The worst part is whenever bringing up such points others are often quick to dismiss them as wacky "conspiracy theories" or even just unfounded pessimism about the state of things as they are today. Merely bringing up comparisons of certain observations about society today to those of Nazi Germany (or other reprehensible regimes throughout history) risks getting oneself cancelled or targeted in other ways. "How dare you compare the horrors of World War II with the relative ease of things today! It's nowhere near as bad today as it was back then!", cry the detractors. And they may be right about that in some sense, but those who don't learn from history and apply its lessons to the present are doomed to repeat certain mistakes, or at least to make history rhyme, as the saying goes. The chilling effect caused by the stifling of open discussion about how things are today and where they could risk going wrong in the future is how we all end up sleepwalking into the well-known horrors of the past that we'd otherwise all wish to avoid.

We can thank Snowden for giving us a pretty good example of what has gone wrong and how conspiracy theories cannot all be dismissed - all the more effective, probably, because of the discontinuity it represented in this slow "boiling the frog" business.

We can at least sense that the potential is there for technology to become something horrible and oppressive - either on its own, or underlying some kind of oppressive government.

We don't have to know the exact form it will take. We should oppose all the forms that tech can become oppressive.

Well, the 20th century gave us a lot of examples already...

But are you seriously rejecting the post-WW2 paradigm where tech was made sacred and engineers and scientists were turned into its high priests ?

I know some people like that, but I wouldn't have expected to see them on hacker news !

History is full of groups opposed to technological progress. Perhaps the most famous being the Luddites who are now the namesake of a word that signifies someone who is opposed to technological advancement. How do you differentiate your senses now compared to what they sensed back then? As it turns out, they were incredibly wrong and the amount of suffering has reduced as a direct consequence of technology. Technology has also made us more aware of human suffering but we should be careful to adjust for information available. The truth is that, since WWII, the quality of life has increased tremendously due to technology.

> History is full of groups opposed to technological progress.

That is a disingenuous comment or you gravely misunderstand the issues.

There are almost no groups ever in history "opposed to technological progress", even the "Luddites" that inevitably will get mention a dozen times in this thread.

Nobody is opposed to technological progress. The opposition is to technological tyranny. I do hope you understand the difference between the two.

> There are almost no groups ever in history "opposed to technological progress", even the "Luddites"

I would agree that the Luddites were not opposed to all technological progress, just the part that impacted their jobs. But this type of reasoning leads to the tragedy of the commons where each group refuses technology that replaces themselves. The end result is no technological progress. Anyway, "technological tyranny" is poorly defined and people just pick whatever they deem wrong as tyranny and whatever is good as a non-issue. We are under rule of the internet. Without it, society would cease to function. Are people opposed to the internet tyranny? We require a functioning society to have advanced health care, regardless of socialism/capitalism, are we under "advanced health care tyranny" because it is being used to push people into a functioning society?

You make some astute and fair comments but this one just jumped out at me as terrifyingly wrong

> "We are under rule of the internet."

Good Lord! No! If we are "under the rule" of anything it is the Rule of Law. In Britain, unlike USA, we are "subjects of Her Majesty", such that the Law is mediated through a parliamentary democracy. You have it slightly different under a republic. Either way, despite general cynicism we are lucky enough to enjoy governments that serve us, and long may that last.

The internet is nothing but a tool. It damn well serves us. And it does so if and only if we ask it to. Your's is precisely the sort of expressions that gives me concern, please reconsider what you are saying.

I'm confused because you are the one who said that they were opposed to technological tyranny. Like, somehow how factories were controlling their lives/agency as another commenter puts it. I am the one that is saying that technology is but a tool (which we agree?). I was just extending this nebulous definition of "technology running our lives" to mean "technological tyranny" which I prefaced was ill-defined and took it to its absurd logical limit that we were being "controlled" by other technologies.

They were not, in fact, opposed to progress that impacted their jobs. They were opposed to elimination of their agency. Very, very different.

Destroying equipment was a tactic, not an ideology. The worst that can honestly be said about it is that it didn't work.

In response to your deeper comment.

> I'm confused because you are the one who said that they were opposed to technological tyranny.

Yes, sorry if my lazy parsing (overzealous response) means we're talking at cross purposes. I think we are more in agreement than not.

If there's anything we are confusing each other over it may be "what already is" versus "what we want to avoid".

respects

You should look into what the luddites were actually doing and why. There's definitely a lesson there but not the one you think.

Anyway yes, as I said. Dismiss excuse invalidate. I will truly be happy if I turn out to be wrong about this. Where will you be if you are wrong?

They were angry because factories could produce their crafts more cheaply and then they could not find a job (in their choice of craft) because the factories had reduced the demand for those jobs. So they burned down factories in order to protect their jobs. The same sentiment has been rediscovered every technological shift. Refrigeration, computation, internet, etc. Last time I checked, no one feels bad for all those iceberg harvesters that used to bring ice cubes to millionaires in the Southern US who no longer work. We are too busy enjoying our iced teas I suppose.

> Where will you be if you are wrong?

You do not know my stance on the matter. You presume, because I responded inquiring into how your senses were different, that I was not on your side. But I would most likely be in a little cabin in the mountains. I have quit Meta for the past 6 years, have de-Googled myself (in so much that you cannot really what others do), and generally agree that many technologies are more harmful to society than help. Particularly, what people call surveillance capitalism. That being said, I recognize that it is not the underlying technology that is problematic but the institutions and decision makers. If you read the article, they are recreating the exact widening of the gap between themselves and the people under the guise that they know better (since the have the data, they made it, only they understand the tech, etc.) I would never advocate for the destruction of the internet to prevent these institutions but rather educate and elucidate my peers to narrow this gap. I asked you to help close this gap by telling me what you see and your response was "you're the problem for even asking".

They were angry because said factories took away their livlihoods, and that of their children as well. And because there was no social net in place to soften the decline in demand for their trades.