AHC: Luddite Nation

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Your challenge today is somewhat of a difficult one in my opinion; create a situation in which a government of any nation of your choosing adopts neo-luddism. That is to say; the government institutes an official policy opposing technological development and mechanization. How could it be done, and what would the effects be?
 
Wasn't Taliban Afghanistan bit like that. And I think that some other Islamic nations too were bit similar. Perhaps Talibans never oust in Afghanistan or some Islamic nation remain very backward.
 
The Khmer Rouge basically did that. They emptied out the cities, banned anything that was seen as foreign, and attempted to make Cambodia into a completely agricultural nation. In their 4 years of rule about a quarter of all Cambodians died.
 
as has been suggested both the Taliban and Khmer rouge show strong signs of this, it could even be argued that there is a strong thread of this in the wilfull ignorance dispalyed by many in the US on various topics ...
 
I am aware that it is not nice to reply to a very old thread, but I am trying to handle some old trauma.

My friend's father was a UN peacekeeper in Cambodia then. He came back with some VHS tapes, one of which was Akira. That was my introduction to Japanese animation. I was probably 12. Delete this if you find it inappropriate. I can explain and I understand if you do.
 
The original luddites were agricultural and home worker labourers who were highly class conscious from working for pay all their lives. They sought an end to bosses use of machines to smash their living conditions. Their main tactics were machine breaking, arson without threat to live, and underground processions.

The Khmer Rouge were aristocrats, landlords, compradors and petits bourgeois who with their French University educations sought the exclusive use of the imaginary Khmer national community for themselves, based in part on doctoral work outlining the killing of all class enemies as a tactic by a Bolshevik-style party seizing a bourgeois state apparatus and bureaucratising it.

So no. Neo Luddism would look more like the auto factory sit ins in the 1930s than the Khmer rouge.
 
The original luddites were agricultural and home worker labourers who were highly class conscious from working for pay all their lives. They sought an end to bosses use of machines to smash their living conditions. Their main tactics were machine breaking, arson without threat to live, and underground processions.

The Khmer Rouge were aristocrats, landlords, compradors and petits bourgeois who with their French University educations sought the exclusive use of the imaginary Khmer national community for themselves, based in part on doctoral work outlining the killing of all class enemies as a tactic by a Bolshevik-style party seizing a bourgeois state apparatus and bureaucratising it.

So no. Neo Luddism would look more like the auto factory sit ins in the 1930s than the Khmer rouge.
Taking things a TAD too literal. If you are supporting a nation following in the steps of Ned Ludd, then you're correct (with many workers today loathing automation for stealing jobs or supporting a movement of work to cheaper labor abroad).

But if we're pushing the current use of the term, then it is technophobia and that is a rejection of modern advances because of what they would mean to humanity (something that Cambodia and the Taliban believed, stating that man was losing his connection to the natural order). The Nazis played on this using tradition and fear of an ever changing world (psychology, sexual liberalism, women's rights, etc.). Hell, Hitler dreamt of a return to pastoral life in the conquered east away from the decay of urbanization. Even Reagan used the godlessness and coldness of the Soviets (with their calculated collectivization and planned economy) as a rallying cry for good old American values of freedom from bureaucratic control and the use of theories and formulas.

A neo-luddite fears the changes technology brings; the alteration of the fabric of society seems an unraveling instead. A lot of cults use this.
 
Taking things a TAD too literal. If you are supporting a nation following in the steps of Ned Ludd, then you're correct (with many workers today loathing automation for stealing jobs or supporting a movement of work to cheaper labor abroad).

But if we're pushing the current use of the term, then it is technophobia and that is a rejection of modern advances because of what they would mean to humanity (something that Cambodia and the Taliban believed, stating that man was losing his connection to the natural order). The Nazis played on this using tradition and fear of an ever changing world (psychology, sexual liberalism, women's rights, etc.). Hell, Hitler dreamt of a return to pastoral life in the conquered east away from the decay of urbanization. Even Reagan used the godlessness and coldness of the Soviets (with their calculated collectivization and planned economy) as a rallying cry for good old American values of freedom from bureaucratic control and the use of theories and formulas.

A neo-luddite fears the changes technology brings; the alteration of the fabric of society seems an unraveling instead. A lot of cults use this.
I find Luddites as a cancerous ideology because the destruction of innovation is backwards no matter how you put it. The reason Luddite societies can’t survive especially more global things become is because another group is always going to be making innovations and hopefully learning how to use it. China and Japan in otl went into isolation and shun certain technologies for a certain period of time. You know what happened? They started to fall behind the Europeans in many fields. Russia opposed industrialization until very late and even Austria to lesser extent. These nations fell behind. They might have experienced longer period of stability due to the lack of innovation bringing social change but while they been doing that Britain, Germany, and the US have all been encouraging innovation. And like many nations they started to project their power globally. This isn’t good for nations that shun many of these innovations. Japan had to quickly adept, China got humiliated, Russia Empire became the Soviet Union. Luddite logic goes against basic nature and common sense. If animals don’t adept to change they die. If a country doesn’t adept another will.
 

Thomas1195

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Luddite logic goes against basic nature and common sense. If animals don’t adept to change they die. If a country doesn’t adept another will.
America was also lucky that the Federalists' economic platform was adopted. The Jeffersonians were essentially Luddites as they wanted America to be a nation of farming yeomen and opposed industrialization and urbanization.
 
America was also lucky that the Federalists' economic platform was adopted. The Jeffersonians were essentially Luddites as they wanted America to be a nation of farming yeomen and opposed industrialization and urbanization.
It was what crippled the Confederacy. They didn't want the "ills" of urbanization and industrialization with it's threat to aristocratic rule and social order. They discovered the issues of modern warfare and strict racial views that limited their options.
 
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