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The Luddites: Misunderstood Working Class Heroes · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here tooon. We're about to break our
0:16
Speaker 2: computers just to get in the mood for this episode.
0:23
Speaker 1: Good job, my friend.
0:25
Speaker 2: Do you think so, because a lot of the times
0:27
Speaker 2: you say like, oh, that was great, or way to
0:28
Speaker 2: go or something like that, and I'm like, that was
0:30
Speaker 2: not that good. And that's a good example of that.
0:33
Speaker 1: No, I don't mean that joke. I mean the the
0:37
Speaker 1: article you put together, just like the old days.
0:39
Speaker 2: Oh good, okay, good. So it's clear you're not gaslighting
0:42
Speaker 2: me about my jokes being good.
0:45
Speaker 1: Now, this article is great, the joke was mid Let's
0:47
Speaker 1: do it.
0:48
Speaker 2: All right, let's do it. So we're talking about light heightes,
0:51
Speaker 2: and I think just about everybody in the English speaking
0:53
Speaker 2: world and probably beyond are familiar with the light eights
0:56
Speaker 2: to some degree or not. But just as a little
1:00
Speaker 2: background refresher, the Ludites were a group of textile workers
1:04
Speaker 2: living at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the
1:07
Speaker 2: Midlands in the north of England, which had recently become industrialized,
1:12
Speaker 2: and they didn't like the machines that were the new
1:16
Speaker 2: technology for using for making textiles. So they broke them all.
1:21
Speaker 2: And that's the Luddites. There's nothing more to understand. There's
1:24
Speaker 2: no more nuance to them than that.
1:27
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and you know, I think a lot of
1:29
Speaker 1: people may not even know where the name came from
1:33
Speaker 1: and may just think luddite is a word for someone
1:38
Speaker 1: who is afraid of technology or hates technology. It's kind
1:42
Speaker 1: of been co opted as such. But as we will learn,
1:45
Speaker 1: you're being cooi and there is a lot of nuance.
1:48
Speaker 1: And what the Ludites really were were a people that
1:52
Speaker 1: got together, some craftsmen and artisans that got together and
1:56
Speaker 1: were sort of the first workers rights people who very
2:00
Speaker 1: reasonably tried to make workers' rights deals in the face
2:04
Speaker 1: of the industrial revolution and only turned to this after
2:07
Speaker 1: that failed.
2:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this was the first instance of capitalism kind
2:12
Speaker 2: of steamrolling over labor, the only steamrolling steamrolling over Yeah,
2:18
Speaker 2: steam rolling over labor and labor's rights and basically taking
2:21
Speaker 2: care of labor and being equitable and fair and profit
2:25
Speaker 2: sharing the first instance. And so they were the first
2:28
Speaker 2: people to fight against it, and sadly they were the
2:31
Speaker 2: first people to lose that battle. First of many.
2:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were the Bernie Bros. Of the day.
2:37
Speaker 2: So let's go back way back, not all the way back,
2:43
Speaker 2: let's just go back to twenty twelve, Chuck. Oh, sure,
2:46
Speaker 2: because I like this anecdote.
2:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was the Summer Olympics that I believe
2:51
Speaker 1: Danny Boyle curated the opening ceremony and all that stuff
2:55
Speaker 1: that year, right.
2:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, the twenty twelve London Olympics, Summer Olympics, the opening
3:00
Speaker 2: ceremony there was kind of a super brief synopsis of
3:05
Speaker 2: English history.
3:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what you do. Yeah, it was really great,
3:09
Speaker 1: just like France did, right, exactly.
3:12
Speaker 2: So there's this moment in the opening ceremonies where the
3:16
Speaker 2: people all move from the countryside to the city, and
3:19
Speaker 2: if I remember correctly, I'm doing this from memory, they
3:22
Speaker 2: were harkened by men in black suits wearing stovetops or
3:26
Speaker 2: stovepipe hats, okay, And what that represented was the beginning
3:32
Speaker 2: of industrialization, like we tend to think of the Industrial
3:35
Speaker 2: Revolution here in America's happening here in America. That was
3:37
Speaker 2: the second one. The first one had taken place one
3:40
Speaker 2: hundred to fifty years before in England, specifically in the
3:45
Speaker 2: north of England and like sounds like Manchester and Liverpool.
3:48
Speaker 2: And the reason that everybody was being called from the
3:51
Speaker 2: countryside to the city figuratively and literally was because that's
3:55
Speaker 2: where the machines are, the new machines that have been
3:58
Speaker 2: perfected using steam power that could automate all sorts of
4:03
Speaker 2: different processes that used to have to be done by hand.
4:06
Speaker 2: They were big, and they were cumbersome, and they were expensive.
4:09
Speaker 2: So rather than people doing stuff in their home anymore,
4:12
Speaker 2: they had to go to where the machines are to
4:14
Speaker 2: do work. Now. That was a radical.
4:16
Speaker 1: Change, Yeah, a big change, and that same change, you know,
4:19
Speaker 1: we've talked about plenty of times in terms of our
4:21
Speaker 1: American experience here, but like you said, it happened previously
4:25
Speaker 1: in England. Same deal, people from the country moving into
4:29
Speaker 1: the city, steam power running the show. And the first
4:32
Speaker 1: industry over there to kind of get smashed in the
4:35
Speaker 1: face with that new reality was the textile industry. And
4:40
Speaker 1: they're in the Midlands of England. Am I even saying
4:44
Speaker 1: that right because we were about to say a lot
4:46
Speaker 1: of Shires.
4:47
Speaker 2: I think it's pronounced the Midland. Its spelled Midlands, but
4:50
Speaker 2: it's pronounced Worcestershire.
4:52
Speaker 1: Right, but all over that area Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Leicester, Lancashire,
5:03
Speaker 1: Nottingham shure hmm, Cheshire.
5:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Cheshire cat.
5:07
Speaker 1: Okay, did I get all those? Why is Leicester the
5:11
Speaker 1: only one that's not pronouncing.
5:13
Speaker 2: The sure it is that's Leicestershire.
5:16
Speaker 1: Oh did I say it wrong to begin with? Then?
5:18
Speaker 2: No, No, you just left off the shore. And so
5:21
Speaker 2: just a little note because I didn't understand this until
5:23
Speaker 2: I finally just went and looked it up. Like Leicester
5:26
Speaker 2: is the main town, the county seat, if you will,
5:29
Speaker 2: of the larger county of Leicestershire. So when there's a
5:33
Speaker 2: suffix of shire on the end of a town name,
5:36
Speaker 2: that refers to the county and the town is usually
5:39
Speaker 2: the biggest town or the main town in that county.
5:43
Speaker 1: Finally clear that up. So in those areas, this is
5:47
Speaker 1: where the Texas are artisans and you know there were workers.
5:50
Speaker 1: They were crafts people, trades people. They went through sort
5:54
Speaker 1: of that traditional route where you're an apprentice you learn
5:57
Speaker 1: the craft. They had these robust trade unions and guilds
6:02
Speaker 1: that made sure the quality of the worker was up
6:05
Speaker 1: to snuff, the quality of the product and the materials
6:08
Speaker 1: were all up to snuff, and they had this good
6:11
Speaker 1: deal going with the merchant class up to that point
6:14
Speaker 1: where these wealthy merchants basically funded the operations and then
6:19
Speaker 1: split the profits. They would say, here, we're going to
6:21
Speaker 1: put a loom in your house. These hand looms aren't
6:24
Speaker 1: too huge, it can fit in your barn. We're going
6:27
Speaker 1: to give you some good, high quality materials to spin,
6:31
Speaker 1: and we'll split the profits in a way that works
6:33
Speaker 1: for both of us. And they had a good life.
6:36
Speaker 1: They were like working three or four days a week
6:38
Speaker 1: at home and like, you know, making textiles and earning
6:43
Speaker 1: a good living.
6:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, And there was a quote from a guy
6:46
Speaker 2: named William Gardner who was a stocking maker at the time,
6:50
Speaker 2: which was a huge industry right at the beginning or
6:53
Speaker 2: up until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and he
6:56
Speaker 2: said the year was checkered with holidays, wakes, which are
7:00
Speaker 2: festivals held non our patron saints, and fairs. It was
7:03
Speaker 2: not one dull round of labor, and like it was
7:07
Speaker 2: just a much more leisurely life than what was about
7:10
Speaker 2: to come. And the thing that's so gripping about the
7:14
Speaker 2: beginning of the Industrial Revolution and specifically the initial disruption
7:19
Speaker 2: in the textile industry is that it happened overnight. I
7:23
Speaker 2: mean we're talking in the span of like maybe ten twelve,
7:27
Speaker 2: fifteen years. People went from they just worked at home
7:31
Speaker 2: three or four days a week to having to work
7:33
Speaker 2: twelve to thirteen hour days, seven days a week in
7:36
Speaker 2: a factory just to make less money than they had
7:39
Speaker 2: been making before at home.
7:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the other thing too, was this wasn't like
7:44
Speaker 1: the beginning of automation. There had been automation and textile
7:49
Speaker 1: manufacturing for a little while at this point. But and
7:53
Speaker 1: this is very key, Queen Elizabeth one saw the writing
7:56
Speaker 1: on the wall way back in the day and said, hey,
8:00
Speaker 1: William Lee, you want a patent for this machine. You
8:04
Speaker 1: can't have one because that's going to put too many
8:05
Speaker 1: people out of work. So it's very interesting that, you know,
8:10
Speaker 1: long before this happened, you know, with the Luddites, Queen
8:15
Speaker 1: Elizabeth the first like saw what was coming.
8:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was pretty precient for sure. And so so yes,
8:21
Speaker 2: that's a big misconception. People are like, these machines just
8:23
Speaker 2: came up out of nowhere and all of a sudden
8:26
Speaker 2: it just disrupted everything. No, the machines have been there
8:28
Speaker 2: for hundreds of years. What changed was the way that
8:31
Speaker 2: the machines were used and that they were improved along
8:34
Speaker 2: the way. Like the machine that William Lee invented in
8:38
Speaker 2: fifteen eighty compared to the machines that were being used
8:40
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty or eighteen hundred or eighteen ten were
8:44
Speaker 2: pretty different. The ones that came later were much much better.
8:47
Speaker 2: And that there were a bunch of different machines that
8:50
Speaker 2: were used in the weaving textile creation process that had
8:54
Speaker 2: all become improved enough that you could put them all
8:56
Speaker 2: together and have and create a mill. That was a
9:00
Speaker 2: that was part one of why this all kind of
9:02
Speaker 2: happened at the time that it did.
9:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, if you have a factory,
9:07
Speaker 1: it can't just be the machine that makes the thing.
9:08
Speaker 1: You need all the other machines to automate that process
9:12
Speaker 1: as well if you want a really efficient system. And
9:15
Speaker 1: so that's what happened. One of the other things that
9:17
Speaker 1: happened to kind of you know, and again we keep
9:20
Speaker 1: saying steamroll or steam power, but this thing was full
9:24
Speaker 1: and full steam ahead when Adams when Adam Smith wrote
9:29
Speaker 1: a book in seventeen seventy six called an inquiry into
9:32
Speaker 1: the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations, No
9:36
Speaker 1: Colon No. And we've talked a lot about Adam Smith
9:40
Speaker 1: on the show, and he was the guy that basically said, Hey,
9:43
Speaker 1: you know what, free markets the way to go. Laissez
9:47
Speaker 1: faire economics is a way to go. Let people stay
9:50
Speaker 1: out of things, Let the market work it out, Let
9:52
Speaker 1: the manufacturers and the business owners work it out with
9:55
Speaker 1: the workers and the merchant class like, why are you
9:59
Speaker 1: splitting all these profits? Like you should be keeping the
10:02
Speaker 1: lion's share of this stuff. And the merchant class was like,
10:04
Speaker 1: I love this book.
10:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. And to be fair to Adam Smith, like he
10:08
Speaker 2: wasn't advocating for workers to get completely screwed over. His
10:13
Speaker 2: arguments and his ideas and his theory of free market
10:18
Speaker 2: competition were interpreted in a way by the merchant class
10:22
Speaker 2: to mean that they should be self interested and maximize
10:26
Speaker 2: profits as much as they could. He wasn't necessarily expressly
10:30
Speaker 2: saying that. He almost seems to have been a little naive,
10:34
Speaker 2: or at the very least, he didn't predict the way
10:36
Speaker 2: that his theory would be used.
10:37
Speaker 1: I think, oh, I mean, I think that's exactly the
10:40
Speaker 1: thing was he thought. When he was saying it'll work
10:44
Speaker 1: itself out, he wasn't saying to the benefit of few
10:47
Speaker 1: and the detriment of many. He was saying, they'll all
10:50
Speaker 1: just kind of like, as we will see that England did.
10:53
Speaker 1: They were kind of like, hey, you guys will work
10:55
Speaker 1: this out and we should just stay out of it,
10:57
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you'll come to a fair agreement.
10:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. So kind of I guess, kind of like the
11:01
Speaker 2: pendulum's going to swing this way, and then they'll swing
11:03
Speaker 2: back that way and that way, and they'll finally just
11:05
Speaker 2: settle in the middle. But the pendulum ended up swinging
11:08
Speaker 2: one way toward owners management capital and just got stuck
11:12
Speaker 2: their mid air and has been there ever since.
11:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a pendulum. What do you call a pendulum
11:17
Speaker 1: that doesn't swing anymore? Sounds like a riddle. Okay, So
11:23
Speaker 1: we got to stick now.
11:25
Speaker 2: So there was a third factor too, and that was
11:27
Speaker 2: the economic background of England. And at the turn of
11:29
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century it was in a really big recession
11:32
Speaker 2: at the time.
11:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had been at war with Napoleon for a
11:36
Speaker 1: long time. That's going to drain your you know, your
11:39
Speaker 1: resources as a nation. And then they also because they
11:43
Speaker 1: were at war with France, had blockades against each other,
11:46
Speaker 1: but shut down a big trade partner. Those markets that
11:51
Speaker 1: were open to those merchants in England were suddenly closed
11:54
Speaker 1: and it hit everyone across the board in England like
11:58
Speaker 1: there was like families were going hungry for the first
12:01
Speaker 1: time in a long time.
12:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, people who had been able to escape you know,
12:05
Speaker 2: previous recessions were getting hit hard. So the reason that
12:09
Speaker 2: this is important is that, first of all, now you
12:12
Speaker 2: have desperate workers who are in a situation that they
12:15
Speaker 2: need help, which puts them in a disadvantage. And then
12:19
Speaker 2: at the same time, you also have a good reason,
12:22
Speaker 2: especially now that everyone's read the Wealth of Nations, for
12:27
Speaker 2: the owners of these looms, what were the merchant class
12:30
Speaker 2: and are about to become the first industrialists, They have
12:33
Speaker 2: a good reason to replace workers with automated machines. Because
12:38
Speaker 2: profits are starting to dwindle. You want to maximize profits.
12:41
Speaker 2: So that's a really great way to do it. Replace
12:43
Speaker 2: a bunch of people who you have to pay like
12:45
Speaker 2: a fair wage to with some machines that you just
12:48
Speaker 2: pay for upfront and then hire some teenager to make
12:51
Speaker 2: sure it keeps running and pay them peanuts for doing so.
12:54
Speaker 1: Boy, this was really the beginning of the downfall of everything.
13:00
Speaker 1: Is this is the beginning of Hey man, this stuff's
13:03
Speaker 1: not going to be as good, but who cares. We
13:05
Speaker 1: can make it for cheap, and we can sell it
13:08
Speaker 1: for cheaper, and if they wear out, people can just
13:11
Speaker 1: buy another cheap version of it that will make It's
13:15
Speaker 1: like this was the beginning of the drop of in
13:19
Speaker 1: craftsmanship and quality and everything.
13:21
Speaker 2: I think that's why I find this period so fascinating,
13:23
Speaker 2: because our modern world was created like here in this
13:27
Speaker 2: like decade actually just a few years really, And it's
13:30
Speaker 2: funny that you say the quality of goods went down,
13:32
Speaker 2: because I've seen more than once it argued that the
13:35
Speaker 2: thing that really sparked the Luddite movement was not the
13:39
Speaker 2: new technology, was not the unfair treatment, was not the
13:41
Speaker 2: poor wages. It was the decline in the quality of
13:45
Speaker 2: what was being produced. What formerly like socks essentially stockings,
13:50
Speaker 2: what had been produced before with great craftsmanship and sold
13:53
Speaker 2: at a fair price, was now being made really cheaply
13:56
Speaker 2: and sold cheaply. And that that's what really set off
13:58
Speaker 2: the people who were in the text industry to basically riot.
14:01
Speaker 1: Later on, Yeah, I mean what it did was it
14:04
Speaker 1: put them in a position where they were, you know,
14:07
Speaker 1: if you wanted to stay out of that and remain
14:09
Speaker 1: because it's not like every single small you know business
14:13
Speaker 1: textile crafts person went out of business overnight, like they
14:17
Speaker 1: were like I could keep this open, like I actually
14:19
Speaker 1: own my own loom, but now I have to, you know,
14:22
Speaker 1: use cheaper goods and sell them cheaper if I want
14:24
Speaker 1: to keep up, or you know, just give up and
14:27
Speaker 1: go work for them. And neither one of those were
14:29
Speaker 1: good prospects.
14:30
Speaker 2: No, no, because there were zero regulations at the outset
14:33
Speaker 2: of this, so the mill owners just did whatever they
14:35
Speaker 2: wanted and you could either go out on the street
14:38
Speaker 2: and starve, or you could come work for me under
14:40
Speaker 2: my terms. And so the work in the mills was
14:43
Speaker 2: really difficult. They kept it really damp in there, so
14:46
Speaker 2: tuberculosis would run rampant and kill a bunch of people.
14:50
Speaker 2: The fabric, like little parties of fabric could give you
14:53
Speaker 2: long damage. The machines all together were really loud, so
14:56
Speaker 2: they could give you hearing damage. And the machines were
14:58
Speaker 2: really dangerous too, like people would lose their lives, including children.
15:02
Speaker 2: That again, we're working thirteen fourteen hour days, seven days
15:06
Speaker 2: a week at the mill.
15:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they didn't need those artisans anymore because they
15:11
Speaker 1: could train a seventeen year old to run these automated
15:16
Speaker 1: you know, the automated machinery. And this was like, you know,
15:19
Speaker 1: this was the birth of capitalism. When quality went down,
15:23
Speaker 1: prices went down, Fewer and fewer workers getting paid less
15:27
Speaker 1: for more work, and the people that own the joint
15:30
Speaker 1: getting rich.
15:31
Speaker 2: Right. But I think for those of us alive today,
15:35
Speaker 2: because capitalism was birth this way, a lot of people
15:37
Speaker 2: are like, well, capitalism doesn't work, it's inherently exploitive. That's
15:41
Speaker 2: not true. It was just born that way. It doesn't
15:45
Speaker 2: have to be that way, but it was born that way,
15:47
Speaker 2: and it was allowed to remain that way and grow
15:49
Speaker 2: up that way, so that it's just so commonplace now
15:52
Speaker 2: that people think like that's the only way it can be.
15:55
Speaker 2: And I firmly believe that there's an equitable way to
15:58
Speaker 2: do capitalism. Ye're just not doing it. That that's what
16:01
Speaker 2: the issue is, and that that's this is where that started.
16:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that chip has sailed, my friend that I is
16:07
Speaker 1: not moving disagree. Oh, you think there's going to be
16:10
Speaker 1: a big change in that.
16:12
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I think there can be. I'm not
16:15
Speaker 2: saying there definitely will be, but I think that there's
16:17
Speaker 2: there's the potential for it. Sure, I don't think it's
16:20
Speaker 2: completely it's just going to be that way forever. Not necessarily.
16:23
Speaker 2: It could be, but I don't think that is definitely
16:26
Speaker 2: going to be. That's my take.
16:28
Speaker 1: All Right, Well, I admire you're optimism. So shall we
16:32
Speaker 1: take a break. Yeah, all right, all right. One thing
16:54
Speaker 1: that we mentioned in act one, uh, you like that?
16:58
Speaker 1: Fancying this thing up a little bit?
16:59
Speaker 2: I forgot to introduced the gun that goes off in
17:01
Speaker 2: Act three, That's right. You know what I found out
17:05
Speaker 2: who that was? I was Chekhov that said that.
17:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, you finally found that out.
17:10
Speaker 2: Sure, I thought it was you.
17:14
Speaker 1: No, Are you serious? You thought that was me?
17:16
Speaker 2: No. I knew it was kind of like a trope,
17:18
Speaker 2: but I didn't know that Chekhov had come up with it.
17:20
Speaker 2: I guess I'm not so familiar with nineteenth century plays
17:24
Speaker 2: as you.
17:25
Speaker 1: Well, you probably never took drama class or dumb English
17:29
Speaker 1: classes where you read dramas. Well.
17:32
Speaker 2: What's said is, I was they tried and true drama
17:34
Speaker 2: kid in high school. So are you really Yeah, we
17:36
Speaker 2: just didn't do any Chekhov. It was all slapstick comedy
17:39
Speaker 2: in my high school.
17:42
Speaker 1: Well, if the rubber chicken is introduced in act one.
17:45
Speaker 2: It comes back to life and kills everyone in act three.
17:49
Speaker 1: All right, where was I? Okay? Act one when we
17:52
Speaker 1: spoke of the misconception that Luddites are afraid of technology,
17:58
Speaker 1: and I hinted a little further about what I'm going
18:00
Speaker 1: to say now, which is they tried to They tried
18:07
Speaker 1: to work it out. They weren't like, oh my gosh,
18:10
Speaker 1: industrialization's happening. We need to fight it tooth and nail.
18:13
Speaker 1: They were more like, hey, it looks like this is happening,
18:16
Speaker 1: so let's uh, you know, there's gonna be a man
18:18
Speaker 1: one day named Josh Clark who will believe that this
18:21
Speaker 1: can still happen. We want to make it fair for everyone,
18:24
Speaker 1: so like, we'll do this, We'll do this work, give
18:27
Speaker 1: us a minimum wage, make these working conditions safe, maybe
18:31
Speaker 1: tax these goods to create these pensions for people that
18:35
Speaker 1: you're definitely putting out of work, and let's like just
18:38
Speaker 1: roll this out slowly. Let's not just go full steam
18:41
Speaker 1: ahead here and give people time to like learn how
18:44
Speaker 1: to do something else, and they went nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
18:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's just so contrary to what people think
18:50
Speaker 2: of as the Ludites today. I mean, if you even
18:52
Speaker 2: know about the lud Heights beyond you know, the modern
18:55
Speaker 2: use of the word, that there was an actual group,
18:57
Speaker 2: you probably still don't think that they were a reasonable group.
19:00
Speaker 2: That's not exactly what they're known for because they broke
19:02
Speaker 2: a bunch of machines, but that was exactly their initial response.
19:07
Speaker 2: They wanted in, but they wanted in fairly, and so,
19:11
Speaker 2: like you said, the responses to the request were no, no, no,
19:14
Speaker 2: no no. And it wasn't just the factory and mill
19:18
Speaker 2: owners that were saying no. The government was also saying no.
19:23
Speaker 2: And essentially, when the workers went to Parliament, when some
19:27
Speaker 2: labor friendly parliamentarians MPs tried to get legislation passed that
19:33
Speaker 2: kind of helped workers be treated more fairly, it just
19:39
Speaker 2: did not pass. And the idea was, the reasoning was
19:44
Speaker 2: among parliament that anything we would do would just screw
19:48
Speaker 2: things up, like any regulations we create are just going
19:52
Speaker 2: to hamper business, maybe put business people out of business.
19:56
Speaker 2: Their employees are going to be out on the street.
19:58
Speaker 2: And so a job where you're exploited is preferable to
20:02
Speaker 2: no job at all. And since any meddling we might
20:05
Speaker 2: do will will possibly cause you to lose your job,
20:08
Speaker 2: we're just not going to get involved.
20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they did get involved, but they got involved
20:14
Speaker 1: for the other side, Yeah, big time. In seventeen ninety nine,
20:17
Speaker 1: they passed the Combination Acts, which outlawed the trade gills
20:21
Speaker 1: that had kept them, you know, protected up into that point.
20:24
Speaker 1: It stopped them from collective bargaining. It outlawed strikes, so
20:28
Speaker 1: they took away basically any tool they would have to
20:32
Speaker 1: you know, get fair treatment in better wages. And this
20:36
Speaker 1: is another key point too, was they had had machines
20:40
Speaker 1: before we talked about that Queen Elizabeth, you know, not
20:44
Speaker 1: granting the patent, but the machines were still around since
20:47
Speaker 1: the mid seventeen hundreds, and some of those machines had
20:50
Speaker 1: been broken in the past in protest. But they augmented
20:54
Speaker 1: this law basically on the books that said, hey, if
20:57
Speaker 1: you start up with that stuff again, you're going to
21:00
Speaker 1: to go to the gallows and be hanged in front
21:02
Speaker 1: of the town.
21:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. So just to kind of put that into perspective today.
21:07
Speaker 2: Imagine if hacking carried the death penalty, that's kind of
21:13
Speaker 2: akin to what it was like, but even more simplified
21:16
Speaker 2: than that. It'd be more like breaking the computer that
21:20
Speaker 2: your employer gave you when you were hired, like I'm perfecting.
21:24
Speaker 1: Or going into an apple store with a crowbar.
21:26
Speaker 2: But imagine that that carried the death penalty. So when
21:30
Speaker 2: you put all of that together, the government Parliament was
21:33
Speaker 2: essentially saying, get to work, and whatever the mill owners
21:36
Speaker 2: tell you to do, you're going to do it, and
21:38
Speaker 2: if you try to resist, you got us to deal with.
21:42
Speaker 2: That's the way things are. That's essentially what Parliament said.
21:46
Speaker 2: As the blood heites and the textile workers who would
21:49
Speaker 2: become ludites, we're trying to approach us from a reasonable manner.
21:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And that started, you know, a couple of
21:58
Speaker 1: years of what thees are known for for busting these
22:01
Speaker 1: machines up and and more, which we'll get to, but
22:05
Speaker 1: you know, they pointed to the previous you know, a
22:10
Speaker 1: couple of hundred years earlier, when they had already been
22:12
Speaker 1: breaking machines, and that stuff happened, But it just kind
22:14
Speaker 1: of came and went. The Ludites were organized. There were
22:18
Speaker 1: a lot more of them. They were super coordinated. One
22:22
Speaker 1: historian that you found said that you know, talked about
22:24
Speaker 1: how well branded they were because they were they were
22:27
Speaker 1: known as something. They were known as Luddites, ironically leaderless,
22:32
Speaker 1: even though supposedly this what by all accounts is an
22:37
Speaker 1: urban legend named ned Lud was their leader.
22:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, so just a little on ned Lud. It's it's
22:43
Speaker 2: pretty clear that ned Lud, especially as leader of the Luddites,
22:47
Speaker 2: never existed. He was fictitious. It's possible that there was
22:53
Speaker 2: somebody named Edward Ludlam who was the real life person
22:57
Speaker 2: that ned Lud became based on. But the story of
23:00
Speaker 2: the whole thing, the story of ned Luod, is that
23:05
Speaker 2: in seventeen seventy nine, a young I think he was
23:07
Speaker 2: a weaver named ned Lud was either told by his
23:11
Speaker 2: father or boss whoever he was working for at the
23:13
Speaker 2: time to tighten his needles or square his needles which
23:17
Speaker 2: means titan his weave, or he was told to create cheaper,
23:24
Speaker 2: cheaper product faster. Either way, in a fit of rage,
23:28
Speaker 2: he broke his loom, he broke the machine that he
23:31
Speaker 2: was working on, and protest so This was seventeen seventy nine,
23:35
Speaker 2: and by the time that eighteen eleven rolls around, which
23:38
Speaker 2: is when the Ludites really started to rise up, ned
23:41
Speaker 2: Lud was kind of like this catch all in the
23:42
Speaker 2: textile community. Anytime something happened to a loom, it broke.
23:47
Speaker 2: It was purposely broken. It was just kind of like
23:49
Speaker 2: Ned Luod did it. You're gonna hate this analogy, so
23:53
Speaker 2: I'm sorry in advance, but it was kind of like
23:55
Speaker 2: the family Circus kids. I ton't know. Yeah, oh wow,
24:01
Speaker 2: that was surprising. I like my teeth were clenched waiting
24:04
Speaker 2: for your response.
24:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't remember, because there are other examples of that,
24:09
Speaker 1: of like a made up person of like so and
24:11
Speaker 1: so did it that weren't even real people. I just
24:13
Speaker 1: can't think of them. So family Circus is the perfect analogy.
24:16
Speaker 2: Okay, great, well, thank you. Wow, I was not expecting this.
24:20
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to take up break here for
24:22
Speaker 2: a second.
24:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate the Family Circus. Still, you didn't
24:25
Speaker 1: win me over, okay, but I love the ref Everything's
24:28
Speaker 1: back to normal good. But regardless, ned Lud was kind
24:32
Speaker 1: of this urban legend went by, you know, King Lud
24:35
Speaker 1: Captain lud General lud But all of this was the
24:39
Speaker 1: idea that he was the leader of the Ludites when
24:42
Speaker 1: there was no clear leader. I mean, you know, in
24:45
Speaker 1: different places, depending where it was taking place. There were
24:48
Speaker 1: of course people who might have led the charge that
24:51
Speaker 1: night or for that operation, but there was no like
24:54
Speaker 1: central leader. Yet they remained like highly organized.
24:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like the Ludites weren't act actual group
25:00
Speaker 2: that spread across the Midlands and into Yorkshire from eighteen
25:04
Speaker 2: eleven to eighteen thirteen. Some people say eighteen sixteen because
25:07
Speaker 2: there was another uprising that year, but really the Blood
25:10
Speaker 2: Height Revolution took place from eighteen eleven to eighteen thirteen,
25:14
Speaker 2: and there it was a group of people of textile
25:19
Speaker 2: workers who had sworn a secret oath to this organization.
25:22
Speaker 2: But like you said, it was decentralized. There was no Nedlood.
25:25
Speaker 2: But they were so organized that the British government and
25:29
Speaker 2: the officials and the mill owners who were trying to
25:32
Speaker 2: break up this organization believed that there very much was
25:37
Speaker 2: a Nedlood. There had to be a Nedlood because who
25:39
Speaker 2: else was leading these people and stirring up unrest that
25:42
Speaker 2: was spreading across the northern part of the country.
25:45
Speaker 1: So I don't even think we mentioned like the very
25:47
Speaker 1: first thing that happened, that was in March of eighteen eleven,
25:51
Speaker 1: when a group of you know, these these what would
25:54
Speaker 1: be known as Luddites a little bit later on, took
25:57
Speaker 1: to the streets in protests of of their pay, their
26:01
Speaker 1: working conditions. The British troops came in, broke it up,
26:06
Speaker 1: and they dispersed, but they came back later that night,
26:08
Speaker 1: and that was the first night of this new like, hey,
26:11
Speaker 1: let's break everything. They went to a mill, they trashed
26:14
Speaker 1: everything inside and that was sort of the first rubber
26:19
Speaker 1: chicken fired in this new round of busting stuff up.
26:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was March. The next big thing that happened
26:27
Speaker 2: was in November there was a group of Luodites who
26:31
Speaker 2: attacked the home of Edward Hollingsworth, who was an owner
26:35
Speaker 2: of several automatic looms. He was, I guess kind of
26:38
Speaker 2: like a craftsman merchant, all rolled into one. The reason
26:43
Speaker 2: that he was targeted is because he was using those
26:45
Speaker 2: looms to make these new cheap stockings that had just
26:48
Speaker 2: completely undermined the entire stocking trade. And so they broke
26:54
Speaker 2: all of the looms in the guy's house and left,
26:57
Speaker 2: and Edward Hollingsworth was like, well, at least they didn't
27:00
Speaker 2: burn my house down. And then a week later the
27:04
Speaker 2: blood Heites came back and burned his house down.
27:07
Speaker 1: Yeah that was Yeah, it seemed like a little much,
27:11
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was an avengeful act that happened because
27:13
Speaker 1: they were mad.
27:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we should say there's like a lot
27:18
Speaker 2: of attacks like this between eighteen eleven and eighteen thirteen.
27:22
Speaker 2: And it all started in Nottingham, sure, in Nottingham specifically,
27:27
Speaker 2: and it just kind of spread. It was a great
27:30
Speaker 2: idea among these pent up, angry textile workers whose entire
27:34
Speaker 2: worlds had just been upended. So it spread very, very easily,
27:39
Speaker 2: and it was I think in a December issue of
27:41
Speaker 2: the Nottingham Review that the story of ned Blood was told.
27:46
Speaker 2: And that's when they became known as the Luodites. And
27:49
Speaker 2: so these textile workers, like I said, they swore a
27:52
Speaker 2: secret oath to protect this organization with their lives, and
27:56
Speaker 2: in doing so, they swore an allegiance to, like you said,
27:59
Speaker 2: Kinglood General Blood, and of course the textall workers knew
28:04
Speaker 2: that ned Blood didn't exist, and to kind of underscore that,
28:07
Speaker 2: they placed his base of operations in Sherwood Forest in Nottingham,
28:13
Speaker 2: which probably sounds familiar to anybody who's seen any version
28:17
Speaker 2: of Robin Hood.
28:18
Speaker 1: Yes, very cheeky thing to do, for sure. One of
28:21
Speaker 1: the other misconceptions is that the Luddites were so angry
28:24
Speaker 1: that they just trashed everything with reckless abandoned and went
28:27
Speaker 1: after everyone and tried to wreck all these factories. That
28:31
Speaker 1: wasn't the case. They were very targeted. Anyone that was
28:36
Speaker 1: known to be like a good boss and a good
28:38
Speaker 1: factory owner who treated their employees more fairly. They did
28:42
Speaker 1: not go and trash their factory. The people who were
28:47
Speaker 1: known to be especially bad and egregious violators of workers' rights,
28:52
Speaker 1: they were targeted. But they even got letters beforehand a
28:56
Speaker 1: lot of times that were like, hey, you got a
28:59
Speaker 1: chance here to change things. Otherwise next week we're gonna
29:03
Speaker 1: trash your factory or move those things out of there,
29:07
Speaker 1: make some changes, or it's happening, and they would not
29:10
Speaker 1: do that. Sometimes they would try and move their machinery
29:14
Speaker 1: out of there. But because these were kind of working
29:16
Speaker 1: class heroes, they would get tipped off on when these
29:19
Speaker 1: caravans were doing that, and so in the middle of
29:21
Speaker 1: the night. They would intercept these caravans and you get
29:24
Speaker 1: them out there instead of in the factory.
29:26
Speaker 2: I just see the mill owners trying to remove their
29:29
Speaker 2: looms in the middle of the night, like Otho trying
29:31
Speaker 2: to escape and Beetlejuice.
29:33
Speaker 1: Have you seen the new trailer yet for the new one?
29:35
Speaker 2: No? And I don't want to see it. I just
29:37
Speaker 2: want to go into that movie completely unaware of everything.
29:41
Speaker 1: Well you should, I mean, it looks like Beetlejuice. I
29:44
Speaker 1: hope it didn't spoil it.
29:45
Speaker 2: Yes you did, you didn't, That's fine, but I yeah,
29:50
Speaker 2: I'm very excited about seeing that. No.
29:52
Speaker 1: Same here. I wanted to see that Broadway play but
29:55
Speaker 1: it went away, did it? Yeah? It was supposed to
29:58
Speaker 1: be really good. So I don't know if it just
29:59
Speaker 1: had its and stopped or what.
30:01
Speaker 2: I'll bet it's playing in New Mexico somewhere.
30:03
Speaker 1: Well, I think there is a traveling version, so maybe
30:06
Speaker 1: it'll come through or New Mexico. So they were breaking
30:12
Speaker 1: looms at a rate of about one hundred and seventy
30:14
Speaker 1: five a month. It's got very costly for you know,
30:18
Speaker 1: the machinery replacement costs of productivity not happening not, you know,
30:23
Speaker 1: putting out these stockings and socks and things. And in
30:27
Speaker 1: eighteen twelve things really really changed for the scarier and
30:32
Speaker 1: maybe that's a good time for another break.
30:35
Speaker 2: Sure I was not expecting that, but yes.
30:38
Speaker 1: All right, we'll keep everyone on the edge of their
30:41
Speaker 1: stockings and we'll be right.
30:42
Speaker 2: Back, okay, Chuck. So you said eighteen twelve was kind
31:04
Speaker 2: of like a watershed year, and definitely was. Things got
31:06
Speaker 2: much more violent. Essentially, the Luddites and the Ludite movement
31:11
Speaker 2: as it was spreading across the Midlands and into Yorkshire,
31:15
Speaker 2: became engaged in all at war with mill owners. And
31:20
Speaker 2: it could be you know, a handful of them wearing
31:23
Speaker 2: masks and carrying swords and muskets that would attack, you know,
31:27
Speaker 2: someone's house and break all their looms. It could be
31:29
Speaker 2: two thousand of them, like what happened in one attack
31:34
Speaker 2: in March, I believe, or it could be a couple
31:37
Speaker 2: of hundreds. One of the most famous was called the
31:40
Speaker 2: Battle of Rofold's Mill in Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, and
31:44
Speaker 2: there were between one hundred and two hundred, depending on
31:47
Speaker 2: who you ask, former workers of that mill who stormed
31:51
Speaker 2: it one night and it just got super violent.
31:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, because these owners had had enough, they start hiring
32:00
Speaker 1: armed guards like mercenaries basically to stand by and watch
32:03
Speaker 1: with their rifles. And there was a gun battle too.
32:07
Speaker 1: I believe two of the Luddites were shot. They later died.
32:12
Speaker 1: They retaliated. They assassinated William Horsefall, which was a really
32:18
Speaker 1: sort of ardent anti Ludite. He had talked about riding
32:22
Speaker 1: up to his saddle Gerson Ludite blood, and so they
32:25
Speaker 1: went after him assassinated him in a bar. I think
32:29
Speaker 1: he ended up dying a couple of days later. But
32:31
Speaker 1: they shot him in the thighs, the hip, and the testicles,
32:35
Speaker 1: and not that that's funny. I don't know why I laughed,
32:38
Speaker 1: but it just seemed like a particularly egregious thing to do.
32:42
Speaker 1: And they took him back to the bar where he
32:44
Speaker 1: was had been spouting off and drinking, and he died
32:47
Speaker 1: there a couple of days later.
32:48
Speaker 2: Something ironic about that is that Horsefall when he left
32:51
Speaker 2: that bar initially before he got shot, he had just
32:53
Speaker 2: bought a round of drinks for some of his workers. Yeah,
32:56
Speaker 2: talk about irony.
32:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
32:59
Speaker 2: One other thing to know about the Luodites is that
33:02
Speaker 2: their secret was not only kept by them, but by
33:05
Speaker 2: the communities that they came from. You might think like, Okay,
33:08
Speaker 2: these guys are burning down mills and breaking machines, they're
33:10
Speaker 2: putting people out of work, and that's absolutely true. They
33:13
Speaker 2: also would go into people's homes and requisition weapons to
33:16
Speaker 2: use for raids, and yet almost universally they were beloved
33:21
Speaker 2: and kept secret by the local communities. And this evidenced
33:26
Speaker 2: by the army of spies that the British government sent
33:29
Speaker 2: in to try to break up this movement. Who could
33:32
Speaker 2: get nowhere? They got nothing, and as a matter of fact,
33:35
Speaker 2: the spies started reporting back that there was such a
33:38
Speaker 2: person as ned Luod. They got so their their efforts
33:41
Speaker 2: were just that frustrated.
33:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they've sent in spies, they're getting nowhere. There's
33:48
Speaker 1: actual bloodshed happening now at a quicker rate, and so
33:52
Speaker 1: they're like, we got to do something. We have to
33:54
Speaker 1: get involved militarily, and they sent in troops, initially just
33:59
Speaker 1: a sort of quiet things down. They had fourteen thousand
34:03
Speaker 1: troops station in the Midlands, in Yorkshire. They had more
34:06
Speaker 1: people stationed there than they had fighting the War of
34:09
Speaker 1: Napoleon at the time.
34:10
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
34:11
Speaker 1: They you know, they had some sort of effect, but
34:14
Speaker 1: they didn't completely like break the movement up. And so
34:18
Speaker 1: they finally said, all right, remember that death penalty stipulation
34:22
Speaker 1: we put in there about going into the apple store
34:24
Speaker 1: with a crowbar. We're going to start enforcing that. And
34:29
Speaker 1: they started hanging dozens of Luddites in public after hasty trials,
34:36
Speaker 1: sometimes even teenagers, and that was what really got everyone's
34:41
Speaker 1: attention that they could be put to death for this.
34:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one particularly grim day in Lancashire where
34:47
Speaker 2: I think they hanged fourteen Bloodites, including, like you said,
34:52
Speaker 2: a teenager, a sixteen year old who'd only acted as
34:54
Speaker 2: a lookout for one of the raids. And they were
34:57
Speaker 2: clearly making an example out of these people. These were
35:00
Speaker 2: very public trials, very public hangings. They built special gallows
35:04
Speaker 2: so they could hang multiple people at the same time,
35:07
Speaker 2: like they were The British government was saying like, we're
35:10
Speaker 2: just gonna keep doing this. We're going to kill you
35:11
Speaker 2: if we catch you, so you better stop, and that's
35:14
Speaker 2: what finally worked. Other people, by the way, were transported
35:17
Speaker 2: to Australia, sometimes for life. They would just take them
35:21
Speaker 2: there and be like you're Australia. Now good for them, right,
35:25
Speaker 2: all of that put together, the fact that now the
35:28
Speaker 2: one remaining tool they had in their toolbox to try
35:31
Speaker 2: to fight for equal treatment or at least better treatment
35:35
Speaker 2: at work was now like they would get the death
35:38
Speaker 2: penalty for that. That finally broke up the Light eight
35:41
Speaker 2: movement around eighteen thirteen.
35:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they had about another dozen years of you know,
35:48
Speaker 1: pretty bad treatment until finally there was a bit of
35:51
Speaker 1: a wake up call for the British government and in
35:54
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty four Parliament said, you know what, maybe unions
35:58
Speaker 1: are a decent idea after all, they repeal that ban
36:02
Speaker 1: on unions. But you know, like I said, that ship
36:05
Speaker 1: at sail, there was no putting the genie back into
36:08
Speaker 1: the bottle at this point. And the you know, like
36:12
Speaker 1: we mentioned a few times, the popular sort of view
36:15
Speaker 1: of Luddites these days is not entirely right. They didn't
36:19
Speaker 1: hate the technology. They tried to work things out in
36:21
Speaker 1: a fair way. They tried to stand up for workers'
36:24
Speaker 1: rights very early on. And it seems like a lot
36:28
Speaker 1: of sort of the rewriting of that came from a
36:33
Speaker 1: novelist and scientist named CP Snow who looks like it
36:36
Speaker 1: was the first person to kind of cast them as,
36:39
Speaker 1: you know, anti technology, which was reinforced again in the
36:42
Speaker 1: seventies in New Scientists and other publications.
36:46
Speaker 2: Yeah so, at least by the seventies, if not earlier,
36:49
Speaker 2: Ludites were now synonymous with being afraid, usually irrationally afraid
36:55
Speaker 2: of technology or the future, or in some cases you
36:58
Speaker 2: were anti capitalist is another way to some people use
37:01
Speaker 2: it right, And that lasted that way for a while
37:04
Speaker 2: until Thomas Pinchon, the famous author of Gravity's Rainbow, among others,
37:09
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four he wrote an essay essentially saying
37:13
Speaker 2: like I'm not so sure we should scoff at ludites.
37:16
Speaker 2: He wrote an essay called is it Okay to be
37:18
Speaker 2: a Luddite and basically said, if you stop and look
37:20
Speaker 2: around at the way that technology is going, maybe we
37:23
Speaker 2: should be a little bit afraid. Maybe we should start
37:26
Speaker 2: questioning some of this stuff. And in nineteen eighty four
37:29
Speaker 2: he made a warning about like you really want to
37:33
Speaker 2: keep your eye on artificial intelligence in eighty four, And
37:37
Speaker 2: what's really interesting is around twenty twenty three, I think
37:39
Speaker 2: there was an author named Brian Merchant who wrote a
37:41
Speaker 2: book called Blood in the Machine, and he essentially said
37:45
Speaker 2: he didn't cite Pinchon. I don't think I haven't read
37:48
Speaker 2: the books. Possibly did, But essentially what he was saying
37:51
Speaker 2: is that what Pinchon predicted has now come to roost.
37:54
Speaker 2: That AI is starting to creep closer and closer to this,
37:59
Speaker 2: creating a world that's even more upended, even more quickly,
38:03
Speaker 2: putting even more people out of work than what happened
38:05
Speaker 2: to the textile workers the ludites at the beginning of
38:08
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century.
38:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he said, and then there shall be a
38:13
Speaker 1: Justine Bateman who is the new Thomas pinch On. What
38:18
Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about it before. She's the actor
38:21
Speaker 1: Justine Bateman from Family Ties. Of course, she's sort of
38:25
Speaker 1: the leading voice in Hollywood fighting against you know, AI
38:30
Speaker 1: destroying Hollywood, gotcha.
38:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, that's one thing that people are questioning.
38:37
Speaker 2: I mean, just that when chat GPT came out, it
38:39
Speaker 2: was like, we know companies that actually fired people. They're like, oh, good,
38:43
Speaker 2: but can fire you now? First chance? They got right,
38:46
Speaker 2: So it is worth questioning. And that's what Merchant and
38:50
Speaker 2: some of these neo Ludites are saying. They're like, we
38:52
Speaker 2: should stop and say like Okay, where's this technology going?
38:55
Speaker 2: Who exactly is making this technology that's going to totally
38:58
Speaker 2: change our world? How can we pret tech people who
39:00
Speaker 2: are about to lose their jobs all the same questions
39:03
Speaker 2: the loatites asked at the beginning of the nineteenth century
39:06
Speaker 2: and then face the death penalty for trying to do
39:08
Speaker 2: something about And the most ironic thing, Chuck, the most
39:11
Speaker 2: ironic thing of all is the people who are questioning
39:14
Speaker 2: where artificial intelligence are going are being branded as lotites.
39:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's our show. We're going to do a
39:23
Speaker 1: Q and A.
39:24
Speaker 2: I know that is that we end live shows, but
39:27
Speaker 2: not episodes. But it was just too perfect.
39:29
Speaker 1: Many No, that was a very live showy ending. We
39:32
Speaker 1: just don't have our traditional handshake afterward.
39:35
Speaker 2: We even held for applause for a second we did.
39:38
Speaker 1: I heard none, So.
39:39
Speaker 2: I'm taking it you got nothing else, right?
39:42
Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
39:42
Speaker 2: All right? Well, if you want to know more about lutites,
39:44
Speaker 2: go read about them, read about neo Luddites, read about
39:47
Speaker 2: everything you can. And since I said that, it's time
39:50
Speaker 2: for listener mail.
39:54
Speaker 1: This is from Cash and this is about doctor Browner,
39:58
Speaker 1: and this is going to include we'll business plug for
40:00
Speaker 1: Cash took. Hey, guys, just listen to the Doctor Bronner's
40:04
Speaker 1: episode and thought of a use that you guys didn't
40:06
Speaker 1: mention and maybe we'd get a kick out of it.
40:09
Speaker 1: Is a fantastic insecticidal soap. I run a small gardening
40:13
Speaker 1: business in Portland, Maine, one of our favorite towns, that
40:17
Speaker 1: focuses on designing and creating gardens that don't require much
40:20
Speaker 1: human input and no chemical input. Generally, I don't treat pests,
40:25
Speaker 1: and that's even in quotes and let nature run its course.
40:29
Speaker 1: But for the particularly tough ones like scale and viburnum
40:32
Speaker 1: leaf beetle, I treat with Doctor Bronner's diluted with one
40:36
Speaker 1: six water with a spray bottle, works wonders and has
40:40
Speaker 1: no negative ecological impacts. Love the show. You guys are
40:43
Speaker 1: a great company on my long days working alone. And hey,
40:47
Speaker 1: if you are in Portland, Maine or nearby, check out
40:51
Speaker 1: Cash at founder Opus Fine Gardens.
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Speaker 2: Well thanks a lot, Cash, and we are happy to
40:57
Speaker 2: plug your business. And if you want to be like
40:59
Speaker 2: Cash instead, end us an interesting email and plug your
41:01
Speaker 2: business at the same time. We are happy to do that.
41:04
Speaker 2: Email us at Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com Stuff
41:11
Speaker 2: you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
41:13
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
41:17
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.