X-Message-Number: 929
Subject: Luddites vs. Techies
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 09:34:53 -0400
From: 

Charles Platt <> says:

   In short, the techies are vastly 
   outnumbered by latter-day Luddites for whom technology is 
   frightening and unpleasant. These people are not going to 
   disappear; in fact they will increase in number (as a result 
   of the deteriorating educational system) and they may rise up 
   in revolt if technology becomes even *more* frightening and 
   unpleasant for them than it is already. 

... and they'll lose the revolt because they'll be fighting against
the frightening and unpleasant technology.

The relationship between the Techies and the Luddites is going to be
similar to the relationship between European Settlers and American
Indians (and then, later on, to the relationship between humans and
birds).  One way or another the property rights of the Luddites will
erode.

If our society continues as it is now, the property taxes for the
Luddites would depend on what a Techie could do with the land, so
they'll get evicted from their land, and eventually from their bodies.

If, instead, our society becomes some sort of libertarian tax-free
utopia, everyone will have to buy police protection, and the Luddites
will either be taken over by Techie criminals or they'll have to sell
themselves to Techie police to keep the criminals away.  

Another option would be to put the Luddites on a reservation; in that
case the Techie politicians will have an incentive to repeatedly
shrink the reservations.  This is the same as the previous scenario,
except the politicians are playing the role of the criminals.

You see, there has been a force in human societies that tends to cause
equality: nearly everyone has a perceptual and motor apparatus that
works about the same, and these have some market value.  Hence just
about everyone can at least get a job as some sort of unskilled
laborer with a tolerable salary.  When technology makes it possible to
do better than the natural equipment for less money, the unskilled and
unaugmented majority will have nowhere to go.

I have to admit this isn't a pretty version of the future.  Does
anyone see a way out?  If there isn't a way out, then what does that
tell us about the social policy we should have in our society now, and
what actions we as individuals should take now?

Assuming that we want to preserve the property rights of the Luddites,
we might want to start designing law-enforcement features into our
technology ASAP.  This wouldn't work because current laws don't
enforce property rights; the most likely scenario is property tax
escalation followed by eviction.  Even without tax considerations,
this is only a stopgap measure because eventually the Techie criminals
will make their own technology.

The view from the inside of a Luddite reservation as it collapses
would make an interesting novel, though.

Tim

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