Are you a Luddite?

To a very limited extent, but it's probably more to do with just being behind the curve. Used to eschew cable television (and all other television, for that matter); now there's digital cable in my house. Was once proud to be the only person in a class without email (though this aggravated the instructor to near apoplectic proportions, and we butted heads about various things for the entire term), now -- well, here I am, typing messages to people I don't even know. Currently despise cell phones, but I'm sure I'll have one in my pocket before too many years are out.

How many Luddites are you expecting to find online, anyway?

Good point re finding Luddites on-line! But I think there are those (like you and me) who are part-time Luddites, and I'm curious about the extent to which they opt out of the contemporary techno scene...

There are a few areas where I've either reverted away from technology or just shunned it entirely.

I got rid of my cell phone altogether. Just went cold turkey there.

I've been pestered for sometime to more on and get with the program regarding eBooks but I like paper books. Even with the electronic tablets and such there is a certian quality that a paper book holds that an eBook doesn't.

If I could afford to I'd escape modern society altogether. Give me a log cabin, a wood stove and a few oil lamps and I could do just fine for some time....

I LOVE technology- the more the better. I just can't figure out why people would want to play games on their cell phones!

I love technology, but prefer to read books than eBooks. I like the thought of a log cabin, but with lots of gagetry and close to a thriving metropolis.

Oh - a thread for me!!!! I am always calling myself a Luddite!

For me, though, it means more not getting overly involved in the finer details of things like computers - as far as I am concerned, there might as well be millions of tiny hamsters in there on little wheels and scurrying around carrying messages and painting the screen at a million miles an hour - they got FANS for 'em, too - I can HEAR it! And when you guys start talking technobabble I just close my ears and think of England...

I don't have a mobile phone - HATE them! - but I am thinking of getting one just for security purposes when I am driving late at night etc. But I won't inhale!

No cable, no DVD - but I will prolly fold on this one soon - computer second-hand and I have had it nearly 3 years now.

I was never gonna chat on the net! NEVER!!!

E Books! Merde! Excrement!

I agree re ebooks. Didn't get cable TV until I moved to a place with zilch reception without it. [OK, I could've dumped the TV altogether, so I guess that doesn't count as Luddism.] Use a manual coffee grinder, as I took credit for on another thread. Still use my manual Smith Corona for certain projects. Have a 19th C. roll-top desk. No palm pilot.

people's palms have PILOTS now?!!!

oh brave new world....

Not what you think, Deb. It's like the pilot light on a gas stove, so it can flame up on command. How many times have you, in your own career as a revival preacher/healer, had your rhythm embarassingly interrupted by having to light your palm with a match? Yep, installing a pilot light is the way to go.

how about a secluded post and beam Craven? you bring the gadgets. i just put it on the market or it will be. not to far from that thrivig culture filled city of Boston.

Technology is wonderful. It makes life so much easier. Why not avail oneself of it's wonders.

Technology provides good tools, but not every new technology is useful. Or it may be useful, but is employed too often just for the sake of using it.

Take cell phones. Anyone spending time on a college campus will hear students chatting as they walk between classes (or attend classes). And the conversations tend to sound like: "I just finished my chemistry exam. Where are you? Have plans for tonight? Me neither."

Because there's TOO MUCH new technology ... It takes too much time learning to use the darn stuff ... AND it's can never to properly fixed, once on the blink!

Me, I pick up new technological tricks when the situation requires, but don't go ourt of my way to try/buy the very latest gizmo.

Sometimes technology does make life easier. As long as the technology is actually saving touu time, energy and/or money it's a good thing. When it takes you 3 days to figure out how to operate something so that you can use it for 15 minutes it becomes burdensome though. Some things are simple enough as it is.

I meant "it can never be properly fixed"

A poem by Lord Byron. A bit strong, perhaps, but the spirit is powerful:

"Song for the Luddites" (December 1816)

As the Liberty lads o'er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!

When the web that we weave is complete,
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,
We will fling the winding sheet
O'er the despot at our feet,
And dye it deep in the gore he has pour'd.

Though black as his heart its hue,
Since his veins are corrupted to mud,
Yet this is the dew
Which the tree shall renew
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!

Ludd means never having to type 'you're sorry'.

For those who really want to get into this topic, here's an essay Thomas Pynchon wrote on the subject in the NY Times Book Review in 1984:

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html

It's interesting for the history of the Luddites (and I was wrong in dating the movement as late as I did when I started this thread) and Pynchon's take on the idea.