The Ned Ludd Society
for Technological Imagination*

*Why the name?

Luddites are often disparaged in the modern vernacular, as many assume they were afraid of technology, or averse to change.

The truth is more nuanced– the Luddites were skillful weavers who rose up against a class of factory owners who adopted automated knitting frames operated by low-paid, less-skilled workers. Luddites were not anti-machine; many incorporated machines in their work.

Rather, they targeted wide knitting frames ("gig mills") used to produce lower-quality goods with unskilled labor, and spared machines use in "fair shops" (places which paid decent wages and respected labor norms). They would generally warn factory owners of their intentions, and ofter them a chance to remediate their practices, before destroying the gig mills. They drew their name from Ned Ludd, a mythical English weaver said to have destroyed a knitting frame in a fit of rage—whether an act of labor resistance or just a particularly bad day, we'll never know.

The principal fight of the Luddites was against the use of technology to undermine the wages and working conditions of their class and those less skilled than them. They were defenders of their livelihoods, culture, and craft. And they were labor advocates, concerned about the societal externalities created by automation in the face of exploitative industrial capitalism.

The impetus for the creation of the Ned Ludd Society for Technological Imagination is anchored in a few founding principles:

1. Techno-determinism is anti-democratic → The arbiters of technology promote the idea that the cultural futures they actualize are inevitable. The truth is, most of the technology we interact with, and that in our future, is the consequence of millions of decisions, thousands of people, and billions of dollars in research and development. We must not forget the sacrifice of thousands of Kenyan workers now reckoning with PTSD to birth generative AI. Technology is, fundamentally, an expression of capitalism.
2. Craft is sacred – Our books, movies, and written culture idolize craft, and for good reason. But in the age of AI, craft is being systematically eroded, across every industry. In its stead is not the Keynesian fantasy of a 15-hour workweek but rather abstraction and alienation. Remarkably, the Luddites recognized this over 200 years ago. Their resistance was not to machines—but to the destruction of meaningful work.
3. We can imagine new possibilities → We can all take a more critical, reflective view of how technology mediates our lives. This might be a simple choice like deleting Instagram, or a more expensive lifestyle decision like buying a dumb-phone. Our Meetings and wider community serve as an extension for people considering such a journey, who would like to find a communal space to critique the production of tech companies, exchange writing about technology, and speculate about likely and alternative futures (thus, "Technological Imagination").

Related reading:
A Nod to Ned Ludd (The Baffler)
Rethinking the Luddites in the Age of A.I. (The New Yorker)
The AI jobs crisis is here, now (Substack)