Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“Blake, Lovecraft, and Tolkien – not to mention the original Celtic myths – all share a common theme: a deep ambivalence about technology which finally settles into determined opposition. … I was thinking about all this when trying to figure out why a mob of thousands of people terrorized north Britain in the 1810s while shouting ‘King Ludd! King Ludd!’ And why it took an army bigger than the one Wellington was leading against Napoleon to put them down. And why people regularly accuse me of being associated with them.” (09/14/26)