The classical cultural example is the Luddites, a social movement that failed so utterly that its name because a common metaphor for stubborn morons who are terrified of technological innovation that helps everybody. Deservedly so, to be clear…

Wow. I know every day in the US features some prominent individuals proudly demonstrating their ignorance of history, but this one still got me.

1. The Luddites didn’t oppose “technological innovation that helps everybody”. They opposed the new social order that came with this innovation — one that saw widespread poverty and starvation, extreme concentration of wealth, and entire generations of children maimed by machines or burned to death while locked in unsafe factories.
2. They didn’t fail. They were so powerful that knitting frames were declared property of the crown and destroying one became a capital offense (i.e. public execution). They laid the groundwork for modern workplace regulations — ones that we all benefit from today.

Edit:

Omfg

Technology changes things, and sometimes it hurts people in the short-term, but every invention from fire to mRNA vaccines has wound up generally increasing human welfare.

Looking only at one side of the balance sheet are we, moron?

These things come with costs. When you gain the ability to make fire, you also gain the ability to burn yourself to death. When you invent electricity, you also invent electrocution. Nuclear reactors can melt down.

There is a reason we don’t use radium paint, leaded paint, asbestos, CFCs, and leaded gasoline anymore. (We’re headed there with PFAS, too, I hope.) It’s not because we hate progress or that these didn’t do anything useful. They were too dangerous.

What a fucking braindead blob.

I always like to start my articles with a humble brag too lol. smh.

Who puts this shit up here?

I legitimately feel like I am going insane when I hear AI technologists talk about the technology. They’re supposed to market it. But they’re instead saying that it is going to leave me a poor, jobless wretch, a member of the “permanent underclass,” as the meme on Twitter goes.

I wish I could be this naïve.