[extropy-chat] Popular Luddism

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com> wrote:
> True enough, but when science makes one's life
> personally easier, it
> is not called science anymore. It becomes something
> so embedded in the
> texture of everyday life that you take it for
> granted without thinking
> twice

> If only everyone would see this.

The point was about why people don't see this, and
what we can possibly do about it.  Wishing doesn't
make bad stuff go away, neither for them nor for us.

I was talking to a historian who studied the original
Luddism.  One of the things he discovered was that
they actually targeted just the machines that replaced
laborers, not the ones that just made laborers' jobs
easier or more productive/efficient.  (It's a blurry
line, but it was drawn, according to the historian.)
And the sabotage was directed towards companies that
did not make alternate arrangements ("job placement
assistance", in the modern tongue) for their displaced
workers.

So, perhaps a slight restatement: it doesn't matter
what one calls it - "science", "everyday life", or
whatever.  What matters is its actual (not
theoretical, not planned, but street-level real)
effect on peoples' lives, especially their wallets and
labor allocations.  It is the case that almost anyone
today, even in the most disadvantaged background, can
learn and gain employment in some high-tech trade *if
they want to*.  The disadvantage is little more than
the fact that they *DON'T* want to - or, at least,
they don't think they do, even if it is the logical
conclusion of their desires (largely the same ones
most of us feel, relative to the self) - and the
factors that promote that decision.

How can we get so much of the world to stop wanting to
commit (economic/political/social/actual) suicide?