David Schultz's latest AppleLust editorial addresses Luddism, and takes the unconventional approach of beginning by quoting a paragraph from Theodore Kaczynski's Unabomber Manifesto. I have also personally discovered upon reading some of that manifesto that I agree with Kaczynski on many points, although revolted at his method of pressing his case. He writes in the passage cited by Dave:

"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries."

Kaczynski is not unique in these views.Bill Joy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, in a Wired magazine S.A. earlier this year, warned that wildly self-replicating robots, more intelligent than humans and capable of exploiting new discoveries in genetics and and technology, could ultimately make people technologically obsolete. "We are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil," Joy wrote. "The last chance to assert control -- the fail-safe point -- is rapidly approaching."

Vancouver based futurist Frank Ogden predicts that technology will result in the end of democracy, which will be replaced by "benign dictatorships," and that the world will become increasingly polarized between what he calls the "knows" and "know nots," rather than materialistically defined haves and have-nots.

Edward Cornish, founder of the World Future Society, based in Bethesda, Md., suggests that seduced by virtual realities, "we may become poorly integrated electronic hermits, unable to work well together because we no longer play together," and even worse, "people may lose the ability to think rationally and make wise decisions."

More prosaically, but immediately quantifiable, is the effect technology is having on the health of users.

A study released this week by Dr. Mark Tremblay of the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy in Fredericton, New Brunswick, found that obesity nearly tripled for boys over a 15-year span and more than doubled for girls, and refers to today's children as "the first full Nintendo generation."

Although poor diets of snacks and fatty fast foods cntribute to the problem, physical inactivity -- abetted by television remote controls, computers and video games like Nintendo's GameBoy and Sony's PlayStation -- is at the core of the rising obesity rates, the study concluded.

A report on The Register yesterday by Lucy Sherriff says that research shows that "children spending prolonged amounts of time on computers are putting their health at risk," and that " thousands of children have already developed medical problems associated with operating computers."

Sheriff cites Australian researcher Dr. Leon Straker, speaking on the BBC saying we could be on the threshold of a global disaster. "This is the first generation of children who have used computers from early childhood while their muscles and bones are developing. If we don't get knowledge quickly about how to use computers safely, then I think we will see a lot of children disabled from using computers."

Then there's the radiation issue. Last week, the Walt Disney Co. announced that it will stop licensing its cartoon characters for cell phones. "Because the well-being of our customers is our priority, we have decided to discontinue the licensing of our characters for use on cellular telephones until there is reliable scientific evidence establishing the absence of any such risk," said John Singh, spokesman for Disney Consumer Products, quoted by ABC News. The reasons cited for Disney's decision can be found here:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/Primetime_001123_cellphones_feature.htm

Getting back to the Mac Web, Dave Schultz's essay was inspired by the debate over whether OS X skeptics are "Reactionary Luddites" or not, as asserted by our colleague Bryan Chaffin at MacObserver.

Incidentally, the original Luddites were followers of Ned Lud, a working class hero of sorts who inspired a grassroots movement opposing the Industrial Revolution in 18th century England. The Luddites would raid factories and mills, smashing machinery. However, Dave asserts that the philosophical roots of Luddism reach all the way back to 3rd century BC Greece, and that Socrates may have been the first Luddite.

Dave declaims, and I agree, that "the term does not obviously apply to the debates about OS X in which we are finding it, and will find it. To use the term in such debates is to take not only OS X much too seriously, but one's self as well."

Luddism, says Dave Schultz "was directed against Enlightenment Rationalism and Mechanism, in which man's Reason, when applied to Nature, gave him more control over it through technological development. Luddism as a philosophy says that in the end this will dehumanize humanity." Much as the futurists I cited above do.

Now, this next point of Dave's is very important:

"Luddism, as a doctrine, is not against technology per se. They are against any technology they are against because it is an expressions of a world view they reject. They are against dehumanizing technology not all technology. Some even claim that only after one has been tutored by Nature he can use technology. He can use it, but he must use it wisely and view it in perspective. They worry about over-dependence on technology, deification of technology, and false progress. The 18th century Luddites did not attack all technology, and modern Luddites still flush the toilet, after all... Luddites are not against progress, but against certain kinds of progress, namely, progress which makes us less than human."

Luddism, in a nutshell, is a philosophical rejection of the 18th Century Enlightenment notion of Nature as a machine, and human beings as cogs in that machine. Under that definition, I, philosophically an anti-Enlightenment pre-modernist, am proud to call myself a Luddite.

You can find Dave Schultz's excellent article at:
http://www.applelust.com/HTML/Articles/Editorials/html/Archives/luddite01.shtml

Charles W. Moore

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