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Is it OK To Be A Luddite? (a 1984 essay from Thomas Pynchon)

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html

I thought this Pynchon essay was fantastic and more relevant than ever in our current moment of Artificial "Intelligence" mania and ever-increasing fascistic consolidation.

Assian_Candor [comrade/them] - 4day

Every time I read Pynchon I feel too stupid to read Pynchon

By 1945, the factory system - which, more than any piece of machinery, was the real and major result of the Industrial Revolution - had been extended to include the Manhattan Project, the German long-range rocket program and the death camps, such as Auschwitz. It has taken no major gift of prophecy to see how these three curves of development might plausibly converge, and before too long. Since Hiroshima, we have watched nuclear weapons multiply out of control, and delivery systems acquire, for global purposes, unlimited range and accuracy. An unblinking acceptance of a holocaust running to seven- and eight-figure body counts has become - among those who, particularly since 1980, have been guiding our military policies - conventional wisdom.

...

THE word ''Luddite'' continues to be applied with contempt to anyone with doubts about technology, especially the nuclear kind. Luddites today are no longer faced with human factory owners and vulnerable machines. As well-known President and unintentional Luddite D. D. Eisenhower prophesied when he left office, there is now a permanent power establishment of admirals, generals and corporate CEO's, up against whom us average poor bastards are completely outclassed, although Ike didn't put it quite that way. We are all supposed to keep tranquil and allow it to go on, even though, because of the data revolution, it becomes every day less possible to fool any of the people any of the time. If our world survives, the next great challenge to watch out for will come - you heard it here first - when the curves of research and development in artificial intelligence, molecular biology and robotics all converge. Oboy. It will be amazing and unpredictable, and even the biggest of brass, let us devoutly hope, are going to be caught flat-footed. It is certainly something for all good Luddites to look forward to if, God willing, we should live so long.

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HiImThomasPynchon [des/pair, it/its] - 4day

Every time I read Pynchon I feel too stupid to read Pynchon

I'm just happy you're reading

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10TH_OF_SEPTEMBER_CALL [any, any] - 4day

I honestly think more and more people will escape the rat race and live a tech-free or low-tech lifestyle.

Take crypto or AIs. They are not bad technologies. But they're leveraged by capitalism to ruin everything.

Hopefully one day I'll become a ganja farmer

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Moidialectica [he/him, comrade/them] - 4day

Why does everyone want to go to Azerbaijan?

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10TH_OF_SEPTEMBER_CALL [any, any] - 3day

i dont know about the others but me i wanted to go through the caucasus because there was a boat from bulgaria and i wanted to see what was on the other side of the black sea

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Enjoyer_of_Games [comrade/them, he/him] - 5day

1984 the year Luddism broke

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HiImThomasPynchon [des/pair, it/its] - 4day

Labor History With Thomas Pynchon

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