And now they have bricked their computer.

I for one welcome our new Furbie Overlords.

Whew, I was worried that Andrew Wilson and company wouldn’t get bonuses this year. Thank god, all those plebs got fired. /s

Despite their modern reputation, the original Luddites were neither opposed to technology nor inept at using it. Many were highly skilled machine operators in the textile industry. Nor was the technology they attacked particularly new.

The Luddite disturbances started in circumstances at least superficially similar to our own. British working families at the start of the 19th century were enduring economic upheaval and widespread unemployment. A seemingly endless war against Napoleon’s France had brought “the hard pinch of poverty,” wrote Yorkshire historian Frank Peel, to homes “where it had hitherto been a stranger.” Food was scarce and rapidly becoming more costly. Then, on March 11, 1811, in Nottingham, a textile manufacturing center, British troops broke up a crowd of protesters demanding more work and better wages.

As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines. But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”

Luddites didn’t have issues with technology. The issue was how technology was being used to suppress wages and erode labor rights. A modern day Luddite would still have a phone and an email address they just wouldn’t use AI or social media.

Edit: Forgot the source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/

Did you know? If you leave dishes in the sink, they will magically be cleaned and put away the next day! I told by partner and then stared at me dumbfounded.

Please end it for me.

If I was locked in a room with Gollum, I wouldn’t be afraid.

I wish them both a long and costly litigation.

Tech bros just actively making the internet society worse for everyone.

FTFY.