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>From: GBurch1@aol.com
>Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 12:52:22 EDT
>Subject: SOC: Luddite Call to Action
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>[This appeared as an anonymous "call to action" on one of the
>anti-genengineering lists I monitor: ]
>
>
>A message to the elves of the night
>
>The destruction of GE crops is on the rise in North America. In the past
>six months there have been numerous assaults on GE crops in Maine,
>Vermont, Minnesota, California and British Columbia. This is a perfect
>example of a case where the enemy is weaker than one might think. Test
>crops are easy to destroy, anyone can cut down a crop, yet the destruction
>of test crops costs seed companies considerable time. The work of these
>high tech companies can be disrupted by the most simple means. This is one
>of the reasons why the sabotage of crops has spread so widely. Because of
>the outrage over genetically modified foods many have taken direct action
>against capital. But there are many other simple ways to attack capital,
>so why stop there now that so many people have practice as elves of the
>night?
>
>The sabotage of genetically modified crops is aimed at a new technological
>development, in this case a biotechnological development. Its aim is to
>cripple the advance of technology, which was also the aim of the Luddites
>The most recent advances are often the only forms of technology to be
>critiqued or attacked because they are the most shocking. But these recent
>advances are not separate from other forms of technology, they function
>systematically with other technologies for the utility of capital: the
>exploitation of nature and human beings. It is far more common to be
>critical of the most advanced forms of technology while the machines that
>the Luddites had sabotaged now seem benign. This is because we have grown
>up with them and often fail to see their negative effects. It is much
>easier to be critical of the technologies that we are unfamiliar with
>because we can still perceive their destructive and alien qualities. For
>example, it is easier to see that the internet is alienating and replaces
>contact with real human beings or that it increases control, than the
>telephone. We are blind to the effects of the telephone because for us
>these effects have always been there. This naturalization of technologies
>also blinds us from seeing technology as a system. We see instead
>proliferation of "tools". But, for what end are these tools made? Are they
>merely made for a variety of individual human uses to fulfill a variety of
>individual needs or are they produced by systems for the use of those
>systems? Technology is produced by capitalist companies and governments
>for their use. These technologies are a product of the logic of capital.
>Our critique and our attacks must reach beyond the most recent advances of
>the technological system to other technological means of exploitation and
>alienation. Elves of the night, there is so much to do!
I detect eerie echos of Kaczynski's Unabomber manifesto in this.
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