'Social Inflation'

I want to introduce a concept I'll call "social inflation", defined as 'the gradual thinning of the interpersonal resources of a society'. I imagine that the field of sociology has some language for this, but let's pretend I'm coming up with something new.

Economic inflation is something we are long familiar with, as it is just assumed that everything has to always get more expensive as 'standards of living' (for the wealthy) must perpetually increase (not wages, though). Social inflation, however, is impossible to define quantitatively. Leading up to times of turmoil there is a creeping breakdown of relationships that can snap suddenly, a socio-economic depression, to the point that our civil institutions can no longer function. Globally, we may be entering a socio-economic depression that will drastically reshape our states and institutions.

I believe that social and economic inflation, essentially the drawdown of resources that support our civic institutions, is driven by technological grifting and worker exploitation. #Luddite platforms simultaneously address workers rights and techno-scams. The foundation of #Luddism, to me, is addressing these two intertwining factors, by rejecting the hyper-technological 'growth' used to justify the 'trickle down' approach to economics that exploits workers and destroys the planet. #usPol #SolarPunk #Sociology #PoliticalScience

people are banging on endlessly about the #luddites but i dont see much emphasis on the mass character of their movement

it was a class-based social movement built from below which used direct action to achieve its goals. they struggled for reforms and defended the use of violence

#luddism is less about individual life choices and more about joining and organising in social movements to create a real social force to transform society

if #luddism is so cool then why is joining your local grassroots workplace/tenant union, solidarity network or neighbourhood mutual aid group so uncommon?

engaging (in whatever way you can) in concrete political practice is crucial if we want the legacy of #luddism to mean more than the romantic idea of hitting something with a large hammer

Fuck the Cult of Productivity

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/fuck-the-cult-of-productivity/
https://ellyloel.com/bookmarks/fuck-the-cult-of-productivity/

Heres why I think #bigtech is so scared. They've given us 20 years of products that simply replaced existing products, and the result is far worse. For the most part, outside the cell phone, they havent actually given us anything new. Their products supposedly were cheaper and faster. The first benefit was an outright lie - always was - and faster is certainly debatable at this point and its only getting worse. They sure as hell arent safer: think about the number of scams we now have to avoid. Add in the minor detail of their supporting the creation of a totalitarian state. But dont worry, their new device is 3% faster and uses 'AI' to generate emojis. Also you have to add 5 new subscriptions to make it functional and they will brick it in four years. 'Check out the new phone: comes with fascism pre-installed'.

BigTech keeps pumping heroin into our veins hoping that we never sober up. But the thing is, their heroin is losing its potency. The public sees straight through 'AI', the ultimate grift. They are in a race against time to replace as many of us with 'AI' before enough of us realize how shit this version of reality is. Once you get used to avoiding netflix, spotify, amazon, google, facebook, apple, microsoft, you lose the drive to try them again because the alternatives are entirely workable and dont come with the massive downsides. These companies have strong armed our entire economy into funneling everything through them. BigTech is scared because alternatives exist, and have always existed, and once the public goes back, its going to be much harder to sell us on technological grift a second time. Our economy is far more vulnerable now with it adoption. Now, whatever benefit we may have had through their advancements has been traded in for the loss of rights and dignity, on top of economic collapse. #SolarPunk #Luddism #uspol

[en] #Luddite: anti-progress fanatics, a popular misconception

"... original ... Luddites weren’t against #technology. "

"... wrest back control of technology for #democratic ends ... kind of "#digital #Luddism" which echoes past struggles against high-tech #injustice."

"... systemic change towards #sustainable, #transparent and #usercontrolled infrastructure."

https://theconversation.com/digital-luddites-are-rising-they-want-to-democratise-tech-not-destroy-it-251155

I'm Tired of Pretending Tech is Making the World Better

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/im-tired-of-pretending-tech-is-making-the-world-better/
https://ellyloel.com/bookmarks/i-m-tired-of-pretending-tech-is-making-the-world-better/

Am nächsten Donnerstag halte ich einen Vortrag über "Die Ethische Nutzung von Gen AI" bei der @JUG_DA
https://www.jug-da.de/2025/02/Barrierefreiheit-und-Ethik-in-GenAI/
#genai #luddism #ethics #darmstadt

"Luddism was a working-class movement opposed to the political consequences of industrial capitalism. The Luddites wanted technology to be deployed in ways that made work more humane and gave workers more autonomy. The bosses, on the other hand, wanted to drive down costs and increase productivity."
https://theconversation.com/im-a-luddite-you-should-be-one-too-163172
#luddism #anticapitalism

Do you want to feed your family and not live in poverty?

Welcome to the club. You're a Luddite.

"The Luddites were not “anti-technology.” They were skilled craft workers who believed that the new machinery being deployed by factory owners would impoverish, disempower, and immiserate them. They were right. They didn’t want “zero technology,” they wanted to feed their families."

#luddite #luddism #justice

https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/why-the-luddites-matter/

I got the opportunity to talk about #Luddism and Open Source at @fluconf and had a great time with also great questions afterward that made me realize the actual point I should have made (will write about that later)

https://tante.cc/2025/02/06/a-luddite-criticism-of-open-source-at-fluconf/

“A Luddite Criticism of Open Source” at FluConf

On February 1st I had the privilege of getting to speak at the first Fluconf about Open Source and why that whole movement might not do as much good for as as we might want it to. It’s not that Open Source is “bad” but that it is sometimes presented as a solution to sociopolitical issues it is not capable (nor even trying) to fix.

The talk description was:

“People interested in Fluconf will also be interested in Open Source or to be more precise Free/Libre Open Source Software. Everyone has been using Open Source for many years but many from this community have shifted to trying to run their personal infrastructures on non-proprietary pieces of software and some even hardware.

This is already an important shift towards freeing ourselves and each other from corporate dominance but is it really doing enough? Are our licenses protecting the values we actually care about?

Coming from a luddite background I want to dive into a a bit of a critical reading of the values that we use codified mostly as licenses: Are they really enough? Which aspects are they missing and why? And what are the consequences of those omissions?

I’ll try to end up looking at mechanisms of integrating luddist principles in software projects. Can they offer additional safeguards?

This sessions doesn’t claim to have all the answers. But hopefully some good questions and a few ideas of where to go.”

I embedded a copy of the video on Youtube but you can also watch it on Archive.org for less tracking and everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ew_MlA5HbA

Welp, glad I moved away from #Fedora last year.

"One big item on our list for the year is looking at ways Fedora Workstation can make use of artificial intelligence. ... This includes making sure Fedora Workstation users have access to great tools like RamaLama, that we make sure setting up accelerated AI inside Toolbx is simple, that we offer a good Code Assistant based on Granite and that we come up with other cool integration points."

https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2025/02/03/looking-ahead-at-2025-and-fedora-workstation-and-jobs-on-offer/

As a tech skeptic one thing that has been really troubling me since I learned about it, is how anti-tech ideologies are manifesting on the far-right in the United States, as they simultaneously align with big tech.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-james-pogue.html?unlocked_article_code=1.tk4.QBCa.jitojkULFAXt&smid=url-share

It strikes me that it's important to analyze who critics of technology are arguing for. When they say "We" or "Us" who does it include, and who does it exclude? Who does it benefit?

Just some thoughts after @tante's @fluconf talk about #luddism today.

**Generative AI and the (Re)turn to Luddism**
#ai #GenAI #luddites #luddism

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439884.2025.2452199#d1e604

So-called #AI is what the French thinker André Gorz would've called a 'locking technology' because it is locks us, chains us to a certain path. One coming with ever increasing demands for power, resources and data. It also disempowers workers and is so opaque it escapes democratic control and accountability.
What we need is more open technologies that help us communicate and cooperate instead.
#Tech #Technology #ClimateCrisis #ClimateDiary #Luddism

Hi Fedi, I'm looking for book/paper recommendations about #luddism and #luddites that go in-depth into the historical context. Bonus points if that context includes stuff about textile industry and technologies (esp textile quality, level of skill required to do sth before and after machine invention, tradeoffs btwn efficiency and quality and so forth)