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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Yeah, but they didn't have near as much fun.
> 

You think?  Yourself excepted, of course, but I look around me and don't see 
people having all that much fun.



> Who among us will be the first to give up the automatic washing  
> machine? Running water? Glass windows? Toothbrushes? Chairs? Good  
> steel tools? A computer that connects us to the world of information  
> and people? Extra-virgin olive oil? A vast selection of fine brews?
> 
> 

Let me sort your list if I may:

List 1

Automatic washing machines
Computer

List 2

Running water
Toothbrush
Chair
Steel tools
Olive oil
Brews

The things from list one we would not have had without the modern use (and 
abuse) of energy

But not the things from list two.  There was was running water, steel tools, 
toothbrushes, chairs, the ability to import olive oil, and brews of all sorts 
three thousand years ago.

A couple of years ago I bought a new Stanley spokeshave (about $25) and 
recently someone gave me one that is absolutely identical to it that is about 
100 
years old. All that was reqired was to shape the edge of the iron (blade) and 
hone it and the two spokeshaves work equally as well.   Think of the energy 
investment in a small iron and steel tool that has seen 100 years of use and 
might easily see 200 more years of use before the replaceable iron need be 
discarded and replaced.



> Let the first true Luddite step forward and announce themself.
> 

Me.  So long as we understand what a Luddite is.  The followers of the 
probably mythical Ned Ludd were not afraid of new technology.  Rather they 
opposed 
the use of disruptive technology without taking into account the extent to 
which it exacts a human toll.  

My own Luddite take is to attempt to strip away technological myth from 
technological reality.  If there were not enough motorfuel (a reality that 
will 
come soon or late) for you to drive a pickup truck when and where you want on 
a 
whim (as is presently true), it doesn't mean you won't have chairs and olive 
oil.  If the time comes (as it is indeed coming) when it is impractical to 
impossible to heat and cool a 3800 sq ft house for two people, it doesn't 
mean they 
won't have a toothbrush or a brewski.

Another thing I attempt (and generally fail at) is to point out that the 
difference between most "labor saving" gadgets and doing the task better by 
hand 
is a surprisingly small gap.  I fail at pointing this out, thinks I, because 
there is a deep, deep entrenched mindset that doing things by machine is 
always 
easier and better and doing things by hand is the same as  a stay in Hell.

Hence my comment about the Kubota tractor parked by the 20'x30' garden (and 
I'm not making that up).   If you needed one pair of socks, would you put 
them 
in the automatic washer or just wash them by hand in the lavatory and be done 
with it?  

Let me take a guess, Gene.  Just a guess, but probably not unfounded.  In 
your kitchen do you have a set of really good knives or rather do you have a 
counter full of electric kitchen gadgets?   Or if you have both, when it 
comes 
time to make one of those legendary pizzas, do you reach for very good 
serviceable knife or do you run the pepperoni and tomatoes through the 
Kitchenaide?

All I do is apply that to a lot of other areas.  I know that turning a 20x30 
plot with a shovel isn't really all that much work as people imagine it might 
be.  If you do such things regularly, you get into condition and attitude to 
do them.  The benefits are tremendous, a few hours rhythmic motion that 
soothes 
the mind and reinforces the constitution.

I was cooking for about 40 people at a gathering a couple years ago and slaw 
was on the menu.  I took out five or six big cabbage heads and one of my 
favorite chef's knives newly honed.  While I was catching up with a few old 
friends, the knife was busy with an easy rhythm on the cutting board.  In 
about 
fifteen minutes I had an enormous bowl full of finely chopped cabbage.  "I 
can't 
believe you cut all that by hand!"

But you just saw me.  You were right here.  You see that it was nothing and 
it almost made itself into slaw while we were talking.  Yet those people 
walked 
away STILL convinced beyond persuasion that to make that much slaw you'd have 
to have and electric kitchen machine or else spend hours in mirthless labor 
doing it.

When the notion that a gizmo or gadget will do a better jog is challanged, 
the mindset and bias is so strong that most of the time the best anyone can 
mannage is to default to absolutism and say, "Oh, you are going to make slaw 
with 
just a knife, well, then you have to walk (the 120 miles) to get here and you 
have to take off any clothes you have that weren't had spun!"  

You see just such comments on this list.   </HTML>