This Luddite Puppet Hopes You’re Not Reading This on Your Smartphone

这个卢德主义木偶希望你不是在智能手机上读这篇文章

Gowanus the media puppet probably shouldn’t even be talking to me. Made of literal garbage—his origin story is that he was born in a dumpster in his namesake neighborhood in Brooklyn—he’s the media representative for the Summer of Ludd, a Luddite festival that took place in New York earlier this month. 媒体木偶 Gowanus 本来可能根本不该跟我说话。他由真正的垃圾制成——他的起源故事是出生在布鲁克林同名社区的一个垃圾箱里——他是“卢德之夏”（Summer of Ludd）的媒体代表，这是一个本月初在纽约举办的卢德主义者节日。

The festival, which WIRED attended, included everything from workshops on how to flirt IRL to an evidence box, where people could submit testimonies on how Big Tech has negatively impacted their lives. Its rules were simple: Be present. No phones, recordings, or photographs allowed. 《连线》杂志参加了这次节日，活动内容包罗万象，从“如何进行现实生活中的调情”研讨会，到设置了一个证据箱，人们可以在里面提交关于大型科技公司如何对其生活产生负面影响的证词。活动的规则很简单：活在当下。禁止使用手机、录音或拍照。

So, philosophically speaking, it is somewhat contrary to Gowanus’ beliefs to be in a podcast recording studio at Condé Nast’s Manhattan offices. But he’s pragmatic, telling us he wants to reach people, so he’s willing to meet them where they’re at. Still, he has some conditions—presented to me on a handwritten contract. Namely, that we not clip short-form video of the show, in an effort to encourage people to engage with the full interview. In a compromise, we agree to only clip Gowanus explaining the contract. 因此，从哲学角度来看，出现在康泰纳仕曼哈顿办公室的播客录音室里，在某种程度上违背了 Gowanus 的信仰。但他很务实，告诉我们他想接触到人们，所以他愿意在人们所在的地方与他们会面。不过，他还是提出了一些条件——通过一份手写合同呈现给我。即我们不能剪辑节目的短视频，以此鼓励人们观看完整的采访。作为妥协，我们同意只剪辑 Gowanus 解释合同的那部分。

You might be wondering why Summer of Ludd and its movement are represented by a puppet. It’s a nod to the original Luddites, British textile workers who anonymously organized against being replaced by technology during the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century. While the term “Luddite” has since become a derogatory way to refer to someone who opposes technology, there’s a renaissance happening—and it’s surprisingly being heavily embraced by Gen Z. Gowanus offers anonymity to the people behind the growing trend. 你可能想知道为什么“卢德之夏”及其运动要由一个木偶来代表。这是对最初的卢德主义者的致敬，他们是 19 世纪初工业革命期间匿名组织起来、反对被技术取代的英国纺织工人。虽然“卢德主义者”一词后来成了指代反对技术者的贬义词，但一场复兴运动正在发生——而且令人惊讶的是，它正受到 Z 世代的热烈拥护。Gowanus 为这一日益增长的趋势背后的参与者提供了匿名性。

I was curious about how being a modern-day Luddite works in practical terms—even organizing this interview was a challenge, because the Summer of Ludd folks weren’t necessarily quick to reply to emails. And I wanted to know why the first generation to ever grow up totally online seems to be leading the charge on having less screen time. 我很好奇现代卢德主义者在实践中是如何运作的——甚至组织这次采访都是一个挑战，因为“卢德之夏”的人并不总是能及时回复邮件。而且我想知道，为什么第一代完全在网络环境中成长起来的人，似乎正在带头倡导减少屏幕使用时间。

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 本次采访为篇幅和清晰度进行了编辑。

MANISHA KRISHNAN: Gowanus, thank you for joining me. MANISHA KRISHNAN：Gowanus，感谢你接受我的采访。

GOWANUS: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure. GOWANUS：嗨。非常感谢邀请我。这是我的荣幸。

So I’m gonna jump right in and ask, why are you a puppet? 那么我直接切入正题，问一下，为什么你是一个木偶？

Oh, that is a phenomenal question. Well, you know, we live in a hyper-digitized age. And the original Luddites were completely anonymous. When they were going around in the 1800s organizing people, fighting automation, they sought anonymity because they were facing the oppression of the Crown, of local militias, things like that. 哦，这是一个非常棒的问题。嗯，你知道，我们生活在一个高度数字化的时代。最初的卢德主义者是完全匿名的。当他们在 19 世纪四处组织民众、对抗自动化时，他们寻求匿名，因为他们面临着王室、当地民兵等势力的压迫。

So in the spirit of retaining anonymity and not creating movement figureheads and things like that, we made a puppet, a media puppet. And that’s me. Hi, I’m Gowanus. 因此，为了保持匿名，不制造运动的领袖人物之类，我们制作了一个木偶，一个媒体木偶。那就是我。嗨，我是 Gowanus。

So you brought a handwritten contract for me today. Can you tell me what it says? 你今天为我带来了一份手写合同。能告诉我上面写了什么吗？

It’s essentially an ask for you and WIRED to not make any short-form content of this interview. We believe in short-form content, right? We want people to pay attention and actually commit time to watching the whole interview. You know, we don’t want clicks and likes and scrolls past and things like that. So that’s essentially it. 这本质上是要求你和《连线》杂志不要制作这次采访的任何短视频内容。我们相信短视频内容（的力量），对吧？我们希望人们能集中注意力，真正投入时间观看完整的采访。你知道，我们不想要点击、点赞和快速划过之类的东西。所以本质上就是这样。

I mean, I’m with you on wanting to encourage people to get into long-form, but at the same time, that is how we promote this show. So are you against us promoting it on any form of social media? 我的意思是，我赞同你鼓励人们观看长视频的初衷，但与此同时，这也是我们推广节目的方式。所以你反对我们在任何形式的社交媒体上推广它吗？

Definitely not. Because we wanna reach people, everybody. Most people spend a lot of their time on social media, and the people who particularly need to hear this message often are chronically online. That’s totally OK, and we wanna meet them where they are. But there is a practice, right, of the Luddite movement of really taking time and giving your attention to things, right? 绝对不是。因为我们想接触到人们，所有人。大多数人把大量时间花在社交媒体上，而那些特别需要听到这个信息的人往往是“长期在线”的。这完全没问题，我们愿意在他们所在的地方与他们会面。但卢德运动确实有一种实践，那就是真正花时间并把你的注意力投入到事物上，对吧？

If you’re gonna engage with something, not, like, scrolling past it, being like, “Oh, this is a little YouTube Short,” right? “I’ll look at it,” and then shoop, it’s gone into the ether. Shoop, next thing. Next thing, a frog eating a chicken nugget, whatever. Shoop, right? So we’re trying to engage people and pull them into, “OK, actually, let’s sit down for this 30, 40 minutes and hear the entirety of our critique.” 如果你要参与某件事，而不是像那样划过它，心想：“哦，这是一个 YouTube 短视频，”对吧？“我看一眼，”然后嗖的一下，它就消失在虚无中了。嗖，下一个。再下一个，一只青蛙在吃鸡块，随便什么。嗖，对吧？所以我们试图吸引人们，把他们拉进来，让他们觉得：“好吧，实际上，让我们坐下来花这 30、40 分钟，听听我们完整的批评。”

You’ve already referenced this, but I feel like most people hear Luddite and they think of people who are against tech or afraid of tech. But actually it dates back to the Industrial Revolution, with English workers who were protesting exploitative working conditions. 你已经提到过这一点，但我感觉大多数人听到“卢德主义者”时，会想到那些反对技术或害怕技术的人。但实际上，它起源于工业革命，当时英国工人正在抗议剥削性的工作条件。

So in modern times sometimes calling someone a Luddite is kind of an insult. Do you think that’s still the case? 所以在现代，有时称某人为卢德主义者是一种侮辱。你认为现在还是这样吗？

This is a very interesting question because you’re right, it’s a totally pejorative term, right? Like, a Luddite is somebody who’s bad at technology, often doesn’t know how to move files around on their MacBook or things like that. Or someone who’s seen as anti-tech, right? 这是一个非常有趣的问题，因为你是对的，这完全是一个贬义词，对吧？比如，卢德主义者是指那些不擅长技术的人，通常不知道如何在 MacBook 上移动文件之类的。或者被视为反技术的人，对吧？

It’s almost like saying “caveman.” One thing that we really found coming out of the Summer of Ludd is that people started to have a new framework and a new understanding of, OK, what does it mean to be a modern Luddite, right? And we really believe that to be a modern Luddite is to have a deeper critique of technology that’s really been lost. 这几乎就像说“穴居人”。我们在“卢德之夏”中真正发现的一件事是，人们开始有了一个新的框架和新的理解，即：成为一名现代卢德主义者意味着什么？我们确实认为，成为一名现代卢德主义者，意味着对技术拥有某种真正被遗失的、更深层次的批判。

A lot of what’s broadly accepted is technology equals progress, sort of by any means necessary, right? The sort of founding mantra of Silicon Valley was “move fast and break things. No matter what we make, the technology will be the progress, and that will forward society,” yada, yada, yada. 很多被广泛接受的观点是：技术等于进步，某种程度上是不惜一切代价的进步，对吧？硅谷的某种创始口号是“快速行动，打破常规”。无论我们制造什么，技术就是进步，它将推动社会发展，等等等等。

I think people are really waking up to the fact that actually a lot of this tech is extractive, is taking away natural resources like with data centers, is actually not necessarily needed in terms of social media. Like, the whole billing of social media was, “OK, let’s be more connected on a global scale,” right? 我认为人们真的开始意识到，实际上很多这种技术是掠夺性的，它像数据中心一样消耗自然资源，而且在社交媒体方面实际上并不一定必要。比如，社交媒体最初的宣传是：“好吧，让我们在全球范围内建立更多联系”，对吧？

And what we’re seeing more and more is actually mass loneliness, atomization, things that just make Gowanus so depressed. But, sorry, coming back to the word Luddite, a critique of technology, right? A look at technology that is not coming from a stance of neutrality. Every 而我们越来越多地看到的是大规模的孤独、原子化，这些事情让 Gowanus 感到非常沮丧。但是，抱歉，回到“卢德主义者”这个词，这是对技术的一种批判，对吧？一种并非出于中立立场看待技术的方式。每一个……