Download or read book Blood in the Machine written by Brian Merchant and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The most important book to read about the AI boom" (Wired): The "gripping" (New Yorker) true story of the first time machines came for human jobs—and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today Named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, Wired, and the Financial Times • A Next Big Idea Book Club "Must-Read" The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods. The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees. Today, technology imperils millions of jobs, robots are crowding factory floors, and artificial intelligence will soon pervade every aspect of our economy. How will this change the way we live? And what can we do about it? The answers lie in Blood in the Machine. Brian Merchant intertwines a lucid examination of our current age with the story of the Luddites, showing how automation changed our world—and is shaping our future.
Download or read book Writings of the Luddites written by Kevin Binfield and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As mechanization spread through the British cloth industries in the early nineteenth century, skilled textile workers, already suffering because of a generally weak economy, high unemployment, and the weakening of traditional guides, saw their wages and jobs erode further. Earlier efforts to block the introduction of powered machinery through legislation had failed, and in 1811 loosely organized bands of workers, striking most often by night - first in the Midlands, then in Yorkshire and Northwestern England - began destroying the new knitting frames and other equipment. Claiming as their leader the probably mythical Ned Ludd, they became known as Luddites. Although best known for violent action, the Luddite movement also produced a considerable body of writing, from threatening letters, to petitions and proclamations, to poems and songs. In this book, literary scholar Kevin Binfield collects a broad range of complete texts written by Luddites or their sympathizers from 1811 to 1816, adding detailed notes on each and organizing them according to the three major regions of Luddite activity." "To introduce the volume Binfield provides a historical overview of the Luddites, then examines more closely their rhetorical strategies while illuminating the literary contexts of their writings. Ranging from judicious to bloodthirsty in tone, the texts reveal a fascination with legal forms of address and an acute awareness of the recent political revolutions in France and America, and reflect also the more personal forms of Romantic literature. As Adrian Randall of the University of Birmingham concludes in his foreword, this collection of diverse, carefully presented texts clearly demonstrates the significance of Luddite writings within the movement and serves as an important reference for scholars of rhetoric and of the history of labor, technology, and society." --Book Jacket.
Download or read book Breaking Things at Work written by Gavin Mueller and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Nineteenth-century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. For years the Luddites roamed the English countryside, practicing drills and manoeuvres that they would later deploy on unsuspecting machines. The movement has been derided by scholars as a backwards-looking and ultimately ineffectual effort to stem the march of history; for Gavin Mueller, the movement gets at the heart of the antagonistic relationship between all workers, including us today, and the so-called progressive gains secured by new technologies. The luddites weren't primitive and they are still a force, however unconsciously, in the workplaces of the twenty-first century world. Breaking Things at Work is an innovative rethinking of labour and machines, leaping from textile mills to algorithms, from existentially threatened knife cutters of rural Germany to surveillance-evading truckers driving across the continental United States. Mueller argues that the future stability and empowerment of working-class movements will depend on subverting these technologies and preventing their spread wherever possible. The task is intimidating, but the seeds of this resistance are already present in the neo-Luddite efforts of hackers, pirates, and dark web users who are challenging surveillance and control, often through older systems of communication technology.
Download or read book Against Technology written by Steven E. Jones and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the question of what it might mean today to be a Luddite--that is, to take a stand against technology. Steven Jones here explains the history of the Luddites, British textile works who, from around 1811, proclaimed themselves followers of "Ned Ludd" and smashed machinery they saw as threatening their trade. Against Technology is not a history of the Luddites, but a history of an idea: how the activities of a group of British workers in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire came to stand for a global anti-technology philosophy, and how an anonymous collective movement came to be identified with an individualistic personal conviction. Angry textile workers in the early nineteenth century became romantic symbols of a desire for a simple life--certainly not the original goal of the actions for which they became famous. Against Technology is, in other words, a book about representations, about the image and the myth of the Luddites and how that myth was transformed over time into modern neo-Luddism.
Download or read book Improper Names written by Marco Deseriis and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improper Names offers a genealogy and theory of the “improper name,” which author Marco Deseriis defines as the adoption of the same pseudonym by organized collectives, affinity groups, and individual authors. Although such names are often invented to pursue a specific social or political agenda, they are soon appropriated for different and sometimes diverging purposes. This book examines the tension arising from struggles for control of a pseudonym’s symbolic power. Deseriis provides five fascinating and widely varying case studies. Ned Ludd was the legendary and eponymous leader of the English Luddites, textile workers who threatened the destruction of industrial machinery and then advanced a variety of economic and political demands. Alan Smithee—an alias coined by Hollywood film directors in 1969 in order to disown films that were recut by producers—became a contested signature and was therefore no longer effective to signal prevarication to Hollywood insiders. Monty Cantsin was an “open pop star” created by U.S. and Canadian artists in the late 1970s to critique bourgeois notions of authorship, but its communal character was compromised by excessive identification with individual users of the name. The Italian media activists calling themselves Luther Blissett, aware of the Cantsin experience, implemented measures to prevent individuals from assuming the alias, which was used to author media pranks, sell apocryphal manuscripts to publishers, fabricate artists and artworks, and author best-selling novels. The longest chapter here is devoted to the contemporary “hacktivist” group known as Anonymous, which protests censorship and restricted access to information and information technologies. After delving into a rich philosophical debate on community among those who have nothing in common, the book concludes with a reflection on how the politics of improper names affects present-day anticapitalist social movements such as Occupy and 15-M.
Download or read book The Luddites written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-05-19 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Between the 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain experienced massive leaps in technological, scientific, and economical advancement. This powerful period has since been immortalized as the great Industrial Revolution, during which Britain became a formidable force that boasted unmatched economical growth, drastic changes in living conditions, and even the emergence of a neglected social class. Vast portions of rural lands were transformed into interconnected, complex, and multitasking cities. Dozens of innovative inventions and products were churned out in bulk and sold to the masses for the first time ever. Some of the greatest thinkers and creators ventured forth from the shadows. Scientists, engineers, merchants, and manufacturers alike were at the height of their prime, nurtured by a culture that embraced the vision of growth, progress, and industrial unity. The Industrial Revolution saw Britain rise to the top and become the envy of the world's most prestigious nations. At the same time, the pivotal era was far from perfect, featuring a dark underbelly and an army of unsung heroes. It was American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler who once called technology "the great growing engine of change." The 18th century German linguist Johann Gottfried von Herder was another proponent of enlightenment and technological progress. "Nothing in Nature stands still," said von Herder. "Everything strives and moves forward." One would be hard-pressed to find anyone today that would disagree with these sentiments. Those whose opinions suggest otherwise are often thoughtlessly dismissed, and those who hold them ridiculed as tin-foil-hat sporting paranoids or pretentious "hipsters." But what happens when the very instruments meant to help people begin to put lives at stake? Meet the Luddites, a 19th century brotherhood of rebels who vowed to annihilate every last one of the newfangled spinning machines that cost thousands their jobs. The Luddites' riots are indefensible, at least from the standpoint of violence, but they beg the question of whether the protests were nonsensical acts of rage carried out by thugs who sought to exploit imagined fears or desperate measures taken by those who felt neglected by the government. The Luddites: The History and Legacy of the English Rebels Who Protested against Advanced Machinery during the Industrial Revolution chronicles the revolution and the negative reaction to it. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Luddites like never before.
Download or read book Profit and Prejudice written by Paul Donovan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-05 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Avoiding prejudice will be critical to economic success in the fourth industrial revolution. It is not the new and innovative technology that will matter in the next decade, but what we do with it. Using technology properly, with diverse decision making, is the difference between success and failure in a changing world. This will require putting the right person in the right job at the right time. Prejudice stops that happening. Profit and Prejudice takes us through the relationship between economic success and prejudice in labour markets. It starts with the major changes that occur in periods of economic upheaval. These changes tend to be unpopular and complex – and complexity encourages people to turn to the simplistic arguments of ‘scapegoat economics’ and prejudice. Some of the changes of the fourth industrial revolution will help fight prejudice, but some will make it far worse. The more prejudice there is, the harder it will be for companies and countries to profit from the changes ahead. Profit is not the main argument against prejudice, but can certainly help fight it. This book tells a story of the damage that prejudice can do. Using economics without jargon, students, investors and the public will be able to follow the narrative and see how prejudice can be opposed. Prejudice is bad for business and the economy. Profit and Prejudice explains why.
Download or read book Against the Machine written by Nicols Fox and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the cars we drive to the instant messages we receive, from debate about genetically modified foods to astonishing strides in cloning, robotics, and nanotechnology, it would be hard to deny technology's powerful grip on our lives. To stop and ask whether this digitized, implanted reality is quite what we had in mind when we opted for progress, or to ask if we might not be creating more problems than we solve, is likely to peg us as hopelessly backward or suspiciously eccentric. Yet not only questioning, but challenging technology turns out to have a long and noble history. In this timely and incisive work, Nicols Fox examines contemporary resistance to technology and places it in a surprising historical context. She brilliantly illuminates the rich but oftentimes unrecognized literary and philosophical tradition that has existed for nearly two centuries, since the first Luddites—the ""machine breaking"" followers of the mythical Ned Ludd—lifted their sledgehammers in protest against the Industrial Revolution. Tracing that current of thought through some of the great minds of the 19th and 20th centuries—William Blake, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Graves, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and many others—Fox demonstrates that modern protests against consumptive lifestyles and misgivings about the relentless march of mechanization are part of a fascinating hidden history. She shows as well that the Luddite tradition can yield important insights into how we might reshape both technology and modern life so that human, community, and environmental values take precedence over the demands of the machine. In Against the Machine, Nicols Fox writes with compelling immediacy—bringing a new dimension and depth to the debate over what technology means, both now and for our future.
Download or read book Rebels Against the Future written by Kirkpatrick Sale and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first technology backlash was in 1811, when the Luddites fought to preserve their jobs by wrecking the machines that were to replace them. Their story inspires a new Luddite spirit in response to 20th-century technological advances, calling for an intellectually and ethically sound protest.
Download or read book Before the Luddites written by Adrian Randall and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-06-03 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the early Industrial Revolution in the English woollen cloth making industry.
Download or read book The Luddites written by Malcolm I. Thomis and published by Ashgate Publishing. This book was released on 1993 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work aims to place Luddism within the context of machine-breaking as a long-established practice of industrial relations, and to assess its role within the many movements of social protest that were occurring in this period. The causes, aims and organization of Luddism are examined.
Download or read book The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home written by Ken Albala and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home is not about extreme, off-the-grid living. It’s for city and suburban dwellers with day jobs: people who love to cook, love fresh natural ingredients, and old techniques for preservation; people who like doing things themselves with a needle and thread, garden hoe, or manual saw. Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger Henderson spread the spirit of antiquated self-sufficiency throughout the household. They offer projects that are decidedly unplugged and a little daring, including: * Home building projects like rooftop food dehydrators and wood-burning ovens * Homemaking essentials, from sewing and quilting to rug braiding and soap making * The wonders of grain: making croissants by hand, sprouting grains, and baking bread * Adventures with meat: pickled pig’s feet, homemade liverwurst, and celery-cured salami Intended for industrious cooks and crafters who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves, The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home will teach you the history and how-to on projects for every facet of your home, all without the electric toys that take away from the experience of making things by hand.
Download or read book The Two Cultures written by C. P. Snow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-26 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of science and technology and future of education and research are just some of the subjects discussed here.
Download or read book The Unsettlers written by Mark Sundeen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles Times The radical search for the simple life in today’s America. On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they've purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically. A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of these new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for -- or create -- a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.
Download or read book The Rising of the Luddites written by Frank Peel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1968. Frank Peel’s The Risings of the Luddites went through at least three stages before it arrived at the present form. It commenced as a series of articles in the Heckmondwike Herald and Liver sedge Weekly Courier, running from 25th January to 6th August 1878.These were reprinted, with some re-arrangement and additions, in book-form in 1880.
Download or read book The Battle Against the Luddites written by Paul L Dawson and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2023-09-30 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the columns of French infantry marched up the slopes of the Mont St Jean at Waterloo, the British heavy cavalry, the Royal Scots Greys to the fore, crashed into the packed ranks of the enemy. This was not the first time the Greys had drawn their swords during the Napoleonic Wars – but it was their first against Napoleon’s troops. Three years earlier they had attacked workers in Halifax protesting at the introduction of machinery in the wool trade. Taking their name from Ned Ludd, who had smashed up knitting frames in Nottingham, the Luddites saw the emergence of mechanization as a threat to their livelihood, with machines replacing men. In response they took matters into their own hands by wrecking the new equipment. Industrial unrest had gathered pace throughout the 18th century and exploded in an unpresented wave of violence in 1799. Outbreaks of machine-breaking developed rapidly into strikes in a battle of capital against labor. A court battle ensued, culminating in new legislation in 1806 that backed the capitalists. This act, coupled with the impact of the Continental system introduced by Napoleon, which closed European and American ports to British merchants, heralded the largest economic depression of the era. Famine, pestilence and rising employment all fueled the fires of Luddism. Months of violence swept across the West Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire which saw one factory boss murdered; other factory owners began shooting protesting workers. The disturbances resulted in the mobilizing of thousands of regular soldiers – at one time there were as many British soldiers fighting the Luddites than there were fighting Napoleon on the Iberian Peninsula. As well as exploring these events, Paul L. Dawson also uncovers the origins of Luddism and their allies in the middle classes. The Napoleonic Wars marked the end of centuries old way of life in agriculture, textile production and the wider economy. The dramatic changes in Britain between 1790 and 1815 created a unique set of social grievances by those left behind by the unprecedented changes that were surging through the Britain which exploded into bitter fighting across large swathes of the country. With present day concerns over computerization replacing labor, this is a story that echoes down the centuries.
Download or read book The Risings of the Luddites Chartists Plug drawers written by Frank Peel and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
