jan 1, 1811 - Luddite protest

Description:

People use the word to describe someone who is forgetful and/or clumsy with technology. However, the original Luddites were never opposed to technology or inept at using it, nor was the technology they attached particularly new. Many were highly skilled machine operators in the textile industry. The Luddite disturbance started in the 19th century when British working families were experiencing economic upheaval and unemployment as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. Riots of protesters breaking machinery to demand better wages, but they weren’t extremely dangerous. As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines, but the Luddites themselves didn’t seem to have any problems with them. They only attacked manufacturers who used machines in a manner that helped them avoid standard labor practices, and were not run by workers who got decent wages. Their name comes from Ned Ludd, also known as Captain, General or King Ludd. The leader who inspired the protesters, which government agencies made finding him a consuming goal. He was also completely fake. A fiction created from an accident in Leicester, in which a young apprentice named Ludd or Ludham who was working at a stocking frame when a superior admonished him for knitting too loosely. The enraged apprentice grabbed a hammer and flattened the entire mechanism. The story eventually made its way to Nottingham, where protesters turned Ned Ludd into their symbolic leader, writing a letter signed as “Ned Ludd’s office”. The article mentions how these days, this would be impossible - technology is everywhere. You can't smash the internet or the cloud, technology isn't physical anymore.

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