(no subject)

[skygiants]

I picked up Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech wanting it to be a history of the Luddite movement, an interesting period about which I know not as much as I would like.

In fact this book is about 50% history of the Luddite movement, 30% ideological argument about how the Lessons of the Luddites Can And Should Apply To Our Current Era Of Big Tech And AI, and 20% mini-biographies of Mary Shelley and Lord Byron.

The 50% that is the history of the Luddite movement is solid and compelling, though I raised my eyebrows a little at the fact that one of the most significant sources used to draw the narrative is Ben o' Bill's, the Luddite: A Yorkshire Tale, which is a work of fiction from 1898. It's a work of fiction that I am now planning to read, and the author was a local historian who clearly did an enormous amount of research for it, but I don't know if I, personally, would rely on it as my main historical referent for the events in question. That said I certainly now do know more about the Luddites than I did before, and I am glad to know it even though I hunger for more!

The 30% that is ideological argument is for the most part all stuff I agreed with and I expect many people will in fact find it useful and worth reading. However, since it was all stuff I agreed with, I did not feel the need to be told about it for 30% of this book when what I wanted to be told about was Luddites. However, this is a me problem; the book signaled pretty well that it was going to be at least 30% ideological argument and I ought to have listened to what it was telling me if I was going to be irritated by it.

I do however think it's legal to be annoyed by the 20% that's mini-biographies of Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. I think it is worth knowing that Lord Byron gave a pro-Luddite speech in Parliament once and that current Luddite events probably influenced Frankenstein, but why that means that we needed to devote 20% of the book to their lives I really couldn't say. It's not that I'm not interested in those guys but I already know about them! They're very famous! Give the Romantic movement's relationship with Luddism a couple pages and then go back to telling me about George Mellor and the Molyneux sisters and other people who don't already have Wikipedia pages on which I could read this same basic information!

Comments

[luzula]

It's a work of fiction that I am now planning to read, and the author was a local historian who clearly did an enormous amount of research for it, but I don't know if I, personally, would rely on it as my main historical referent for the events in question.
Yeah. I mean, I am a person whose main fandom is set in a historical mid-18th century period which spawned a lot of historical novels during the 19th century, and I would not use those novels as historical sources. Although I guess they're good sources about the relationship between the 19th and 18th centuries.

[mrissa]

I had a parallel annoyance of "why are you spending all the time on the super-famous thing that's easy to find information about, and not even doing a good job of it, rather than the thing the book is supposed to be about" recently. I harumph in solidarity with you.

[regshoe]

The Luddite bits of this sound fascinating, and I sympathise with your annoyance!

I also like the sound of Ben o' Bill's, treated as later historical fiction. *downloads ebook*