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How to smash the looms today - I've always loved tech. Now, I'm a Luddite. You should be one, too. (www.stltoday.com)

submitted 10 months ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/workreform@lemmy.world

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I test drove the first-generation Tesla Roadster. I once lived on Soylent powder shakes for a month. My Twitter account is almost old enough to drive. I wrote a book about the iPhone.

Also, I'm a Luddite. That's not the contradiction that it might sound like. The original Luddites did not hate technology. Most were skilled machine operators. In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, what they objected to were the specific ways that tech was being used to undermine their status, upend their communities and destroy their livelihoods. So they took sledgehammers to the mechanized looms used to exploit them.

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[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

This is uniquely naïve to a frankly disturbing degree. Your work is actively going to kill people across the developed world when they fall out of the workforce with zero replacement jobs nor opportunities.

Huh. Sounds like a good argument for a UBI.

[+] Kasumi@lemmy.world -8 points 10 months ago

[deleted]

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't pretend to know the future. Things can change radically or things can stay the same for decades. I see no reason to assume anything. I am not optimistic, but I am not going to stop fighting just because of that.

I wasn't optimistic about stopping the war in Iraq. I still marched against it. I wasn't optimistic in SCOTUS not ending Roe v. Wade. I still marched against it.

Maybe you don't see the point of fighting even when change isn't likely, but making a mark on history is worth something.

Remember this man? He knew he was not going to win. He did it anyway.

[-] unfreeradical@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

But are you so naïve to think that will ever happen in the near future?

No one is committing to a firm prediction.

The objectives for workers to pursue are, on the broadest level, quite apparent.

If workers fail to recognize the objectives, and of the necessity for direct and coordinated action toward achieving them, then they will fail to stop elites from consuming and eventually depleting the resources and populations of the planet, for their own hubris and greed.

In such a case, there is no doubt elites will not stop themselves.

this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023

155 points (91.0% liked)

Work Reform

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

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All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.

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Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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