Ludd lives! (Image from Mindfully.Org.)

You remember Ned Ludd? He was a weaver, whose job function was mechanized, so he led a movement in 19th century England to destroy the looms. And so his name went down in history for all idiots who try to ban technology.

Ludd's busy.

Here's Ludd. (Image from the Salt Lake City Tribune.) He thinks his name is Sen. Orrin Hatch, but he's Ned Ludd all right. I can prove it.

His solution to the technology of copying files. Ban it. Sen. Ludd's latest idea, called the INDUCE Bill, would not only make illegal any technology that copies files (such as, I assume, caching them) but encouraging people to make such technology.

The Ludd comparison is perfect. You see, Hatch writes country music. Most of it is garbage -- don't quit your day job, Ned (excuse me, Orrin). But the industry has used Hatch's ego to convince him that the reason he can't quit his day job is because of those nasty Internet peer-to-peer pirates. They must be stopped!

And that VCR in your living room. Ban it, too. And ban me for talking about it.

There are plenty more Ludds where that one came from, unfortunately.

Your phone line is obsolete. Voice is a low-bandwidth application. All phone lines should, in fact, be data lines. But governments of all kinds have been sucking at the teats of the voice industry for decades, making it easy for the Bells to make them do their will.

So, is Voice Over IP cutting into the action? Tax it! Can't find it? Ban it. Why, well, uh, to give poor kids better Internet service. Never mind that most of the money meant to go to these kids was stolen by...the Bells. Their monopoly must be protected, at all costs.

Even the cost of the future.

If it weren't for the fact that many technology companies are so hungry for government protection, or funding, that they're eager to make common cause with Luddites, we might have a way to organize against them.

As it is, we'll need the pressure of the market, the growing pressure of China and India, to get any rational policy.