Cyborg and the Luddite: A Memoir

A memoir about the Western world’s transformation into a cyborg society between 1985 and 2025, told through the lens of a natural Luddite who resists this transformation every step of the way—from the great migration to cyberspaces to the rise of AI.

Born a natural Luddite in 1982, Andrea’s earliest memory is an intense fear of her parents’ clunky computer. She never asked her parents for America Online or wanted a cellphone. As those around her uncritically marched into the future, Andrea never “liked” or “subscribed” to social medias, AIs, robots, algorithms, transhuman propaganda, and other dehumanizing and deskilling technologies. However, with relentless prodding, she grew up to be a phone-addicted, over-notified cyborg like most people today.

The Cyborg and the Luddite shows what society loses when technology “moves fast and breaks things” and uncovers why most people today are anxious, unhappy and disconnected: We simply do not like the cumulative result of forty years of “terms and conditions” we clicked “yes” to but did not understand. Technology has created division, anger, and massive immiseration for most people despite being heralded as the answer to every problem.

A road map to resisting the overlords of Big Tech before it is too late, Andrea’s story is a reminder that we all have the cyborg and the Luddite within us—and that we still have a human future worth fighting for.