New rule: if you want to write about how mechanisation and automation will affect the people, you need to - at absolute minimum - have read the entirety of the Wikipedia article about The Industrial Revolution, and know where the term Luddite comes from.
The way they are normally referenced glosses over the fact that the Luddites were a group of people with actual, real concerns about their future. The industrial revolution was good overall, in net, but it was not a pareto improvement and people did suffer. While it's very likely that the continuation of automation will increase global wealth, some efforts to identify the winners and losers and redistribute will be necessary to minimise societal disruption. I'd say the US hasn't done spectacularly on this front in the past.
Okay, so what's your actual criticism? You realize the vast majority of textiles are produced by machinery, right? The luddites lost, and sank into irrelevance.
Maybe, but I don't know why the original author should be obligate to demostrate knowledge about that in order to talk intelligently about basic income. Remember, I'm responding to:
> "New rule: if you want to write about how mechanisation and automation will affect the people, you need to - at absolute minimum - have read the entirety of the Wikipedia article about The Industrial Revolution, and know where the term Luddite comes from."
Luddism is certainly interesting, but it's relatively small in terms of its effects and one can certainly talk about basic income without talking about luddism.
