Post #1953601

2026-02-22 20:44 UTC

@papageier @sortius @reading_recluse It is more complicated than that and private industrial financial incentives are only a restrained and poor explanation. There has always been arguments for the state to keep people in the campaign and the economy crafts centered, this keeps people busy in the fields and goods of high quality reserved to the wealthiest as they require high amount of labour to be made. The push for mamechanization is essentially caused by a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic factors, mainly armement and colonialist expansions for colonies exploitation. The industrialisation is a by-product of that. This is discussed in the scientific literature: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691247489/the-wealth-of-a-nation Also I teach basics in scientific study of work in an industry oriented curriculum at university and integrated such informations as part of one of my introductory classes. Taylors view are interesting to know in this context but clearly outdated and historically incorrect.

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@papageier@digitalcourage.social 2026-02-23 16:44

@Enthalpiste @sortius @reading_recluse As I have mentioned above: there may have been other factors behind mechanical looms. An argument putting colonial interests in the driver's seat is, however, equally misguided. It was Adam Smith (if I recall correctly) in his Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations who emphasized that national prosperity is always a secondary effect of individuals seeking personal profit. If that is not entirely off the mark (and I'd like to say so much for poor old A. Smith), then the same is true for LLMs. AI has military implications for sure, and may have - horribile dictu - even neo-colonial uses. But if you are in the IT industry where manual implementation is the most expensive bottleneck, then using AI to implement plain old Taylorism is a perfectly sound strategy. No military or national or colonial interests required. Call it poor judgement on my side if you will, but this is what I see and what I hear from fellow IT managers. 🤷

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