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0 pointsthrowaway7299y ago0 comments

I think your examples are a bit hyper-bolic.

First, anti-innovation and anti-technology are two different things. Your parent seems to be referring to innovation in the tech innovation sense.

Second, opposing specific companies that market themselves as the epitome of innovation (Uber, AirBnB) is not the same as being genuinely anti-innovation. It's possible to oppose specific (esp. business model!!!) innovations without adopting an anti-innovation or anti-technology mindset.

I don't see anything particularly worrying about people opposing specific innovations -- especially innovations tied more to business innovation than technology innovation (e.g., human Ubers and AirBnB's). Municipalities opposed to sharing economy apps aren't blinding following some unsubstantiated populist sentiment. They typically have a different set of priorities and assessments, but it's not generally accurate to characterize those concerns as luddism.

Anti-technology is much scarier than and very different from opposition to "sharing economy" apps. Conflating to two cheapens the meaning of anti-technology and makes it harder to oppose true luddism.

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yummyfajitas9y ago

I don't think anyone, besides maybe a few extreme environmentalists, is opposed to technology in the abstract.

All luddism - including the original luddites - are opposed to specific technology that they believe harms them. The original luddites were manual weavers who were opposed to mechanical looms that did their job faster and better than they did. The modern luddites are lazy Marathi auto drivers who are opposed to Uber (or Biharis) outcompeting them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

throwaway729OP9y ago

> All luddism...

All luddism to date. The article and GP are predicting something new -- a generally anti-technology sentiment.

The post I replied to stated that such a sentiment is already here.

I don't think opposition to Uber or AirBnB demonstrates the sort of general anti-technology or anti-innovation sentiment predicted by the article.

It may very well be the case that this general sentiment arises out of a large confederation of people who have become obsolete for various reasons, who become generally anti-technology due to particular technologies ruining their lives. In fact, I grant you that this is the most probable scenario.

But that sort of confederation doesn't exist in today's world, and there's plenty of opposition to Uber/AirBnB that is not motivated by luddism. Lazy Marathi auto drivers may oppose Uber, but they aren't the only critics. In fact, it's not even clear to me that taxi drivers are the most populous critics of Uber.

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