How does cutting off a Waymo help with any of that?

The feeling of dominance over machines may be saving that coworker the expense and hassle of another visit to a therapist.

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BoorishBears 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the important part was telling their coworker ironically: now here we are recognizing their movement

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theamk 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Your general luddite argument - preserve way-of-life of the small group at the expense of a larger group.

In this particular case: for many people, Waymo provides a better service (clean, safer driving, etc..) than Uber or Lyft. This threatens livelihood of human Uber/Lyft drivers. If you sympathize with human Uber/Lyft drivers, and don't care about Waymo users, you want to make Waymo worse, hoping that the people will stop riding Waymo and move to Lyft/Uber instead.

One way to do so is to make riding in Waymo unpleasant, and it's certainly unpleasant when people are cutting your car off all the time!

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Throaway1982 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is such a bad characterization of the Luddite cause, and it's not even close to what they stood for or why they were spurred to action. Please do a bit of actual educating yourself on the Luddites.

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theamk 4 days ago | parent [-]

If you think someone is wrong, and want to help them realize what the truth is, I recommend (1) actually explaining where they are wrong and (2) saying what the right thing is. Just saying "This is all wrong you should do a bit of actual educating", without stating any facts will never convince anyone.

That said, I don't really see how is it wrong?

- New technologies provided better service for general public, so people chose those - this seems to be true. In case of luddites, we are talking about dramatic price decreases in fabric (and by extension, clothes) - at least 2x, much more in some cases. A family who could not afford new clothes could suddenly buy them. And sure, they might have been worse quality - but before, they were unaffordable.

- The same technologies threatened way-of-life of old producers - also true. The textile workers got significantly worse deal. Who wants to pay 180d/lb to artisans for hand-made textile, when you could get factory-made for 12d/lb? And factory working conditions were horrible.

- The "solution" was to stop new technologies, so that there rest of the nation do not get the benefits. This also seems true - for a lot of the luddites goals were destruction of machines. As [1] said, "The workers hoped their raids would deter employers from installing expensive machinery". They wanted to go back to the time time where people were paying 180d/lb for fabric. Sure, it'd mean a kid would freeze to death because their poor family could not afford new coat, but it did not matter as long as artisan croppers keep getting paid.

(Things would have been quite different if luddites instead said: "we are going to destroy machines until we get higher wages / better conditions / etc...", and it seems that a few groups did say that. But majority did not say this, instead lashing out at all the machines in general)

[0] https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/cost-quality-and-the-effici...

[1] https://www.history.com/articles/who-were-the-luddites

	▲	Throaway1982 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The Luddites destroyed machines because industrialization destroyed the only living wage they could have. There was no recourse for them other than accepting an even worse quality of life. Neither of your links say anything about cheap textiles stopping people from freezing to death. The Luddites' concerns could easily have been addressed by factory owners while still offering cheaper fabrics. Neither of your links ALSO say that the majority of Luddite groups did as you say in destroying machinery without a goal in mind. The fact is that the Luddites were reacting against extremely unfair labour conditions, not progress. What you have said here is 100% untrue.

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clort 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If you are sitting in a waymo vehicle, and somebody cuts you off - do you even notice? They don't have them round here but my idea is that the vehicle itself is doing all the work, you can just continue reading your book, chat or get on something else with little awareness of the actual journey. Does the waymo curse and shake its little fist to alert you it was cut off?

	▲	onionisafruit 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I rode with Waymo a few times and was always aware of the traffic around us. No telling if that would last once the novelty wore off.