#neoluddite

Wasn’t expecting Doctor Who to do an episode with an anti-automation spin, given its usual love of all things techno-utopian. As something of a Neoluddite, I found myself really agreeing with the initial message up until the last section, when we discovered the twist.

On that note, the only thing I DIDN’T like about this episode was THAT DAMN TWIST, where we discovered that instead of it actually being the machines malfunctioning, it was actually all down to Charlie, who in this context was some kind of future space Unabomber. Seriously, the cultural thoughts surrounding sensible moderation of technology are already contaminated by that very real idiot who thought it’d be a good idea to blow actual people up, we didn’t need yet another fictional copycat. I was hoping it’d be, like, war of the AIs or something, with the core AI of the server having become disconnected from some of the robots due to an accidental malfunction. Then the episode could have been a proper anti-automation aesop.

The warehouse, as basically über-Amazon, looks like it sucks to work in even more than actual Amazon currently allegedly does, and if I had to work there I would have almost certainly got as frustrated as the Doctor did just as quickly. If the techno-utopians get their way, and climate change and associated resource depletion issues don’t halt the advancement of technology, this is our future, people! A world where only 10% of people have a job, and those had to be mandated by law, because everything became automatable. Intellectual jobs are no safer than manual labour jobs, once AI advances enough. Unless we can get the political will to introduce universal basic income or something similar, we as a society need to halt the advancement of automation in order to actually have jobs left for people to do. When the lorries drive themselves, AI diagnoses patients, tax calculations and even detailed advice can all be automated when a single person inputs the data, factories need a team of no more than 3 people to check none of the robots are broken, what will be left for people to do? Robot programmer? With sufficiently advanced AI, even that will be automated. All remaining jobs that pay actual money will be incredibly boring, and people will be lucky to have one of those.

I did think the bubble-wrap thing was pretty ingenious - I wasn’t expecting it at all. Poor Kira! She was so sweet. And poor Dan, who was clearly kind and hard-working and whose daughter will miss him greatly.

The mystery plotline was well done, I thought, which is to say that I consistently failed to predict how the episode would turn out from the part that I’d already seen, so that’s good.

I’m glad the two executives are going to return the company to majority people rather than robots at the end. I hope that goes well for them, and I hope they learned some lessons about how to treat their workers, too.

So, uh, yeah, apparently I had a lot to say on the politics of this episode. It’s true that I’m definitely quite anti-technology for this generation. I often deliberately “forget” to charge my smartphone, and only use it to contact people when I’m already travelling to their house to say “I’m nearly there” or whatever. I refuse to even consider getting a smart watch, even though I run regularly, instead using my analogue watch. If it wasn’t for Doctor Who, and I lived by myself instead of other people, I wouldn’t bother having a TV. I love languages and I hope nobody invents a proper Babel fish. Unfortunately the internet has drawn me in with its addictive tendencies, but I like to try doing things the low-tech way every so often, just to prove I can. And as for VR: I wouldn’t use a realistic VR even if I could, because all it will do is cause people to forget about the wonders in the real world. 

We don’t have to do everything by hand, of course. There is a place for tools which genuinely make our lives better, without taking away what it means to be human. But every technology has its downside to consider, and if everything is done automatically, the world will feel like a much poorer place. 

This morning, my brother (who is very failingly homeschooled) was making a powerpoint presentation for class on the Industrial Revolution. The past few days have been pretty tumultuous in my household, and I've been under a lot of stress. I had just sat down for morning "me-time" with my coffee when I overheard him giving attitude to my mother, who was attempting to coach him and teach him the negative impacts of the Jacquard Loom.

HISTORY LESSON! The Jacquard Loom was a mechanical loom invented in the late 1800s which was a highlight of the Industrial Revolution. It became something of a basis of criticism during the time, as many of the most gruesome and horrible labour side effects happening related to them. They became a soapbox to stand on and a conversational point for any who were against the ways the factories were run.

During this time (the Industrial Revolution, that is), a group of people rose up and would become known as the Luddites. Led by the ideals of a man name Ludd, these were mostly skilled labourers who were upset about being put out of work by technology. They protested and destroyed said technology, until the government did something about them. The Neo-Luddite movement is a more modern approach to this idea, which basically blames technology for everything wrong in the world. Now, I will state, again as a failsafe, that I use this term loosely, as it is still associated with the destruction of property, even the assassination of certain key figureheads, and I am wholeheartedly against this and other forms of violent protest.

BACK TO TODAY. I attempted to ignore my brother's sighing and rolling of the eyes while my mother told him of the factory conditions and made him look up Wiki articles on fires and technology. Said mother, however, caught me wincing and doing breathing exercises to keep myself from exploding. She asked me what was wrong. Now, I have distanced myself from trying to teach my brother things, as in my opinion he's a selfish, ungrateful little shit who can't relate to anyone or anything, but she was asking with sincerity and patience. So I turned to them and requested to help illustrate her point better.

By the end of my rant, I realised my voice had risen to fever pitches and was booming loud enough to fill the house, my mother was standing stock-still staring at me, and my brother's eyebrows were touching his hairline. Calmly, feeling better about myself after decrying factories as a whole over the past two centuries, I sighed, turned back to my coffee, and began to think.

My brother's article came out marvellously. I think I illustrated my point. What bothered me, as it sometimes does, is how far I've come from the nearly-dramatic Neo-Luddism phase my sister and I went through in middle and high school. Late in our eighth grade year, we began a shift away from technology, which became more and more comprehensive as the years went by. We would not touch a computer, turned our backs on televisions, made our own quill and ink and took non-factory made paper, specially purchased, to school to take notes on. We would not wear clothing which was not created by our own hands or the hands of friends, used candles instead of overhead lighting, wrote letters rather than make phone calls. Three years this process took over our lives, until the switch of thinking occurred, and we stepped back as if from another world. It was incredible. Three years without technology, and one realises exactly how different the world is with it. We were not up on popular culture, we had slipped so far behind in progression of technology that we had to be taught how to use it again, we had to relearn how to speak and how to move and how think and how to live. It was remarkable, and its effects persist to this day.

Senior year of high school made me, personally, realise exactly how impossible it is, in this day and age, to survive, communicate, live, and work without the use of modern technology. One of my brothers helped us shift back into use of it, and I have become almost dependent on the internet and this complex piece of technology resting across my knees. I am grateful for what it has brought me, and I can realise a few benefits of modern invention. But I still decry the loss of skilled labourers, still count myself among the few who, should we lose technology tomorrow, would be able to not only survive but thrive in a world without it.

To this day my sister would rather climb forty flights of stairs than use an elevator. She digs out her old skirts and mends them in her spare time. Using a phone or computer is practically painful for her, and she felt "dirty" doing so when she was in a long-distance relationship.

Except for my friends, I would prefer a life without technology. I am still a firm believer that the type of advanced technology and machinery which exploded in use during the Industrial Revolution and after is the biggest and worst thing to happen to human society as a whole. I can still argue this point vehemently, and often do so with close friends if it is brought up. I am still terrible at keeping up with and understanding pop culture, and will at various times have to admit (although I have a very strict policy of 'know thy enemy' when it comes to said technology and machinery) that I am in fact somewhat technologically impaired. People are shocked. This is the reason why that trait persists.

On the computer across the room, my brother is finishing his presentation on the negative and positive impacts of the Industrial Revolution. In the room behind me, my mother rests in her bed with a portable DVD player in her own lap, enjoying an art form that would not exist without modern technology. And here I sit, a closet Luddite of the non-vehement kind (wow that's rather odd to write out, what does that mean, Drake?), about to post an essay on the subject of technophobia on a piece of advanced technology.

It is the twenty-first century. Cars buzz by outside. A horse would be impractical. A laptop sits in my lap. Handwritten letters would be ignored. Before me spreads an entire world, connected by radio signals and electrical impulses, reachable with my fingertips

It is the twenty-first century.