> For a dramatic example of just the sort of thing
> you're talking about, check out this very long thread
> at Charlie Stross' blog:
>
> <http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html>
Funny, I had a moment of confusion when my browser colored this link as having been recently read (via Slashdot?). I'll have to go over the responses at some point.
The problem with it is separating the phenomenon from garden variety use of logical fallacies such as straw men and whatever you call "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?" I suspect there is a difference in pervasiveness. In matters of public policy such as nuclear power or genetic engineering, you can see the same sort of bad argumentation as one would see in public health insurance or other economic questions. The charge of Luddism filters down however to less weighty or immediate problems such as space colonization and bicycle components and design.
The latter is what got my gears turning. A certain onetime bicycle racer then product manager by the name of Grant Petersen developed a reputation for quirkiness in the design and component specifications for recreational bicycles. Some of his choices became seen as throwbacks, famously earning him the intended insult of "retrogrouch".
He went on to form his own company <http://www.rivbike.com/>, where he more or less embraced the appellation in a tongue-in-cheek way while selling items of which some are also considered throwbacks: leather saddles, steel frames, wool bicycle clothing, and canvas bags to name a few.
Petersen's quirkiness and technical preferences have sometimes earned drawn accusations of lifestyle marketing and Luddism, citing for example Paul Fussell in reference to the hightened status of the old. The arguments have a way of ignoring, for example, the widespread adoption of leather saddles by ultra-marathon riders for their comfort, or the temperature range and non-stinkiness of wool garments (leading in part to their recent boom in sport clothing). The arguments also have a way wondering why he doesn't adopt other old bicycle technologies like corked steel water bottles, which of course completely misses the point.
Mind you, the bicycle industry's bread and butter is hawking the latest and greatest carbon fiber this and that, and there's little threat of retrogrouches taking over. Yet the mere suggestion that certain new bicycle technologies offer little improvement over old ones for certain purposes seems to really upset some people, and I don't mean those on the selling side.
Anyway, it's interesting to watch these things unfold with the predictability of Chomsky being accused of kneejerk anti-Americanism.
-- Andy