I think we are going to see the rise of neoluddism in our politics in the nest 5-10 years.
Discussion
*next
I’ve been saying this for over an year now. if I may:
https://open.substack.com/pub/sutor/p/e-que-venham-os-pos-ludistas
Will read. I don't think the luddism will come from the elites. I think it will form in populist movements.
Political correctness is embarrassing when Pete derails to avoid head on collisions.
I don’t see the correctness to oblige anywhere, buddy. Do you?
I think they are luddites in all economic classes
Yes. But my point is, they will form a broad political power base.
Also I feel people who oppose bitcoin hard are luddites in some sense. (Might be a stretch 🤷♂️)
Probably a minority fit into that category today. Most misunderstand it. Many misunderstand it for good reasons. Even though the FTX collapse has nothing to do with bitcoin, it's easy for me to empathize with why people who don't have much time in the day to go deep into understanding everything, might see bitcoin as merely tulips.
I see some people in these parts getting mad at such people and/or dismissing them as idiots. We probably shouldn't do that.
exactly my point. the canadian truckers, to begin with, who were against mrna tech.
The human brain evolved over millions of years to adapt to an environment is no longer lives in. The idea it's simply going to acquiesce into techno-utopia, short of genetic engineering or some kind of invasive external manipulation is not something I'd place bets on.
But oh no Mike, our sense of time is as old as life itself, and disrupting it has some interesting effects and fallout, but does teach us something.
Then I don’t know nothing about the law having been charged with destroying innocent lives now with all that blow not being destroyed.
sir, I basically wrote your exact words, almost ipsi literis. they won’t. and not only due to adaptation, but also religion or simply fear. ofc, there’ll be the ones who can barely wait for singularity or whatever, but sarah o’connor is on her way. I made sure to use “post” and not “neo” cause there was already a neoluddism movement on 60’s, guided by ted unabomber. it’s gonna be way worse now, it’s global not local as the two previous.
welp, I gotta go now. thanks in advance for your reading. gn!
Yeah. I mean, I hope I'm wrong. Who doesn't want to live in utopia? I want that for my kids and myself. But all the knowledge of accumulated on human nature and human group dynamics points me towards believing there's quite a bit of trouble ahead, socially and politically.
It's one of the reasons thoroughly unconvinced by books like the Sovereign Individual and more recently, Balaji's Network State.
These frameworks for future society are built atop axioms and assumptions of the human condition that I do not believe map onto reality.
Do you think those axioms also break the appeal of bitcoin
Rather, that the now broken and currently breaking assumptions also take with them bitcoin
No. I think Bitcoin can and will be successful. But it's not going to shape the world into an anarcho-capitalist utopia like many think, where society has brushed off all non-voluntary power structures. That's a political fairy tale.
💯
This is assuming the luddites (and I usually think they will also be socialist as well to resist resource centralization toward the winners of AI) are a minority, not the voting majority, right?
I wouldn't use the term "socialist", since that involves implications for economic production modes. But I think the vast majority of people have some degree of innate collectivist impulse. I think libertarians and anarchists are incorrect in believing the default human impulse is more closer to egoism.
The mere existence of populist movements, and their tendency to rise, both in democratic and non-democratic contexts, would appear to represent a significant empirical challenge to any assumption to the contrary.
I think both are quite reconcilable, actually, egoistic impulse and collective impulse, as even collective feelings can manifest themselves in different ways in individuals. crowds are capable of committing atrocities that the individual alone would not be capable of. it's the difference between the quantum leap that takes place in a football stadium and the one that takes place between the four walls of a room on a shrooms trip. furthermore, I think it’s really far from being socialist indeed. It seems that socialism has already been co-opted by those in power, see Lenin's bust in Klaus Schwab's office, while today's populist masses are leaning more to the right, or rather, to an organic and non-partisan self-organization.
#[4] you ok?
yeah, these utopian futures are either too idealized or too catastrophic. although I’d bet on the latter, if I have to choose with a gun to my head, I still think the former is remotely possible if there is a decent urban exodus and we go back to small communities, to tribes — as we’re essentially tribal. smart cities are doomed to fail, imho. sooner or later, the illusion of harmony would fall to the ground. balaji's network state, for example. let's consider nostr itself. for now, a harmonious community, zapathons and hug marathons. until when? how long till it becomes a new twitter? either we close the citadel gates or barbarians take over.
The AIs need to move faster than that
Definitely. Possibly selective luddism where they choose to embrace one form of tech but not another. Much like the Amish do now.
I can def see a resurgence in Trad(families, church, Mayberry-type culture). The Quakers/Menonites use technology for business only, not recreation. I advocate this.
Damn, I was hoping we would really start to embrace our degenerate hedonistic true selves.
Absolutely
I won't lie that I had to look up what neoluddism, but I'm okay with it as long as I can have a career as mentat.
Don’t we have a roadmap for this already?
Internet, steam engine, printing press etc etc. new tech changes things. People resist, the new generation embraces it. The world is forever changed by the microwave.
5-10 years seems like the exact right timeframe for the articles about how X new thing is actually bad / dangerous.
I'm not sure past technological epochs can be held up on an apples-to-apples basis, here.
This time it is different 😁
I think information technology and AI really is different than the steam engine, in terms of its cultural and social purchase.
I am sympathetic to the arguments that these things will not necessarily cause mass-unemployment, and will instead push us up the productivity curve. But that's not my core worry. My core worry is how these things interact with human nature in a fundamental way.
There's already evidence that social media has increased political polarization and radicalization on two ends of the spectrum. Nobody predicted the incentives would play out that way. In fact, there was quite a bit of optimism in the late oughts that these technologies would be emancipatory, lead to higher-brow conversations, and create a universal truth layer.
The fact we are even here, trying to redesign these interactions from the ground up, is testament to that.
Why?
Do you believe it will be driven by fear? By the false idealization of the “good old days”? It’s still a relatively small portion of the population, so what will be the flashpoint that will drive it into national politics? AI, lose of employment, economic instability?
Fear. But also a senses of identity and community.
Fear, that’s just your better knowing trying to tell you something.
So, the charismatic populist will tap into the fear of those who have been disadvantaged by technology and will build a political movement around the tenets of the neo- Luddite philosophy.
The risk of that happening is certainly not zero.
I think you’re saying the risk is higher with the more disruptive / capable AI becomes. Yeah. When I imagine the worst case scenario I feel that Luddite pull myself
Yes, I can see what you mean. I was asking, because I haven’t really thought about this and appreciate your thoughts on the subject.
And your worry would be that the pendulum would swing too far, and a large portion of the population would resist the advancement of our society and our ability to tap into the “good” technology to make our lives safer and more productive, thereby putting us all at risk?
I think the risk that this will be challenged through a totalitarian impulse is very high. And I think we are sleepwalking towards these problems.
I don't suspect we will see these crises in the less than 5 year time horizon, though.
It’s a very interesting thesis. Thank you for sharing. I’ve never looked at these communities through this lens and in the context of the ramifications of AI and economic displacement. I can definitely see how the scenarios you have laid could occur. One being, the forced assimilation of the Luddite’s to the dictums of the technological “utopia”, making a large group of individuals vulnerable to the dictates of a charismatic populist offering easy solutions and salvation.
There is historical precedent for this. The Industrial Revolution led to the rise of communism and labor organization and revolts around the world.
Yes. The settling of the American prairies and the nomadic horse tribes of North America being another.
What do you fear more, Technological tyranny or a populist neo-Luddite resistance? Or is it the conflict between the two that is more concerning?
We should have a healthy fear for all of these things, I think.
Yes. I find myself now checking my own presumptions, as I tend to sympathize and connect to the neo-Luddite as result of who I am, where I come from, and how I was raised. I see how I would be susceptible to that narrative. I’ve got a healthy fear of technology, but I have never considered it from the other side. 🙏💜.
What is this?