English textile workers known as the Luddites violently smashed automated weaving machinery in the early nineteenth century not because they were stupid or hated progress, but…

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English textile workers known as the Luddites violently smashed automated weaving machinery in the early nineteenth century not because they were stupid or hated progress, but because they understood the new tech was a direct economic threat designed to bypass labor laws and slash their wages. History has unfairly painted them as backwards-thinking cavemen terrified of simple gears and pulleys, when in reality, they were just executing a highly organized, completely rational labor dispute against greedy factory owners using automation to cut costs. Every time modern creatives panic about generative artificial intelligence stealing their copywriting or illustration jobs, they are simply experiencing the exact same existential dread a nineteenth-century weaver felt while staring down a mechanical loom. Technology changes at a breakneck pace, but the rich and powerful leveraging new inventions to avoid paying the working class a living wage remains the most consistent feature of human innovation