need a new movie with everything blowing up, even though it's the same old crap. Things seem to change in America all the time, but not always for the better. Some Americans worship change for its own sake, without questioning who or what is actually benefitting from that change. I believe in science, but I don't think science is always at the service of the common man.

[cali]

118. I don't have a cell phone. Hell, they don't even work where I live.

[treestar]

127. that's still modern technology

Luddite means you're against those too. They take jobs from the pony express messenger and the telegraph companies. Not to mention typewriter manufacturers.

[Xipe Totec]

134. I think sarcasm is a lost art around here...

[treestar]

138. I usually get it

Must have been tired!

[Why Syzygy]

3. Oh goodie another bash DU member thread!

What's your point? You're a superior mind?

[NeedleCast]

12. I think the point is that, often, when it comes to Tech and Especially Science

that DU starts to look a lot like Rapture Ready.

[SidDithers]

29. +1...

but it makes for fun reading.

Sid

[Why Syzygy]

40. erm..

DU looks NOTHING like Rapture Ready. You must not know that creature.

[NeedleCast]

71. I know it very well, I read it regularly for the lolz

But (if you can still find them) go look at the threads on DU that happened a few weeks ago regarding the NASA mission to find water on the mooon (aka "Moon Bombing") then go dig up the RR thread on the same subject. Our woo-woos and their woo-woos are EXACTLY the same.

[Why Syzygy]

76. oohh.

Well if you're talking about WOO, the limbic reptilian brain concocted, wholly emotional term, comparisons are impossible.
Emotions cannot be qualified.

[NeedleCast]

79. Point is, that its a bit disheartening

to read about the fundies on RR crapping themselves over NASA accidently splitting the moon in half by dropping an empty metal can on it, then coming to DU and watching the woo-woos crapping themselves over NASA accidenty splitting the moon in half for dropping an empty metal can on it (or, maybe worse, the idea that we're raping the moon goddess).

[Why Syzygy]

91. I guess you just

have an unrealistic view of human beings.

eta: But you have a clever blog and family in Austin. So all's cool.

[NeedleCast]

96. Yeah, its crazy to expect people to have a knowledge of science

on gains from a 9th grade earth/physical science class.

[Why Syzygy]

106. see eta nt

[raw oysters]

92. HEEHEE...you nailed it!

[sabrina 1]

20. Yes, he is a superior being and don't dare question that.

He told us so in another bash DUers thread yesterday! And if you disgree with him you are only showing your own ignorance ~

[Why Syzygy]

34. Swami Beyondananda says ...

The most powerful tool on the planet today is Tell-A-Vision. That's where I tell a vision to you and you tell a vision to me. That way, if we don't like the programming we're getting, we can change the channel.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28724354299&ref=m...

[PretzelWarrior]

25. no. just thinking it looks foolish to demonize technological progress

[Why Syzygy]

46. Really? No stops? Spiffy.

Will the Rich Evolve Into Different Species?

The rich have already created their own country. Are they about to create their own species?

Futurologist Paul Saffo says rapid advances in biotechnology will enable people to grow their own replacement organs, take specially tailored drugs and use robots and artificial limbs to live longer.

But, he says, the advances will be affordable only by the super-rich. That raises the prospect of a new, biological divide between the classes, with the “rich evolving into a different species entirely, leaving his not-so-rich counterpart behind.”

“I sometimes wonder if the very rich can live, on average, 20 years longer than the poor. That’s 20 more years of earning and saving. Think about wealth and power and the advantages that you pass on to your children.”

This is, of course, a disturbing and somewhat shocking prospect. Our wealth divide could become a health divide, which would further increase the wealth divide.

But is it realistic?

For one, we already have a health divide, where the wealthy receive (on the whole) much better care and technological benefits than the nonwealthy. Indeed, they have enjoyed better health care for centuries, and they have yet to form a race of super-rich cyborgs–-in part because the wealthy in America is a fluid and rapidly changing group.

What is more, advances in health care have tended to spread rapidly from the rich to everyone else. Just like computers, gadgets or cars, health-care technology that at first is priced solely for the wealthy is quickly scaled to larger markets and sold en masse.

Still, we have never seen the potential for bio-tech advancements like we see today — coupled of course with growing global inequality.

Do you think the rich will create their own super-race? And what would it look like?

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2009/10/28/will-the-rich-ev... /


Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/Richistan-Journey-Through-America...

[MilesColtrane]

89. "they have yet to form a race of super-rich cyborgs"

Says you!

If that doesn't describe Dick Cheney, I don't know what does.

[anigbrowl]

32. Nothing like the threads complaining about Satanic machines, of course. Those are totally rational.

[FSogol]

4. K & R. At times, I feel people on this board are encouraging a return to

an agrarian society. Technology does not have to be dehumanizing. The repubs and their ilk with their short-sited selfishness are to blame for society's problems, not the financial sector, big business, or technology.

[kestrel91316]

22. There would be nothing wrong, in my mind, about taking the best and

most useful technology along as we return to a more agrarian society. Having a laptop isn't the least bit incompatible with growing one's own veggies and buying local grass-fed beef and such.

I am currently car-free, but have desktop, laptop, landline, cell phone, internet. Some of us pick and choose among the technologies we want in our lives - there is more than a little Luddite in me at home, but none at work.

[FSogol]

33. I have a small garden and enjoy growing herbs for my wife's cooking, but I sure

as heck don't want to spend my days growing my own food. I'm a mechanical engineer and have no desire to be a farmer.

[kestrel91316]

109. Well, somebody in your home grows your food. Just not ALL of it, lol.

Small gardens are easy to expand a little at a time. IMHO tomatoes are one of the best uses of limited space. And beets and carrots.

[Flaneur]

119. Er, there is that whole industrial civilization destroying the planet problem.

But new toys are pretty cool.

[yurbud]

5. your analogy comparing credit default swaps to advances in technology is deeply flawed

what is going on on Wall Street is not necessarily an advance except for scammers who have no means to make a living by making a product or providing a service, so they do so by manipulating the price of those real products or services.

Worse, they seem to have figured out that the easiest way to make money is to bet on something to fail, then HELP it fail, since it is infinitely easier to break a business than to make one work.

Do you also think Ponzi schemes were an advancement for society that we should have accepted to? Or did Ponzi not belong to the right fraternities and clubs for his work to be respected?

[Why Syzygy]

13. High tech bank robbery!

[PretzelWarrior]

15. my apologies. my thought processes were how technology enabled financial trading

that is more sophisticated and global in reach such as real time currency trading, but it also begat schemes that would have been much harder to pull off in previous generations like credit default swaps.

It is also to point out that some new financial instruments could be construed as "advances in our knowledge" such as a more systematic version of micro loans to impoverished communities.

This article gives good comments about both sides of the debate on new financial innovations in the wake of the giant financial meltdown

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_39/b414...

[Raineyb]

6. Considering we just bailed out a huge portion of our Financial services industry

I think people are right to be wary of it.

In addition, people who make money shuffling money about don't really add a blessed thing to society. Wealth is created by value added items like manufacturing, something paper shuffling doesn't do. Especially when we're talking about the financial sector. The financial system doesn't have to be uber-complicated to make money; something we should have learned over the past year.

[anigbrowl]

58. fundamentally disagree

Not that the financial sector is over-complicated and takes dangerous risks in pursuit of profit, I'm with you on that. But that 'people who make money shuffling money don't add a blessed things to society' - no. In a well-functioning financial system, they provide liquidity, credit and easy clearing of transactions. These are extremely useful and valuable in any decent-sized economy.

I get where you're coming from but don't believe we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. To dismiss it all is like saying the bookkeeper in a factory does nothing of value because they just write down numbers into a book rather than making widgets. But without the bookkeeper, the widget parts don't get bought, the receipts from the sales don't get collected, and the factory workers don't get paid.

One of the problems in society (regardless of politics) is that people who don't understand the work that others do tend to dismiss that work as having little or no value. Managers who don't value employees are an obvious example, but equally those who don't get office work decide that it consists of just sitting around in comfy chairs. Some politicians specialize in playing different groups off against one another rather than bridging the gaps and showing how different kinds of work can be complementary and mutually beneficial. Note, can be, not that they necessarily are all the time.

[PretzelWarrior]

62. recommend your reply. AWESOME way to break this down.

[Why Syzygy]

77. Can you repeat it?

I've got that member on ignore.

[PretzelWarrior]

90. here you go. they said...

Not that the financial sector is over-complicated and takes dangerous risks in pursuit of profit, I'm with you on that. But that 'people who make money shuffling money don't add a blessed things to society' - no. In a well-functioning financial system, they provide liquidity, credit and easy clearing of transactions. These are extremely useful and valuable in any decent-sized economy.

I get where you're coming from but don't believe we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. To dismiss it all is like saying the bookkeeper in a factory does nothing of value because they just write down numbers into a book rather than making widgets. But without the bookkeeper, the widget parts don't get bought, the receipts from the sales don't get collected, and the factory workers don't get paid.

One of the problems in society (regardless of politics) is that people who don't understand the work that others do tend to dismiss that work as having little or no value. Managers who don't value employees are an obvious example, but equally those who don't get office work decide that it consists of just sitting around in comfy chairs. Some politicians specialize in playing different groups off against one another rather than bridging the gaps and showing how different kinds of work can be complementary and mutually beneficial. Note, can be, not that they necessarily are all the time.

[Why Syzygy]

108. thanks nt

[Sebastian Doyle]

7. And what the fuck

do cell phones, angioplasties, the internet, or fiber optics have to do with the wholesale criminality of Goddamn Sucks or the Insurance industry?? Or the fucking disaster of corporatist "free" trade?

At least you could separate your anti-Democratic rants into coherent subjects that are remotely connected to one another.

[sabrina 1]

36. Just a guess, but maybe this is called 'using technology

that was used for criminality to distract from the criminality? Or something like that ~

Won't work, Goldman Sachs and the Insurance Industry are criminal organizations regardless of technology. I hope that didn't sound too ludditish if there is such a word.

[PretzelWarrior]

38. well, if you think about it....they are connected.

much technology advancement is actually beneficial to our lives. but some technology is dangerous and must be regulated. letting everyone have a vaporizing gun (should one be invented) would not be wise.

same with financial world. the advance of technology and power of being able to do mass analysis of servers full of data allows banks and other financial institutions to offer good products they couldn't possibly have logistically managed decades ago. That doesn't mean there aren't BAD ways that knowledge and information can be used such as we are discussing regarding mortgage backed securities.

[arcadian]

8. Give me a 1960s toaster over a 2010 toaster anyday.

Built to last. And the clothes were a lot hipper.

[pipi_k]

17. My mom had a Sunbeam toaster that lasted for years and years

Stuff is pretty cool today, but it's just not built to last. Kind of a trade-off, I think.

Anyway, about the clothes....God, I do miss those late 60s - early 70s duds... I had me a pair of brown fake fur pants. And a pair of bright purple hot pants...remember those? I would wear those babies with panty hose and black chunky heels. Turned a lot of heads back then....sigh...

The only thing I'd turn now would be stomachs.

[arcadian]

24. I'l bet you're still hot as all get out!

[lyonn]

42. Whoo whoo, I had purple "suede" short, shorts....

I can't vouch for how hot I was tho. Had 3 kids at that time. They took it pretty good as I recall. Oh, and to take them off they had snaps on the side from waist down. Now I'm embarrassed..... Good thing I didn't see any fake fur pants although I would have like leather, couldn't afford it.

[supernova]

10. Yep, I love technology

Any new tool that makes short shrift of a task is fine by me. (Provided it is "green." and doesn't oppress others in its making. )

I think of my grandparents and what their daily lives consisted of. They didn't email, they wrote letters longhand, They wrung out the laundry in a manual wringer. Yuck! THey did the dishes by hand, often several times a day. They farmed using mules and harnesses.

You often didn't know of a family member was in trouble away from home, no cell phones for calls or IMs.


So. yay technology.

[enlightenment]

54. And because they (and others) wrote letters longhand

they left a record that can be preserved - from an historical point of view. They also probably had a much better grasp of basic spelling and grammar. They were probably better 'story tellers' because writing long, chatty letters is an excellent way of developing that skill.

There's nothing inherently wrong with technology; even the Luddites understood that. Their complaint was not based on a fear of technology, but the very real fear that the technology would impoverish their communities by forcing them out a their jobs (which it did). It was a working class movement in response to unbridled industrial capitalism.

I'm a neo-Luddite. I don't fear technological change, but I do worry about the potential for the abuse and misuse of technological change - because so many embrace all new technology without thinking about the repercussions. Newer doesn't always equal better - I still wash my dishes by hand . . .

[PretzelWarrior]

60. so do I. I rarely use my dishwasher

it is amazing that in most homes and even apartments, a dishwasher is considered a necessity. However, I have something against them. I believe it's because I've had so many that do a bad job of cleaning dishes to my satisfaction that I don't want to waste the water for small amounts of dishes.

There are many ways that I am skeptical of new technology....but I don't demonize it. My life is so much more multidimensional due to the inventions of our age.

[anigbrowl]

68. Surprisingly, more people write, and write better than ever before

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_t...

As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can't write—and technology is to blame. Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into "bleak, bald, sad shorthand" (as University College of London English professor John Sutherland has moaned). An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?
Andrea Lunsford isn't so sure. Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students' prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring.
"I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.
The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

Much more at link, you will be pleasantly surprised.

[PretzelWarrior]

75. do not...do NOT bring facts into this discussion

[enlightenment]

121. See my reply to this post.

If you want to throw facts around.

[enlightenment]

120. I teach college history.

They may be able to read and write at Stanford, but the ability to write coherently is not as well-defined in my classrooms. I'd be more impressed if Dr. Lunsford came up with similar results with a broader cross-section of students from a wider range of socio-economic levels. Stanford may be part of the UC system, but it's still an upper-tier school.

Thank you for the link, though. I had not read the study.

[PretzelWarrior]

122. I don't think Stanford is part of the UC system. It and USC are private univesities

and on a different playing field than UCLA, UC-Irvine, Fresno State, etc.

[enlightenment]

124. You're right!

I was conflating it with Berkeley *listens to horrified gasp of Berkeley alum . . .*

Though that actually strengthens my argument - elite private school has somewhat more literate students. Not terribly surprising.

Honestly, though, my concern is not even literacy as much as the loss of record. Where do Tweets go when they die? How many email messages do we preserve? Facebook and MySpace and LiveJournal probably keep every syllable typed in some archive somewhere (despite their promises of privacy) - but will they ever make that available to researchers?

I read an article recently (can't recall where) that suggested that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have this ephemeral media, because we save less dreck. From my perspective, though, that is a tragedy in the making. Think about it. Most ancient tablets - Sumerian, Minoan, even Greek - what were they? Fascinating and thoughtful philosophical essays? No, they're primarily accounts of everyday life - records of things bought and sold; grocery lists; spells written to get back at a neighbor who allowed their dog to chew someone's best chiton or to attract a lover or ward off the pox. They were the written dreck of everyday life. Hardly great bedtime reading, but they offer insights into those cultures that we wouldn't have if the only thing that survived were the writings of the professionals.

The letters and account books and all the other everyday writings of the 17th and 18th century are bread and butter for me - even more so than the broadsheets and newspapers and other published works of the day. It makes me sad to think that we are leaving so little for future generations, in that regard.

[supernova]

131. We have different ways of capturing that info

now too, though.

100 years ago, grandma wrote a nice chatty letter to her sister about a grandchild's wedding. She mentioned everyone she saw, what she did, what they ate at the rehearsal dinner, and so on.

Today, you have video of grandma at the wedding: dancing, talking to everyone, eating cake and wrinkling her nose at the relish tray... living and breathing and experiencing it all right there in front of you. She doesn't have to write a letter, unless she just wants to. But you have the immediacy of her living presence recorded. To me, that's more valuable.

My point is, you can only get so much of a feel for what people were really like from the distance of historical documents. But, YMMV.

The major problem I see from a historical perspective, probably similar to you, is that we are not thinking about long-term storage of all this new media. CDs and now DVDs aren't supposed to last a long time, unlike parchment, which literally wears like iron if kept properly. So we need a new archival storage system so that future generations will have access to all our electrons and pixels.

Re: the dishwasher, unless you are highly unusual, you will waste more water washing dishes by hand than with the dishwasher. Yes, the dishwasher uses less water than your typical hand washer.

[Greyhound]

11. Utterly false premise. n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

45. Somehow I thought of Gary Larson

I know he could explain this post somehow because I can't

[Greyhound]

74. LOL!

Talk about kool-aid. These guys would be funny if they weren't working so hard to increase suffering and deprivation across the globe, all so they can pretend their acquisition of toys will fill an empty life.

[anigbrowl]

82. For extra marks, justify your answer.

[Greyhound]

98. The one thing I've learned on DU is that it is a waste of time. Spending the time

(often hours) looking up the stats, referencing publications, and composing the overall case gains nothing. Those that disagree will neither read nor research, but will fixate on typos and nits to divert the conversation away from the topic.

But I will this again.

[anigbrowl]

107. I'm not asking for a novel...

But a couple of paragraphs need only take 5 minutes. A hit-and-run post like 'false premise', without even identifying what you think the premise is or why it's false, does you no credit at all. It doesn't inform anyone, but just creates confusion.

[girl gone mad]

14. What kind of fresh nonsense is this?

Comparing advances in medical treatment and car safety to financial derivatives?

[PretzelWarrior]

21. no. if you read, I was demonizing those ridiculous products such as CDS

but saying there's nothing inherently wrong with trading currencies when we have such a globally connected economy.

[lyonn]

16. What's a Luddite?

Should I leave DU if I don't know what they are? I do know I'm a Yellow Dog. Does that work?

[Why Syzygy]

50. They were the layoffs at the start of the industrial revolution.

http://www.wikipedia.com

[SoCalDem]

88. Every new technology has the seeds of its own demise, built in

and it displaces much that came before.. As long as there are people alive who remember the "old ways", there will be some disgruntlement..especially to the ones whose jobs got swallowed up, at an age that made it difficult/impossible to adapt fast enough to maintain their standard of living.

We never know what's ahead, but we can always look back, and find things that seemed to work better

[lyonn]

97. Oh, thanks

Well crap, we knew ages ago that modernization was going to change the work force eventually. I don't have a degree in anything and certainly have no answer just a question or thought on the subject. Shouldn't we have prepared by making sure when we made trade deals with other countries that we should cover our rears in the process? Fairer trades that is. Sometimes it seems deals have been made in the corps favor and the future be damned. They control that too.

Next thing you know it will be cheaper to buy air tickets to Europe to get medical care.

Edit: Ok, I am not referencing Luddites in my comment - but close enough. Progress - technology I gotta have it around. Just replaced my microwave. How do you live without one?

[JonQ]

19. Both left and right

have their members who villainize science for their own purposes.

They should all branch off and form their own anti-science party. They would probably be happier, just swap god for gaia, and satan for corporations and the rhetoric will be the same.

[SIMPLYB1980]

111. +100

[gkhouston]

23. Damn, I was hoping for another vaccination thread. Well, poop. n/t

[anigbrowl]

26. Well, it makes life much harder for artists

I mean, it used to be you could do a story about how someone's car breaks down in the desert and bang, you had your audience emotionally involved. Now everyone has a damn cellphone so you either need to come up with some half-assed plot device about how everyone's cellphone has lost signal, or set your story in the past and do a whole bunch of tedious research to make sure it's period-accurate, WTF.

Same thing with crime. Used to be you could murder a character and then have a detective wander around asking people questions and eyeballing clues. Nowadays it's all DNA this and forensics that and you have to get a degree in criminology just to write the opening chapter.

And what about science fiction, eh? A few decades ago you could send your guy to Mars, give him a death ray and then he could get the girl and save the entire planet. Now nobody believes in hideous giant caterpillars and you have to make up some kind of goddamn neutron drive and go the other fucking side of the galaxy, polluting the pristine vacuum of space with dilithium ions just so you can have some kind of conflict with other beings who are so modern and abstract they don't even have identifiable heads. Every time you want to rev up the story with some cool alien invaders you need to have some boring geek stop the damn plot and with a lot of hocus-pocus technobabble to explain why we didn't see them coming ten years ago with our space telescopes, shit.

Don't even get me started on the romance genre. When was the last time you saw some handsome guy riding around on a white horse? And ever since they invented nasal spray and disposable tissue it's practically impossible to find women dropping handkerchiefs. Burn the factories, I say! Back to the pre-industrial era!

[Jokerman]

27. Luddites with computers and internet connections...right.

Absurd.

[Stinky The Clown]

28. Pardon my Stupid, but what was the inspiration for this OP?

I seem to miss a lot of the memos that get sent around.

[PretzelWarrior]

67. bashing on autocheckout machines at groceries.

and I remember for YEARS being hacked off that they purposefully made people queue up in long lines rather than call more employees up front to check out.

Now, I am able to find an auto scan thing for my two items....pay and am out. Meanwhile, the people who would have been in front of me in line are gonna be there another 10 minutes at least.

[Stinky The Clown]

73. Thanks for clueing me in!

The issue you cite, for me, has upsides and downsides.

The upside is your cite ...... in and out faster.

The downside ..... fewer jobs.

I say that not as a Luddite, but as one who cares about other people.

[madinmaryland]

86. Oh wow! We haven't had a good "self-checkout" , "do you bag your own groceries", or

"do you return your cart" thread in a while. Those are always good for more than a few laughs!!

Hmmm!

[anigbrowl]

114. Ulp. Cart-returner here, how will I sleep tonight?

[PretzelWarrior]

117. you just cost someone their job, bucko

[Why Syzygy]

112. Oh. Well.

I LOVE self checkout. Even if it is always nagging me to put my stuff in a shopping bag.

[depakid]

30. Not having cell phones around everywhere was bliss!

[FSogol]

39. Replace "cell phones" with "leaf blowers" and I'll agree with you. n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

61. I doubt anybody ever got a brain tumor from a leaf blower though.

Or ran over a pedestrian in a crosswalk because they were trying to clear leaves off their car while driving.

[anigbrowl]

63. You are my new best friend. I have fantasies about disrupting their operation with energy rays.

Actually, if technology advances to the point of putting little microchips in them to regulate air flow or something, then I'll build a portable EMP gun. Currently, that sems more likely than somebody inventing a quiet, non-energy-wasting version.

[FSogol]

80. They have a non-energy wasting version. It is called a rake.

Believe it on not on a lawn, a rake is quicker than a leaf blower for gathering up leaves into a pile. Not claiming to be John Henry or anything, but I've proven it. For sidewalks and decks, a leaf blower is more efficient, but not worth the cost in sound pollution. When you finish your emp gun, please send the plans.

[anigbrowl]

84. Not to mention the benefits of exercise and so on.

Even for sidewalks and decks, I like a brush. It's a trivial thing to most people, but I'm really glad you posted this. Leaf-blowers are a good example of wasteful technology that doesn't offer much in the way of utility to most buyers. I gues some people would prefer not to wield the rake, but I'm hard put to see how this compensates for the noise fumes the operator has to put up with, never mind other people.

[depakid]

64. Most dubious invention of the 20th Century

typically not used for its designed purpose... and often less efficient than a nice rake or a shop broom.

In LA these things are so prolific that there's almost always one around simply blowing dirt from one property to another- or kicking up soil pathogens that cause, among other things- Valley Fever.

[FSogol]

83. I agree even before googling "Valley Fever." n/t

[madinmaryland]

87. Especially on the train!

ARRRGGGGHHHH!

[depakid]

95. Headphones have become essential on the light rail

People are just oblivious to how selfish and annoying that they are. Yet wanna bet that these same folks raise a fuss about kids on airplanes?

[izquierdista]

31. Trading across many nations -- bad, very bad

Or had you not noticed that almost everything manufactured in 1960, which supported millions of unionized factory workers in 1960, is now gone. Flown the coop, free-as-a-bird capital that can flit from low-wage hellhole to even lower, while the factory owner sits atop his money stash.

Free trade is a steaming pile of bullshit that defies centuries of history where each civilization that rose and fell did so with local building materials, local food, local energy sources and locally made clothing. Trade was for the non-essentials: spices from far away instead of herbs from the garden, silk from China instead of locally grown flax made into linen, and myrhh that least essential of non-essentials.

[Why Syzygy]

48. And no GMO food!

My gawd how did we survive?

When the 100% guaranteed solar flare EMPs hit our power grids, every modern car will be a 6,000 pound statue. OP will then pay a ransom for a pre 1980 vehicle.

[anigbrowl]

65. Yes. Look at the damage done by bringing paper from China to the West.

Seen any vellum shops lately? Exactly. As for printing, why couldn't it have stayed in Germany? That put thousands of scribes and illuminators out of work.

[JonQ]

72. You know what I really hate?

Plumbing. Should have been kept in rome.


Who needs running water and toilets?

[izquierdista]

81. They brought technology, not products

They make plenty of paper in the South now, no need to get it from China. They also used to make printing presses in the United States, and HP even made printers here. But not any more. That put thousands of engineers and factory workers in Silicon Valley and Idaho out of work.

[anigbrowl]

99. The two go together. Products create demand for technology.

This is still the case. Lots of computer equipment is manufactured in Asia now, for example. But the semiconductor manufacturing equipment (which costs million$ per individual machine) is made here and they buy it. We still manufacture plenty, we just don't manufacture as much consumer stuff as we used to.

Over the long term, trade equalizes wages faster than any other method. If you doubt this, consider what the US would be like if the 50 states imposed tariffs on each others' cross-state trading, and people in Wisconsin had to pay customs duty on anything imported from Texas or Oregonians had to pay a tariff on Wisconsin cheese. do you really think that would give us a more advanced economy?

I'm from Ireland, and when I was growing up that was exactly how things worked on trade between European countries. Every country had their own standards bureau, everything had to be checked through customs etc., if you went on holiday to England and did too much shopping (like > $250 I think) you were supposed to pay some taxes on it when you came home. We got rid of this system and opened our internal borders in Europe for a reason: it was making everyone poorer to do things this way.

It's like driving a car around with one foot on the brake pedal all the time, it isn't good for the engine or for the brakes plus you don't go anywhere fast. I was in Ireland at the time this changed and we switched to open borders, there were quite a few people saying this was going to be the end and national sovereignty and identity would collapse, we'd all be forced to speak esperanto at gunpoint etc. Didn't happen, everyone is considerably better off than they were previously. For similar reasons, we abolished our national currencies and converted to the Euro, which can be spent anywhere in Europe like the dollar can in the USA. That, too, was going to be the end of civilization as we knew it...only it turned out not to be.

Trade is a very, very good thing. If you've lived in the US most of your life, this may not be apparent because you have largely enjoyed the benefits of an open economy your whole life and not had any real experience of a closed one.

[izquierdista]

136. I've lived abroad enough

To know that Eastern Europeans are having trouble catching up to Western Europe because the Chinese have beat them in the race to the bottom. How can Ukrainians earn more than $200 a month when Chinese will work for $100?

Trade between adjoining nations can be a good thing, say the trade of crops which are suited for different latitudes or climates. Trade as a weapon to undercut workers' wages is a very, very bad thing, something which the tariffs of an earlier era helped to prevent so that American workers could organize and demand their fair share of the profits. Nowadays in the "global" economy, workers can't demand anything and are lucky if the capitalist factory owners pay anything more than a starvation wage.

[SammyWinstonJack]

100. +1

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LisaM]

37. In 1960 there was Walter Cronkite and Huntley Brinkley

and the proportion between the taxes corporations paid and individuals paid was almost the reverse of what it is now. The Fairness Doctrine was in existence. Housing was affordable. We had far more of a national identity, instead of serving niche interests that splinter us.

There must be a way to keep the good parts of the old ways, and improve what needs to be improved. I don't think that your statement about new technologies for news holds all that true, because the reason we have to look it up is that our broadcasts are all news for profit, and news as entertainment, whereas before it was real news.

[PretzelWarrior]

55. there again, I would make the point of Noam Chomsky that with centralized news

it was the "fair" news that the FEW thought was fair news. I'm not going to disagree with you about things like how we as Americans have utterly failed to keep some control over our political processes so that worker wages keep up with the vast wealth growth of corporations and mega rich.

There are many social ills that took place on our watch, but most all of them had nothing to do with technological advances.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. Answering machines and remote controls - good. Bubble wrap and killer drones - bad.

[PretzelWarrior]

51. exactly! we should be able to say something bad about a product other than...

oh my god, no more use for my channel changing butler with remote control so remote controls are bad technology.

[LanternWaste]

43. I recognize that there were...

I recognize that there were both good and bad parts to the world of twenty, fifty, or even a hundred years ago. I recognize that there are both good and bad parts to the world in the here and now. I can discuss one without minimizing the other.

I imagine most people realize the same.

[PretzelWarrior]

49. well, when there are 150 replies to a post demonizing auto-checkouts...not so sure

we are able to do what you just described. If there were mercury being leached into rivers with every swipe of the barcode, you'd have a point. But those workers will find better things to do than get varicose veins from standing for hours or get repetitive motion injuries from scanning item after item on an 8 hour shift for years.

[LisaM]

59. I hate auto scanning

and have noticed a huge drop off in the customer service I get at the grocery store. I had a clerk (young guy) ask me what a parsnip was when we was ringing it up. Those older cashiers they used to have seemed to like their job, and they knew their customers by name (at least ours did) and were familiar with the stock they sold.

[PretzelWarrior]

66. you must be one hugely unhappy customer for the past 20+ years.

I worked at Wal Mart in my young stupid days back in Missouri circa 1988. They were really pushing full scale into barcode scanning. It was speeding up things at the checkout. There were errors both for and against the customers in prices loaded into the computer. But now we don't even think twice about things. (Although everyone should pay attention to what price comes up since mistakes do happen).

The fact that a store doesn't have enough floor staff to help customers isn't a product of technology. It is a people decision. It's management's fault. And customers should make them pay for that by not going there or complaining every single time that they can never find someone knowledgable to ask.

I just don't think you can say auto scanning is the cause of bad customer service because bad customer service in grocery and discount stores has been around a long time and auto scanning relatively recently.

[LisaM]

70. Yes, I don't enjoy shopping very much and I used to love it.

And it's not the last 20 years - even in the last 10 years, it's gone downhill. I know they must not treat the employees as well or pay them as much, because they all stink at their jobs (or usually, I should say) and know nothing about the things they are selling. I worked in a bookstore for a long time and I loved it: I loved being hands on with the merchandise, I knew every inch of the place, and I loved the customers.

[lyonn]

103. This post is approaching the one on DU years ago about Kudzu

It went on for days. It was quite funny after awhile.

[LanternWaste]

130. I also understand the difference between a visceral reaction

I also understand the difference between a visceral reaction describing our annoyance to a thing, and an actual wish or agenda to demonstrably remove a thing from existence. e.g, threads dealing with rape cases or pedophilia cases in which many posters state something along the lines of, "if he/she did that to my wife/son/daughter, I'd do X and Y"-- a sincere yet visceral reaction that is usually referred to as venting, and quite different from what that same poster would do were they charged with the responsibility of being a juror on the case-- in which case I would hazard that critical thought would quickly overwhelm the visceral reactions we all experience everyday.

[Therellas]

47. SUPERFREAKENOMICS!!!!!!!!!!

i think thats how you spell it.
only time can tell in this debate.
i have no fear from atomic energy

[cloudbase]

53. Some of the worst advice I ever received

was to buy the best slide rule I could, because as an engineer I'd be using it all my professional life. It was valid at the time, but that little beauty pretty much collects dust in the closet.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

56. Sounds like you need to read some history on the Luddites

Those weavers using some of the most advanced technological devices of the time are hardly the caricature that you portray. Propaganda has led you to this false depiction.

What they were though was one of the earliest anti-corporate movements in history so yes we certainly could use more Luddites.

[PretzelWarrior]

69. make facts up, much? they were machine breakers. destroying "modern" technology

of the early 19th century in Britain because they were saying it was taking their jobs away.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

115. You don't know what you're talking about n/t

[PretzelWarrior]

123. apparently I did. you cannot refute what I said with facts

you can impute motives for WHY they were against technology, but you cannot deny their main claim to fame is destroying technology as a perceived threat.

[rucky]

78. What if you like some technology and dislike others?

I think that might make you - er - most people.

[PretzelWarrior]

93. well fine. then don't use it. but to cast it as a moral imperative just because

a person has a problem with it and has blinders to the benefits is kind of silly.

television has receded as a technology--not because of the invention but because of the programming available in general. internet could be the same way in the future.

we must control and direct technology to work for us--not against us.

[MilesColtrane]

85. I, for one, welcome our soulless, metal overlords.

That is, until they start cracking open our skulls and feasting on the goo inside.

[ddeclue]

94. This article took too long to download on my abacus. Unrec.

[anigbrowl]

101. The recommendation clerk is at lunch right now. Come back later.

[DainBramaged]

102. When technology is developed to expressly take the human element out of commerce

it benefits ONLY the purveyor of the technology, no one else. When we run out of jobs cleaning the video screens of technology and there are no longer any spots open at Walmart for greeters, and all of the fast food jobs are replaced with robots, what's next for this country? Thinning out the herd so that those of you who want to save YOUR time become more important than the rest of US?


I see now, how the anti-Union/Labor movement is perpetrated.

[PretzelWarrior]

105. lololol. I don't need an airline agent or travel agent to buy a plane ticket. that is a good thing.

I'm sorry you disagree.

[JonQ]

125. What about elevator operators?

A major loss?

Chimney sweeps? Outhouse cleaners? Town criers? Buggy operators?

[PretzelWarrior]

126. lol. I was screwed upon graduation from

ITT Typewriter Repair School. just kidding.

[JonQ]

129. And abacus repairmen?

slide-rule polishers, slave ship operators, blacksmiths, candle wick makers, court jesters, gong farmers. All lost to modernization. Leaving literally most of the population permanently unemployed, literally.

Where have all the good jobs gone?

[treestar]

128. Running the robots

Every technology creates new jobs that never existed before.

Where do you draw the line? How many jobs were created by car manufacturers? More than existed for horse and buggy stuff. The population is far higher than it was in 1909. Yet even today, 90% is employed.

And yet people complain about not getting IT jobs. Well, those took from the people who made typewriters and the people who sold paper and ink that doesn't have to be used now.

[tekisui]

104. I'm not sure Luddites proselytize on online message boards.

[PretzelWarrior]

110. ones with cognitive dissonance do. then they blame their headache

on microwaves from their cell phone.

[anigbrowl]

113. Take a look at post #102, then.

and read up on the 'machines of the devil': http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[bvar22]

116. Proud Luddite when it comes to food.

My wife too.

We cashed out and moved to The Woods in 2006 to grow our own food.
No chem pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.
No preservatives, no hormones, no antibiotics, no fillers, no artificial flavoring, no "inert" additives, no texturizers, no artificial coloring, no high fructose corn syrup, no genetic modifications, no irradiation, no packaging/shipping/handling contaminants.
We keep Free Range chickens for eggs, and honeybees for pure, raw honey.

Just plain, fresh food.


Call us Luddites. We really don't care.
We would do this For The Taste Only, even if there were no health benefits.
You can keep the High-Tech Factory Foods.

[hunter]

132. Automobiles: Crap. High Fructose Corn Syrup: Crap. Factory Farms: Crap

Coal Power Plants: Crap

40+ hour work weeks: Crap

Health Insurance Industry: Crap

Pharmaceutical Marketing: Crap

Wal-Mart: Crap

So many things in our high tech industrial society are environmentally unsustainable and socially destructive CRAP.

I want to walk to work, eat healthy foods, pay taxes that support a single payer health care plan and free education for all, enjoy three month vacations, a thirty hour work week, low interest rate fixed mortgages, and a stock market that is never volatile.

False measures of productivity ruin our lives and ruin our world.

Forget the hurry hurry, rush rush. Leave people time to live for their arts and their music, time to plant and smell the roses, time to grow the grapes and drink the wine, time to read to children, time to build communities, and most of all, time to relax and enjoy life very gentle upon this earth.

Call me a fucking Luddite.

[PretzelWarrior]

133. sounds like you have simple needs and don't want much

all you really want out of life is:

"I want to walk to work, eat healthy foods, pay taxes that support a single payer health care plan and free education for all, enjoy three month vacations, a thirty hour work week, low interest rate fixed mortgages, and a stock market that is never volatile."

okaaaayyyy

[hunter]

135. Why the hell not?

Why should I support the economic and political institutions that are ripping the earth and society apart?

I don't want your crap, I especially don't want to pay for your crap, and most of all I don't want to work for your crap.

Go ahead, entertain yourself, but not on the backs of those who live in hideous poverty, and not by the destruction of of our world's environment.

Our entire economy is a bubble, it's always been a bubble. We won't survive the bubble's collapse by speeding up, by buying more crap, but by slowing down.

All those things I mentioned use fewer natural resources than resource intensive manufacturing. Our economy contracts in some sectors, maybe fewer cars are purchased, no new roads are built, and some roads are removed, but it expands in others. Maybe we become one of the literate nations, and not the nation we are where so many people are illiterate or functionally illiterate. Maybe we build high speed passenger systems, maybe we stop caring about speed at all, and with our longer vacations enjoy a relaxing train ride in luxury, like a cruise ship on wheels, arriving at our destination relaxed and refreshed.

We can make it so. We are not doomed to ride this economy to the bitter end, to sink with this dirty ship.

[Why Syzygy]

137. A Little Story

The businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while.

The businessman then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The businessman then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, señor."

The businessman scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor and eventually open your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City where you would run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But señor, how long will this all take?" To which the businessman replied, "15-20 years." "But what then, señor?" The businessman laughed and said, "That's the best part! When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions." "Millions, señor? Then what?" The businessman said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, "Isn't that what I'm doing right now?"

-Author Unknown