• TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Trying to switch the term Troglodyte with Luddite makes your comment even more ironic. The British government ultimately dispatched 12,000 troops to suppress Luddite activity, and as Lord Byron denounced “I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey; but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country”.

      It isn’t the technology, it’s how it’s used, and authoritarians are being much quicker on the uptake because of the iffiness of democratic infighting that has also been unable to topple, suppress, or even stop the power of authoritarian states from growing.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        [off topic]

        “The Difference Engine” is an alternate history novel where Byron became Prime Minister and Ada Lovelace got to have a working computer to work with, Written by B. Sterling and W. Gibson.