<story><title>Rethinking the Luddites</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/rethinking-the-luddites-in-the-age-of-ai</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>creer</author><text>The luddite example is one of suddenness: The owners see the massive advantage of mechanization and move in fast. The workers are blindsided - they don&amp;#x27;t have the time and spend all the time they do have in a ludicrous war. The regions are somewhat mono-industry which completes in making a giant mess. All in all the exact quandary not to get caught in. Now that they have demonstrated it, long ago, do we really have to fall in the same problem again and again? Just because it didn&amp;#x27;t happen in the US, or in this century, doesn&amp;#x27;t mean we can&amp;#x27;t learn from it.&lt;p&gt;People at all level should do better using the time there is. For the ones (workers) to move up or away in their skills. For the others (businesses) to recognize a looming availability of human workforce which might be useful for some (other) business opportunity. For the third (governments) to - just in time - organize or encourage re-training at scale and in time. Trying to impose on each business to manage this whole world by itself is idiotic - normal business is tough and precarious enough. Trying to let each worker manage their own training is also insufficient: few people can optimally manage their own career at the same time as everything else.&lt;p&gt;An example in this direction is, I believe, Denmark&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Flexicurity&amp;quot;. Firms can adapt to follow their needs; while workers can in general principle retain earnings while they retrain; while the state orchestrates availability of training (which itself can be a big industry sector). No doubt not perfect for anyone, but the general idea sounds solid.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xorcist</author><text>Your comments fall into exactly the trap the article talks about. The luddites were painted as being against automation. That&amp;#x27;s only partially true, at best. Destroying machines was not the point. It was just the only thing that hurt and got remembered.&lt;p&gt;It was not layoffs that caused the revolts much worsening working conditions. They wanted things like getting paid in the promised time frame, and not having their children killed. It seems the protests were sprawling and later integrated every disappointment under the sun.&lt;p&gt;The other side took that as an opportunity to paint them as being generally anti progressive and against all forms of mechanization, but from what I understand there&amp;#x27;s not much to suggest that was actually true. Yes, machines were broken but so were a lot of other things as the protests turned violent.&lt;p&gt;Our lesson from the luddies should be that winners write history, we should not reiterate a centuries old smear campaign.</text></comment>
<story><title>Rethinking the Luddites</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/rethinking-the-luddites-in-the-age-of-ai</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>creer</author><text>The luddite example is one of suddenness: The owners see the massive advantage of mechanization and move in fast. The workers are blindsided - they don&amp;#x27;t have the time and spend all the time they do have in a ludicrous war. The regions are somewhat mono-industry which completes in making a giant mess. All in all the exact quandary not to get caught in. Now that they have demonstrated it, long ago, do we really have to fall in the same problem again and again? Just because it didn&amp;#x27;t happen in the US, or in this century, doesn&amp;#x27;t mean we can&amp;#x27;t learn from it.&lt;p&gt;People at all level should do better using the time there is. For the ones (workers) to move up or away in their skills. For the others (businesses) to recognize a looming availability of human workforce which might be useful for some (other) business opportunity. For the third (governments) to - just in time - organize or encourage re-training at scale and in time. Trying to impose on each business to manage this whole world by itself is idiotic - normal business is tough and precarious enough. Trying to let each worker manage their own training is also insufficient: few people can optimally manage their own career at the same time as everything else.&lt;p&gt;An example in this direction is, I believe, Denmark&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Flexicurity&amp;quot;. Firms can adapt to follow their needs; while workers can in general principle retain earnings while they retrain; while the state orchestrates availability of training (which itself can be a big industry sector). No doubt not perfect for anyone, but the general idea sounds solid.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>makeitdouble</author><text>Well put.&lt;p&gt;To note, luddites&amp;#x27; issues were not just losing their job. Let&amp;#x27;s remember that the earlier machines were very crude, safety was absolutely not in their design, and a worker life&amp;#x27;s also didn&amp;#x27;t have much weight. So, the early days of machine assisted production were in inhumane conditions, people losing limbs, kids getting killed in them (less skills needed also meant kid labour was a viable option) etc.&lt;p&gt;So yes, regulation on how the machines work, how much they get introduced, how the workers are impacted, trial periods to see the impacts etc. should help a lot in all respects. The difficult part being that those all mean putting breaks on profit making.</text></comment>