Anti-electricity cartoon from 1889.
Electricity is portrayed as a spider with a cobweb of electrical wires for trapping its human victims.
Also features the mandatory skull, dead horse, and a mother with a child killed by the daemon.
@kravietz Keep in mind that the stuff was a) pretty dangerous at the time and b) safety measures and knowledge were at best primitive.
Not that you couldn't die from plenty else as well.
Institutional resistance was also likely high.
Absolutely yes — the poster was actually based on a tragic accident of an electrician electrocuted (the person hanging on the wires).
The problem with the poster is however that's it's not a safety warning, but a portrayal of new technology as an absolute evil that cannot be controlled, that appeals to lowest emotions and instincts.
@kravietz Resistance to technological innovation goes back a ways.
See "Resistances to the Adoption of Technological Innovations (1937)"
https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/page/39
Berhnard J. Stern's student research assistant would talk of this work later. He went on to use concepts in his own writing. You may have heard of Isaac Asimov.
I've retyped the document in Markdown, available for reading here:
https://rentry.co/szi3g
#BernhardJStern #ResistancesToTechnologicalInnovation #Technology #Luddism #IsaacAsimov
Fascinating document, thank you for retyping it - reading the original hurts eyes!
@kravietz Mine too 😺