WEBVTT - TechStuff x Part-Time Genius: Redefining ‘Luddite’ w/ Brian Merchant 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.680 Thanks for tune into Tech Stuff. If you don't recognize 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:05.440 my voice, my name is Oz Valoshin, and I'm here 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.639 because the inimitable Jonathan Strickland has passed a baton to 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:12.160 Cara Price and myself to host Tech Stuff. The show 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.040 will remain your home for all things tech, and all 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.360 the old episodes will remain available in this feed. Thanks 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:18.880 for listening. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:21.160 Guess what, Oz? 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:22.320 What's that? Man? Gush? 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:23.639 Well, I am. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.120 Super excited to do this crossover episode with you, but 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:28.200 before we get. 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.240 Started, maybe we should tell everyone what's. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:31.360 Going on here one hundred percent. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.519 So we are both podcast hosts. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.720 I do part time Genius, a ridiculous general knowledge show 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.760 that tackles some of the world's most important questions. I'd 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.000 have to say things like what's the story behind dogs 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:47.200 playing poker? Why does Liechtenstein export so many false teeth? 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.159 And you are the brand new co host of Tech Stuff. 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.200 It is a wildly popular show about the latest technology 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.840 and what it says about us as humans. But I 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:57.920 feel like we should let people in on a little secret. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.960 We are also busy partners. A few years ago we 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.840 founded the company behind both our shows, which is called Kaleidoscope. 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:07.560 That's right. 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:12.080 We spend an awful lot of time together, but never 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.759 recording a podcast together until now, which is kind of crazy. 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:16.000 That is true. 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.840 So today we're producing a little bit of a network 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.480 effect where we're doing a crossover between two Kaleidoscope shows, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.119 part Time Genius and tech stuff. 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:25.560 Yeah. I'm so excited about this. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.000 And you know, we were having I think it was 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.080 burgers and drinks with our palkate and she came up 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:34.479 with a perfect topic for us both, which is luddites. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.039 So what do you know about luddites. 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.760 I don't know a lot about luddites. I know, I 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.080 hear that word all the time, and I associate it 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:47.520 with England in the past and today with people who 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.560 are kind of branded as technophobes. 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:50.080 Yeah. 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.120 I mean, I feel like we refer to my mom 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.000 as a Luddite a lot and half for a while, 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.080 because you know when she told my dad like, oh, 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.000 I need to check my email, and what that meant 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.440 was he had to go into her email print out 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:03.520 a stack of email. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:05.480 Print it. I love it. 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.080 That's that's real Bussif story, and that's the Atco vibes. 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:09.639 I love it. 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.200 She is kind of the CEO or family. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.360 But uh, you know, so, I feel like most people 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.160 probably think ludite means anti tech or being against adopting 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.000 new technologies, but weirdly, that couldn't be further from the 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.200 historical truth. So the best description is that the Luddites 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:33.000 were a worker's rights movement and these guys were your countrymen, specifically. 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:33.680 As your countrymen. 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.640 So they loosely formed in the early eighteen hundreds in 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.720 northern towns and villages in England. And at the time 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.320 the wool and textile trade was the most important industry 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:44.760 in Britain. 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:46.440 It employed almost. 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.760 A million people, which is remarkable, right, and and textile 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.760 weavers were the largest single group of workers in the 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:57.040 country for over a century. People were really well employed, 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.840 and some of them even worked from home. And something 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.839 cropped up called the gig mill, And this is where 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:04.800 things get icy, right. 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:06.920 The gig mill was a wooden. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.079 Machine that napped up the wool or the cotton into 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.480 a softened fabric, and these mills started cropping up with 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.280 remarkable pace. So basically, entrepreneurs use these mills to build 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.560 factories and put hundreds of thousands of workers out of work. 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.079 They brought in unpaid child labor, and they pushed families 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:26.320 to the brink of starvation. 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.760 Well, I am having an association here, which is a 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:34.200 William Blake poem and also Britain's most famous him Jerusalem, 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:39.040 which the choruses, And did those feet in ancient times 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.160 walk upon England's mountains green? And did the countenance shine 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.920 forth upon these dark satanic mills? 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.880 Dark satanic mills, dark satanic mills. 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.240 Yeah, William Blake took up his pen, but I think 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.040 others took up more aggressive mesitch forks. 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.880 Yes, yeah, so you're exactly right. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.080 Like the workers or organized and bands of dozens of 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.960 them would go out at night. They covered their faces 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.240 with coal or with mass and they were armed with 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.640 blacksmith hammers, and they'd actually break the machines right and weirdly, 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.920 each group leader went by the same name, General Lud. 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:20.680 Now the attacks were often prefaced with a note or 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:22.240 a letter pinned to the door of the mill with 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.640 a warning, if you do not pull down your frames, 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.960 my company will visit and destroy them, signed Ned Lud. 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.360 So this is the we are anonymous, we are legion 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:33.440 of the nineteenth century. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:38.320 Completely who was Ned Lud though, so ned Lud was 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.760 not a real person. He was a fictional character based 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.640 on a myth about an apprentice who smashed his boss's 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.200 device and then fled to Sherwood Forest, which I'm sure 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.640 most of our listeners know from Robinhood. It's the wooded 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.279 area where all those merry men took refuge, and it's 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.440 not a coincidence that ned Lud was also set to 0:04:55.480 --> 0:05:00.840 reside there, considering the spirit of you know, righteous rebelliousness. Anyway, 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.960 the movement grew pretty quickly, and before long there were 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.560 about fifty machines a week that were getting destroyed, and 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.120 the raids definitely got bigger and weirder as they went along. 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.000 So many of these Ludites would pull stockings over their 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.560 faces during the night raids. One account talked about a 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.320 dude wearing a bloody mask made from a calf skin 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.000 to disguise himself. Some of the Ludites wore costumes, and 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.800 a few of the largest bands were led by men 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.800 in drag who called themselves General Lud's wife. 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:30.920 Isn't that incredible? 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:31.920 Incredible? 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.240 So there are in fact famous illustrations from the time 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.279 of Ludite leader's in dress with factories burning in their background. 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.240 Supposedly it was an homage to the women who had 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.000 also lost their jobs of yarn spinning to automation, so 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.440 it was kind of in solidarity with them. Anyway, words 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.640 spread about the machine breakers and their cause became really 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.320 really popular. As you can imagine, basically everyone knew who 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.640 was involved, and sometimes these raids even began occurring in 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:05.080 full daylight, but no one talked, like the villagers did 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:05.839 not snitch. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.920 Wow, that's amazing. So it was like almost like an 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:10.200 open secret who was involved. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.320 Yeah, but they were still pretty cautious. So the Luddites 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.200 had all these codes and handshakes to protect themselves. Like 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.320 if you were going to a meeting at a local pub, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.560 there was a process, right, So first you'd make eye 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.479 contact with a Luddite guard who was posted across the room. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:26.640 Then you'd make a coded hand gesture. 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.560 The guard would sort of keep a straight face, keep 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.360 their cool, they might even look bored, take a drink, 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:36.200 but then they would suddenly return the gesture. And then 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.520 you'd actually head into the back, maybe up a narrow 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.919 staircase to a smaller room, and then you'd have to 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:45.159 say a password, and the password was win work, So 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.240 you'd say that to a guard and then finally you'd 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:48.359 get into the secret meeting. 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.479 That's incredible. So it's almost like a Masonic vibe as well. 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.919 But what I mean how they looked upon by the 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.480 broader British society and how much damage did they do? 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.520 I mean they did a lot of damage. Account from 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.640 the time. This is from the Leeds Mercury. It reported 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.360 that since the commencement of the Luddite system in Nottingham, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.640 forty two lace frames and five hundred and forty four 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.600 plain silk and cotton stalking frames have been destroyed and 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.000 that amount to about thirteen four hundred pounds in eighteen 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.360 eleven prices or about sixteen million dollars today. 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:23.080 Wow. 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.400 Well, no wonder they were catching Peel's attention. 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.520 Yeah, So the Luodites in the early nineteenth century weren't 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.280 so much anti technology as really they wanted a humane 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:35.840 adaptation of technology, and that's I think where some of 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:37.000 this distinction comes in. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.720 Well, I'm definitely fascinated by everything you're saying, mangsh But 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.240 I guess if we really want to dig into the 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.440 understanding of the Luddite movement, there's someone we should talk 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.680 to Brian Merchant, who wrote an incredible four hundred page 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.880 book about it. It's called Blood in the Machine, The 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:56.760 Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech, and lucky for us, 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:58.440 we managed to get him on the line to talk 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.160 about it. Let's dive in. I know, Manga Shonn'm very 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.520 excited to talk about the book, not in the Machine, 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.160 But maybe a good place to start would be why 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.880 did you decide to spend so much time writing a 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:11.680 four hundred page book about the Luddites. 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.160 Yeah, there's a couple different answers to that, and the 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.200 first is that I had sort of spent a long 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.800 time as a tech journalist. So you hear it the 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.040 term lutite, it's this derogatory term, and I had just 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.840 kind of integrated this term ledite. Oh, someone who hates technology, 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.800 someone who gets angry when they have to use a 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.200 new technology, make them want to smash their phone, or 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.400 you know, just against progress. And so the minute that 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:41.000 it became clear to me that that was in no 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.520 way the truth, sort of like all of my you know, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.360 journalistic instincts kicked in and there's nothing that a journalist 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.760 likes to do more than to overturn an assumption. Right, 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.839 So like I spent I spent like the nerdiest labor 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.600 day weekend of my life, just like reading academic journal 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.960 articles about the Ledites. And I was a reporter for 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.319 Vice at the time, so I wrote this piece called 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.280 You've got the Luddites all wrong, because it was clear 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.880 to me that they're not backwards, they're not anti progress, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:16.560 they're anti bosses using technology to sort of exploit them, 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.600 to grind their livelihoods away. And so like that sort 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.240 of key insight stuck with me because that was over 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.040 ten years ago. So it was really at the same 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.200 time that we started seeing more of the fallout from 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.640 the labor forces at Amazon, the warehouse workers who were 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.880 working and often really degrading and inhuman conditions. When it 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.679 started to be clear that Uber, after initially seeming to 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.160 be this great thing, was starting to squeeze its drivers, 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.520 and we had stories about drivers who couldn't afford rent 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.680 were sleeping in their cars. So this was all before 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:51.640 the AI boom and the fear that AI was going 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.360 to replace our jobs. But there's all these examples of 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.960 ways that tech was really being used to hurt people, 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.040 or it was having a deleterious effect on their lives. 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.000 And then that kind of collided with this thinking about 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:07.640 the Luddites, and I said, maybe this is a good 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.960 lens to sort of look at these emergent resistances to technology. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.200 Maybe we should understand more about why people have real issues, 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:22.000 real complaints about some of the forces that technology is 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:23.280 unleashing on their lives. 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.200 I also love that though you figured this out over 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:26.000 labor Day, right. 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.760 There's something so funny about that. But take us into this. 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:33.920 Can you situate us in the history event year. 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.080 I think it's the eighteen hundreds, Yorkshire, Northern Nish, England. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.280 Can you paint a picture of the times that we're 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:40.800 talking about. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.880 So this is the very beginning days of the Industrial Revolution. 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.960 It's not yet quite at the point where if you 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:50.679 just kind of close your eyes and you say, like 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.040 peak Industrial Revolution and you're imagining like the billowing smoke 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.040 and like the coughing children working in factories. We're not 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.560 quite there yet. That is beginning to take shape. So 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:05.680 there have been a number of mechanical innovations. So you 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.439 had like the steam engine that's allowing for new sources 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.440 of power. You have water power coming onto the scene, 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.800 and then you have basically all of these inventions that 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:21.000 allows the work of weaving a garment to be done 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:25.120 by one person instead of say six, so it can 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.439 automate this task to a great degree. You still need 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.079 a worker to run the machine to make sure it's 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.600 not screwing up, but it is speeding up the process 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:40.680 by which you can produce goods. And industrialists and factory 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.319 owners realize that they can start buying these machines, machines 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.480 like the gig mill, the shearing frame that automate different 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.120 parts of the clothing trade, and that they can organize 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.200 them into an early sort of version of the factory. 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:58.120 This is like the late seventeen nineties early eighteen hundreds 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:03.199 that I'm talking about here. It's in the midlands of England, 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:08.880 around Nottingham and Yorkshire, and so you have workers who 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.360 are used to working at home with their families running 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.720 the machine. They're not anti technology, they're really good technicians 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.760 technologists in their homes, but they start to see the 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:20.040 emergence of the factory. 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.360 Who who are the innovators behind these kind of proto factories. 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.840 The most famous is there's a man named Richard Arkwright 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.280 and he's generally considered to be the father of the factory. 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:36.080 You can go in these buildings today and kind of 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.959 see for yourself really awful working conditions. There's no ventilation. 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:45.600 There are multiple stories, up to six stories, so it's noisy, 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.640 and it's just sort of churning out the yarn, right, 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.400 that used to be spun by hand. And so Arkwright 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.160 really kind of helped automate away the first sort of 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.560 rung of cloth workers. Arkright figured out a way to 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:04.200 sort of make an astonishing volume of yarn. 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:04.720 Right. 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.520 I opened the book, in fact, with one of the 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.720 inventors who will later invent the power loom pouring like 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.640 this factory, and they're all ruminating all and is sort 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.800 of contemporary or saying, well, it's one thing to make yarn, 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.800 that was just that's just women's work. It's another altogether 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.280 to automate like weaving a finished garment, like that's skilled labor, 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.880 that'll never happen. And then he sets about trying to 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:27.319 do it. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.240 I think you called arc Right the first startup founder 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.280 to launch a unicorn company, which I love. But how 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.480 did the Luddites start to fight back? I mean, what 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.120 kind of early industrial action did they take. 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:44.120 So basically arc rights blueprint spreads around the country. People 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.559 recognize that you can sort of concentrate labor, and before 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:55.760 long this method of industrialization starts to lower prices and 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:00.080 the artisan workers, the skilled workers, who are still the 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.240 largest industrial base of worker in England at the time, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.040 England was a cloth producing country. It exports it all 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.120 over the world, so you have more workers doing this 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.040 than ever. And they start to see this work basically 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.880 being transferred from that domestic system where they're working at 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.440 home into the factory system where they're either going to 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.680 have to compete on price they have to start working 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.120 for less, or they have to go work in the 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.320 factory where it's just a very dehumanizing and often dangerous 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:31.000 place to work. So they start to form different modes 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.680 of resistance. And first they go to Parliament and say, hey, 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.440 these industrialists are using machinery that violate these number of 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.080 rules on the books, like we have laws that say 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:43.960 how long you have to be an apprentice for we 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.720 have laws that say how many threads have to go 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.840 into a certain garment for it to be sold on 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.480 the market. And they're just laughed out of Parliament time 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.400 and time again saying all we want is a minimum wage, 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:56.600 or maybe we could figure out a way to get 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.840 attacks on the output that they're making that can sort 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:03.200 of for social benefits, because they're just sort of tearing 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.360 up the social contract. And this isn't the twenty first century. 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.600 We don't have a globalized economy. I can't go get 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.240 a job at Starbucks. Pretty much. Weaving is the only 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.000 thing I know how to do. So you throw us 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.600 a bone. Parliament does not, so they box them out 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.520 for like ten years of fighting, and we get to 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.160 eighteen o nine they tear up all the rules altogether. 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:29.560 Now it's the working class pitted against these new industrialists. 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.160 It's illegal toform unions. There's no recourse at all, there's 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:37.880 no democracy. So you have a really volatile situation. And 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:42.360 finally there's the crop failure and then some intense tariffs 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:47.720 placed on exports during the Napoleonic War, and people are 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.440 quite literally going without food. The Luddites would often say, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.240 you know, the factory owners have stolen our bread, because again, 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.440 to them, it didn't look like the complex machinations of 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.560 a globalized economy. It looked like they had a job, 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.560 they got a fair wage, and then one day somebody 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:12.560 built a giant factory started selling crappier stuff, taking away 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.280 their market share, and now that guy had money. It 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.760 didn't look complicated to them. It looked like theft, and 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.320 it felt like theft. So it just all goes up 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.080 in flames. The Leddites emerged. They say, you've left us 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.040 no choice. They organized this gorilla rebellion to fight back. 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:31.320 Coming up, we meet some of the main characters in 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.600 this Ledite movement. Stick with us. 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.520 And welcome back to the crossover between part time genius 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.000 and tech stuff, where we're talking to the wonderful author 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.800 Brian Merchant. So could you tell us a little bit 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:49.440 about George Meller and his role in. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.320 All of this. Yeah, So, George Meller is the Ledite 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.040 that I focus on the most in the book, and 0:16:55.080 --> 0:17:00.480 we sort of follow his reluctance to take up hammer, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.280 so to speak. But he's watching the first sort of 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.320 uprising happen, which happens in Nottingham. What they do is 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.880 they first send letters to the owners of the obnoxious 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:17.040 machines and they say, your factory has three hundred power 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.720 looms and it's putting twelve hundred of our brothers out 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.359 of work. Take down those machines, or you'll get a 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.359 visit from ned Lud's army. Ned Lud is this apocryphal 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.760 figure who was supposed to have sort of rebelled against 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.239 his master, but they use him as this avatar. They 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.920 sign these letters ned Lud, you know you're going to 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:37.720 get a visit from ned Lud's army. And then sure 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.280 enough a lot of factory owners do. Ned Lud's army 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.879 shows up with hammers in hand. They hold up an 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.359 overseer at gunpoint, and they sneak into the factory and 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.320 they smash the machines, but only the machines that are 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.760 taking jobs and tearing up the social contract, just those 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.080 that are sort of transferring wealth into the hands of 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.040 the factory owner away from them. So it was a 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.800 very pointed tactic, and people love them. At the time. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.399 People cheered the Luddites in the street. Magistrates would come 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.560 out and just kind of watch it happen. The factory 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.480 owners would be going, what are you gonna do something 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.600 about this, buddy, and they and they're like, well, they 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.520 kind of have a point. So at first the Luddites 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.639 were super popular. They were winning. They won concessions. A 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:22.520 bunch of factory owners said, I don't want any part 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:26.800 of this. Just you know, we'll raise the prices again, 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.480 we'll stop using these machines. You guys win. So for 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.760 at least six months or so, it worked to some extent. 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.040 And so George Meller is up in the West Riding, 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:43.800 which is these days a few hours north of Nottingham, 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.320 and he's reading about this in the newspaper and he's saying, 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.879 these guys have it right. This is what we should 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.840 be doing locally, because prices are flowing here right in 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.760 our town, in Huddersfield, which is the broader area that 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.960 George Miller and his cohort worked, and they had been 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:10.400 watching their wages go down, their coworkers literally starving, sometimes 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:15.119 quite desperately. So conditions were extremely dire. And in the book, 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:21.879 I'd chart George Miller's sort of ambivalence to full throated 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.840 embrace of this idea of Luddism, of becoming a Luddite, 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.520 and then he becomes the local sort of ned lud 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:33.280 or General Luod, leading other workers into battle against the 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.760 men that are quite literally causing them to starve. 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.040 One of these is William Horsfall, right. 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:45.400 Yes, William's Horsefall is one of the two most hated 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.240 factory owners in town, and in part because he was 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.000 just like he was so unabashed to the point where 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.840 you know, like as he would ride between his factories 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:01.240 into town, little children would up and taunt him and say, 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:02.760 you know, the Ludites are going to get you, and 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.919 he'll try to whip them with a horse whip. He 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:10.040 was just like a classic like sort of villain, twhirling villain, 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.800 like you really like these things that His quote was 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:14.639 like I look forward to the day when I like 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.719 ride up to my saddle girths in Luddite blood. So 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.600 he's gone, wow, yeah, So he's taunting them. He's sort 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.840 of also turning his factory into a fortress, so he's 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.280 hiring mercenaries. So should the Luddites attack him, they you know, 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.600 he would gun them down before they got there, or 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.800 pour boiling oil on their heads. Things like we would 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.920 you know, associate with an assault on a castle in 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:42.280 medieval times or something. But it's an extreme case because 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.159 you got to remember that, like this is on the 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.639 front lines of just industrial capitalism. This is just taking 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.119 shape right now, and no one really knows what to 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.919 make of it. A lot of factory owners were like, ah, like, 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.440 I'm really torn, But if I don't buy automating machinery, 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.000 then my neighbor will and he'll buy more of it 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:00.600 and I won't be able to compete. Then in some 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:02.679 factory in er say I'm out of the game. I 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.480 don't want to contribute to the ruination of working men's lives. 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.879 I give up. I'm out. Others, you know, continue to 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.280 try to do it the old way and buy from 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:17.080 the the weavers who work at home, but it really 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:21.080 sort of ultimately everybody has to compete with men like horsefall. 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.199 So one of the things we were interested in was 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.720 like how the Loveites aren't just this group of people 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.560