What people forget about Luddites isn’t that they protest technology, it’s that they were protesting factory owners who used technology to create shoddy products while oppressing labor.
Editing to say: Whenever I hear someone say Luddites in a derogatory way, especially about #AI, I try to offer them links about this and am surprised when some people still take an anti-Luddites stance
As someone who loves tinkering with things and making things, I’m still excited by a lot of technology. There’s a clear philosophical and moral difference I sense from the people who are in this to make ads, surveillance, weapons, etc. The practices are the same but the products are not. Increasingly it’s getting harder to opt out of those outcomes and spaces.
All to say, I’ll probably play saxophone in a bar in ten years or something
I went hard analog on a couple of things recently. My vinyl record player. My film cameras.
I won’t make the argument they’re objectively ‘better’, but they are fun, and I feel there’s something about the format of interacting with a physical thing that changes the way I do something.
With my Yashica Mat 124G camera I look into it top down, and literally see the world in a square format in a different way
I develop my own film. Sometimes I make mistakes. I feel like the random scratches I had when I first started, feel as important to me as part of the story of why and how I made something. Even if I had a pixel perfect digital or AI generated photo, with perfect light, no blemishes, the whole experience feels more fun for me in the act of creating and discovering, not perfection
At the same time it’s important to acknowledge thsh the digital version of things did democratize access. Without my early digital cameras I would have wasted thousands of dollars of film money I didnt have. Maybe AI tools can help shape access to things early on, but I think if you’re into creating something it’ll be just one of many different medium to experiment with. Mine is analog (because I love the workflow). If I lived elsewhere it might not be (it’s $$$)
also if you love and understand some technology a lot of the stuff that passes for cutting edge consumer tech is kind of bad. (No need to reply guy enshittification to me)
I love the shape and feel of some of my 70 year old cameras, that so determine the way I work with them. I don’t feel the same about many recent cameras for example. They don’t even work without charging!
@skinnylatte The first time I used a camera and lens that had always and only been entirely manual (okay except for metering), I was shocked by how joyful it was, and what a completely different experience it is from a phone or a modern camera.
I don't even mean the latter is bad. I'm happy to have a device that will let me take rapid fire pictures of kids or pets or whatever. I'm not going to delight in operating it though.
@skinnylatte I very much resonate with this thread. As a career software developer having worked on several projects I either am morally at odds with or just don't care about I have felt the draw to more tangible hobbies and less corporate products. I am very tired of big tech and corporate greed.
I've also recently become determined to use my technical skills to do some good in the world. Trying very hard to angle myself for a future job in conservation, if possible. Ocean stuff, ideally...
@12thRITS@skinnylatte I think there was some (I'm positive I've heard of a Tom Lehrer recording on wire), but it wasn't that common. The home entertainment wire recorders were mostly used for people to entertain themselves. Those who wanted to be entertained bought discs.
@skinnylatte I go hard analogue on quite a few things myself. I play RPGs. I refuse to let a computer sully that experience (outside of sometimes using it for the rule book since getting rule books to China is prohibitively expensive). Physical table. Physical dice. Pencil and paper. Friends sharing the same physical space.
I use fountain pens for all my writing needs, eschewing even ballpoint, and I even sometimes use dip pens in anger. And I play woodwinds, not electronic instruments.
@skinnylatte what the people behind AI don't seem to understand is that the physical process of creating is an integral part of creation and shapes the art we make and our end result, by intent and very importantly by accident--it's a material process as well as an abstract one (having the idea). Most makers understand this but AI is based on thinking about art as product/widgets (and not in a self aware Warhol way) because the people making it are factory owners not weavers.
@fifilamoura@skinnylatte As someone who still uses dip pens for writing sometimes, I agree with this entirely.
Sure more modern pens (like fountain pens) are more convenient for just writing non-stop, but a dip pen forces a rhythm to the writing with a little physical ritual of dipping, writing, and blotting that gives you little bursts of time to think while you're writing.
It literally changes the outcome because of the medium, despite it being superficially the same activity: handwriting.
@erynofwales yeah so telling people about it is also important! But some people I know who think ‘damned Luddites’ will still think that’s not pro-capital enough.
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