I'm at the Ned Ludd point where I'm viscerally disgusted by people who share 20-years-younger-me's wide-eyed optimism about "the digital revolution" and all that shit How can you not see that the people most empowered by the "digital revolution" are the worst people in the world
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I'm speaking about the purest form of Luddism, from the original Ned Ludd, which has nothing to do with culture and aesthetics and theories about human well-being and psychology and all that Black Mirror shit It's about money What has the Internet done but destroy jobs
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It destroys jobs and destroys jobs and destroys jobs and then like adds back 2% of the jobs it destroyed, which are all in San Francisco for smug techbro white dudes with connections who all deserve to have their asses kicked
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It tricks you into thinking it didn't destroy jobs by giving you fake "jobs" that are just demeaning e-begging gig economy bullshit where you hustle and grind and self-market and brand-build and never actually get paid any actual money
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All the efficiency and convenience gained by our digitally interconnected world? "Inefficiency" is *somebody's job* That middleman that got disintermediated represents thousands of families now desperate to put food on the table
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"But that's not the *Internet*, that's *capitalism* If we lived in a world where people weren't dependent on bullshit jobs to make a living, then 'destroying jobs' would just provide greater freedom and leisure for everyone, and make life better"
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Yes, the Internet wouldn't be bad if capitalism didn't exist And if human beings didn't need oxygen to breathe, coronavirus wouldn't hurt anyone -- hell, maybe in our completely-different biology it would actually be a healing salve that made you feel awesome and happy
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I guess it's not coronavirus' fault, right, and we shouldn't be mad at it, it's only a non-sentient piece of RNA the way the Internet is just a bunch of machines Tell that to Ned Ludd and his wrecking crew
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The Luddites didn't actually believe automatic looms were "evil", that they were possessed by demons or something, that they were "accursed" or "unnatural" the way people stereotype them now They're just tools bosses use to fuck you over And they're within reach to smash
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"But Luddism is always by definition a doomed movement, you can't just wipe technology from existence once it's known, and if you did the disruption that caused would just be further suffering" Okay does that mean I'm not allowed to be mad
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You can't actually do anything to wipe out coronavirus once it's in your body either, short of killing yourself by cutting out your own lungs Does that mean looking for any way to slow or mitigate it is a waste of time
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Anyway I'm actively anti-digitization on this defiant personal level Anything that has NOT been saved in an archivable format is a tiny droplet of spit in the face of the prevailing winds No, you do not have permission to record and upload this talk
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I have a longhand notebook of writing that will never, ever come near any kind of scanner or hard drive I don't save photos to the cloud I've given as much of myself to the Machine as I care to and I think what benefits I've willingly hoarded have not been nearly worth the cost
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Anyway, this is why I am fiercely defensive of "obsolete dinosaur industries" As Sondheim said, everybody rise for the dinosaurs surviving the crunch
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Any "traditional" economic enterprise deserves your ardent defense whenever they come up against the voracious swirling vortex of the Technological Singularity Traditional factories, traditional media, traditional education, traditional publishing
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Traditional taxicabs, traditional hotels, traditional public transit Do not let them "disrupt" and "revolutionize" anything, do not let them "drag something into the 21st century" without kicking and screaming AS HARD AS YOU FUCKING CAN
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A lot of this shit doesn't seem important, and ALL of these old institutions are run by horrible assholes Who the fuck thought ANYONE would ever have ANY reason to go to bat for big-city yellow cab companies run by the Mafia? But Travis Kalanick is immeasurably worse
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Trust me, you would rather have ordinary human villains than the Singularity You would rather fight with some shitty asshole publishing executive from Macmillan than Jeff Bezos and his algorithms The future is a trap and must be delayed as long as humanly possible
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End of conversation
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