The true Luddite
March 2, 2025
The common definition of a Luddite is someone who opposes the use of new technology. It’s used in a disparaging way towards anyone accused of being against some specific innovation. The term comes from 1810s England, where groups of textile workers raided textile factories and destroyed machines which they believed threatened their jobs. These protestors banded together under a fictional leader they called Ned Ludd, hence the name “Luddite”.
This familiar use of the term Luddite to describe anyone opposed to some technology is too broad. In my opinion, a Luddite’s primary concern is their own social and economic status, not technology. Luddites oppose the adoption of some new technology not because it is dangerous to society but because it is dangerous to their standing within society. The historical Luddites worked primarily with their hands, and they opposed textile machines for fear that each machine would reduce demand for manual work and therefore make their role in society obsolete. This would force them to incur some inconvenience and retraining in some other field before regaining the real or perceived social and economic status they had before the adoption of the machines.
While social and economic status are often intertwined, the distinction between them reveals a sharper insight into Luddite motivations. Introductory economics teaches us that wealth-creation is a positive-sum game, often increasing the economic status of one or more parties without affecting the economic status of others. On the other hand, social hierarchy competition is basically zero-sum. An individual’s social standing exists largely relative to others’ social standing, and when one person’s social status increases, one or more other’s often decrease. Social competition is a deep-seated evolutionary behavior much older than humans, whereas money, capitalism, and economic competition are all more recent emergent phenomena. As a result, many people concerned with increasing their wealth are really concerned with the social status it confers on them. Similarly, when faced with the prospect of losing one’s job, most people don’t immediately fear going hungry. Instead, they worry about the social implications of losing their title and/or their wealth. Therefore, we could say that Luddites are concerned primarily with losing social status. The distinction is useful but not crucial here; the point is that when a new technology is introduced, a Luddite believes, whether consciously or subconsciously, that they stand to lose in a way that their peers do not.
With this in mind, we can identify with each new technological development who the true Luddites are. We can also distinguish them from those who oppose a given technology for some other reason – let’s call them technoskeptics. Consider GLP-1 agonists (e.g. Wegovy), whose loud opponents have been health, wellness, and fitness influencers. They say they're concerned about the effects on society and culture if individuals no longer need to learn discipline and willpower in order to stay healthy. But the truth is that most of these individuals sell a product or service that’s directly competitive with GLP-1s. And in many cases they're probably also blessed with genetics that allow them to stay thin with less discipline and willpower than the average person. Therefore, on average and all else held constant, their genetics contribute positively to their social and economic standing, and a drug which makes it easier for others to stay thin negatively impacts their standing[1].
Bringing this argument a bit closer to home, take a moment to reflect on all the opposition you've heard or read in passing about GLP-1s. Were any of the people sharing these opinions not in shape? Probably not. And if they were out of shape, they might have just expressed opposition to the unequal access that different groups of people had to GLP-1s, which was particularly apparent in the early days of GLP-1 adoption for weight management[2].
Contrary to Luddites, a technoskeptic opposes a technology for some other reason. Consider Tristan Harris, perhaps most well-known for his role in the documentary “The Social Dilemma”, where he argues that, with regard to social media and many other software products, “If you're not paying for the product, you are the product”. Harris quit a lucrative job at Google when he concluded that many of its products had misaligned incentives, designed to distract and steal the attention of their users. Harris was directly benefitting from the technologies he now opposes, so he’s not a Luddite.
So what’s the point? This post isn't intended as a criticism of any group of people or an endorsement of any particular belief or set of beliefs. And this post is definitely not about the definition of words. What I’ve chosen to call “Luddites” and “technoskeptics” you can create your own unique terms for. Armed with the distinction between the two groups, you can make sense of the world more easily. Our world is flooded with opinions, performative outrage, and algorithmically amplified extremes – so it’s useful to have ways of filtering out some of the noise. When you hear someone loudly oppose some form of innovation, ask yourself what they might have to lose relative to others, or, if they are a politician, what their constituents might lose. If they have nothing to lose, or if they would even gain relative to others from the innovation in question, then they may have an opinion worth listening to more closely. Said differently: On average, the arguments of the Luddite may be overrated, and the arguments of the technoskeptic may be underrated.
Notes:
Since GLP-1s also decrease muscle mass, some diet and fitness influencers have also directly benefited from GLP-1s by tailoring their content to those taking the drugs, but the negative effect on muscle mass wasn’t widely known when GLP-1s were becoming popular, which coincided with the time of highest negative GLP-1 sentiment.
As opposed to GLP-1 use for type 2 diabetes