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Comment by siraben | Hacker News Reader

One reply seems quite prescient for its time, clashing against the attitude of the original author.

  We should support alternatives both to coal-
  generated electricity and to IBM-style technocracy.
  But I am reluctant to entertain alternatives that
  presuppose the traditional subservience of one class
  to another. Let the PCs come and the wives and
  servants go seek more meaningful work.
    -- Toby Koosman, Knoxville, TN

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That's an uncharitable reading of the essay. So if we help our spouses that makes us subservient to them?

Sure, relying on the wife is not an option, or not a desirable option, for most writers. But the article is named "Why I am not going to buy a computer". His wife helps him and reducing his dependence on "strip-mined coal" eases his conscience. Good for him, though I don't think that the article has a lot of relevance for the rest of the world.

> So if we help our spouses that makes us subservient to them?

I don't know the distinction you're making here. Help and service are the same thing. The point is that it's easy and not notable to eschew computers if you have servants. There's no closer analog to "Let them eat cake!"

I can serve someone while being neither a servant nor subservient.

I looked her up. She worked with the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis recently.

I wonder what she was doing back then... :D

> We should support alternatives both to coal- generated electricity and to IBM-style technocracy.

So he's saying that workers in the coal industry should just learn to code? That's certainly a prescient attitude.

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