I'll Never Make Fun of Luddites Again

[NashVegas]

Not even myself, for those instances where I am accused of it:

1812: The poet Lord Byron makes an impassioned speech before the House of Lords in an attempt to convince Parliament not to enact the death penalty against the Luddites. He fails.

The Frame Breaking Act made it a capital offense for anyone convicted of "machine breaking," the willful destruction of mechanized looms and cloth-finishing machinery and other new devices that were eliminating jobs.

The Luddites were a loose association of craft workers, especially croppers and weavers, who saw coming industrialization as a mortal threat to their livelihoods. They took their inspiration, and their name, from the folkloric figure of Ned Ludd, who was said to have smashed a couple of stocking frames (knitting machines) in the late 1770s.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/02/dayintech_0227

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. From the Wikipedia

The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested — often by destroying mechanized looms - against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their livelihood.

This English historical movement has to be seen in its context of the harsh economic climate due to the Napoleonic Wars; but since then, the term Luddite has been used to describe anyone opposed to technological progress and technological change. For the modern movement of opposition to technology, see neo-luddism.

The Luddite movement, which began in 1811, took its name from the earlier Ned Ludd. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the government included a mass trial at York in 1812 that resulted in many executions and penal transportation.

The principal objection was to the introduction of new wide-framed looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many textile workers.

See article for Luddite. It is rather unfortunate that the name has come to mean anyone opposed to technological advancement in general.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Industrialization was also the death knell for professional guilds of craftsmen

where one could begin as an apprentice and one day become a master.

[NashVegas]

9. Interesingly Enough

Those designations have been making somewhat of a comeback.

You can go buy a cheap end table at Wal=Mart, or you can go to your local juried craft fair, and contract with someone to custom-build one for you, for a few hundred or more dollars.

[Warpy]

2. Making stockings had been women's work

done at home and contributing to the household income. The invention of the stocking frame devastated a lot of poor families by sharply cutting their income.

Married women had few cottage industries to choose from. Those who had made a decent living knitting fine stockings for the wealthy found themselves having to take in washing or doing some other task that was much more physically demanding and far less rewarding than skilled stocking production.

There was no way for a household to afford one of the new machines. The household had needed only double pointed knitting needles, very inexpensive tools, until then. The machines had to be factory centered, factories owned by capitalists who kept pay down and profit high.

The machines afforded everyone a better quality product at a lower cost, but the social cost was high.

[eleny]

4. First thing that came to mind is Etsy shops online

Maybe a contradiction of sorts. But Etsy shops are where you can buy only hand crafted goods.

[aquart]

11. Link?

[eleny]

14. sure, here you go....

http://www.etsy.com/

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Yeah, it was almost a labor movement.

It's a slur to luddites to compare them to loony conspiracy theory woo woos.

[ThomWV]

6. I am becomming more of a Luddite every day - and a statement of why.

And I can find room in this world for some regressive thinking on manufacturing as related to the effort of men. I think that the root of many of our problems is not so much the implied over population but maybe more a function of how much we waste. When one man made one thing at one time that thing was generally made to withstand some time. Today's throw-away society has no need for anything well made, only things inexpensively made. That inexpense comes at the hands of the workman, who has been removed from the final product just as sure as has been its quality.

[NashVegas]

8. I Think We're Agreed

Although I hadn't considered the waste component. Funny thing, in the same online edition of Wired that tipped me off to the above, there is an article on our tech-inspired freebie-giveaway-based economy, which uses the invention of the disposal razor / blade as its jumping off point.

[Bluerthanblue]

7. Industrialization also revived 'slavery' in the US- with the

mechanization of spinning and weaving, cotton became much more common- and cotton required much more labor. Prior to the industrialization here in the US, slavery was surprisingly on the wane.

(I had never known this before myself)

peace~

[aquart]

10. My sister's wedding announcement: Luddite marries Techno-geek.

She still has no email.

[SpiralHawk]

12. The Luddites said factories would destroy family values...

But the fat-cat republicons of the day said screw that family shit, close up your cottage and come work for us for 12 hours a day...and a chance to owe your soul to the company store...

[NashVegas]

15. And They Were Right

Children were either sent to the workforce - away from their parents, or sent to school - away from their parents, to be indoctrinated with the State's values.

[truedelphi]

13. I read an estimate somewhere that your average life span expectancy

After you joined the mechanized work force was something like two years after the date that you joined. Can't remember the source