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Pessimists Archive

@pessimistsarc.bsky.social
4.2K followers 692 following 289 posts

We explore and catalog the history of technophobia and moral panic. Our newsletter: newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org

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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"We can be humble and live a good life with the aid of the machines, or be arrogant and die." - Dr. Norbert Wiener, 1949 newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-origin...
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Unabomber manifesto had AI section Amusingly even Kaczynski couldn’t muster the intellectual arrogance to predict risk to all humankind, calling it unknowable His concern was lack of meaningful work, centralization of power & a ‘soft-liberal’ elite newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-unabom...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
The Unabomber was an AI Doomer (Obviously)
Ted Kaczynski is dead. In this moment of hysteria about AI And its impact on civilisation, it is inevitable that debates about the merits of the ‘Unabomber Manifesto’ will move from the ideological fr...
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Fears the Internet could be ruined by autonomous exploit finding software is not new. In 1995 there was a huge debate about whether open source exploit finding software should be allowed. newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/before-myt...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Before MYTHOS, SATAN: a 1990s Software Satanic Panic
In 1995 an app called 'SATAN' could find software vulnerabilities automatically, when its creators announced a public release panic ensued.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
2026: The New York Times cites seriously academics who say AI might end the world 1881: The New York Times cites seriously academics who say telegraphy might end the world newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/telegraph-...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Telegraph Doomers of the 19th Century - Part 1
Like the web, telegraphy brought rapid changes in society along with very familiar anxieties and criticisms.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
King Charles jumping on AI doomer bandwagon, he can’t resist a good panic!
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Louis Anslow @louisanslow.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This meeting is being organized by the Future of Life Institute TESCREAL doomsday cult. An org that was exposed funding Nazis as a means to an end. They’re dangerous and will do anything to ‘save humanity’ from the end times. expo.se/nyhet/elon-m...
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
2019: “GPT2 is groundbreaking in two ways. One is its size, says Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s research director. The models “were 12 times bigger, and the dataset was 15 times bigger and much broader” than the previous state-of-the-art AI model”
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"The possible consequences of developments in nuclear physics were easier to predict in 1939, than are the possible consequences of gene transfer in 1974." (The Daily Telegraph, 1974)
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
When elites try to convince you a new technology is a threat to YOU, it is often because it is a threat to THEM
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"The art of printing can be of great service in so far as it furthers the circulation of useful & tested books; but it can bring about serious evils… …it will, therefore, be necessary to maintain full control over the printers” - Pope Alexander VI, 1501
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Adam Levine @notthatadamlevine.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I needed some 1920s doomer stuff, naturally came here, and this was right at the top. Thank you for your service.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
When a wrong prediction about technological change repeats through history consistently across large groups of people it is a sign a cognitive bias is at play. Example: automation and the lump of labor fallacy newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/robots-hav...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Robots Have Been About to Take All the Jobs for 100 Years
We will be exploring the history of fears about technological unemployment.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Happy Labour Day! In 1900 child labourers went on strike, novel reading was blamed: “Literary pabulum” dealing with “the rise from poverty to steam yachts” helped one boy convince others they “were being ground beneath the heels of financial despotism”
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Wonder if this observed concern about children reading newspapers has little historical evidence because newspaper generally didn’t write negatively about themselves?
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
1845: Man defends giving kids newspaper “There's a false opinion.. ..in regard to the influence of newspapers upon minds of children. An objection of the most silly character.” OBJECTION: Kids would "learn too much.. ..they'd become dissatisfied with home & want to go forth in world"
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
When a new technology creates change in society in a similar way to what is replacing, you are going to see repeating psychological, sociological and political patterns. Many lessons to learn in those patterns!
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
2026: The Eiffel Tower is a romantic symbol of the good old days 1897: The Eiffel Tower is a techno-dystopian vanity project built by a tech-bro engineer newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-eiffel...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
The Eiffel Tower was Called Techno-Dystopian
The Eiffel Tower is just as iconic of France as croissants and baguettes, and equally emblematic of Paris, standing alongside landmarks like Notre-Dame or the Arc de Triomphe.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
2026: The Eiffel Tower is a romantic symbol of the good old days 1897: The Eiffel Tower is a techno-dystopian vanity project built by a tech-bro engineer newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-eiffel...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
The Eiffel Tower was Called Techno-Dystopian
The Eiffel Tower is just as iconic of France as croissants and baguettes, and equally emblematic of Paris, standing alongside landmarks like Notre-Dame or the Arc de Triomphe.
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Behold an inverted version of @pessimistsarc.bsky.social (which catalogs foolish statements by technophobes from the past). Here instead we have proclamations that, “If we only get TechnoX, everything will be sublime” — and now we’ve achieved X, but things... ain’t sublime. ordinaryabundance.com
ordinaryabundance.com
Ordinary Abundance
A walk through a modern apartment, through the eyes of the people for whom everything in it was new.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Parents yearn for the good old days of childhood for their kids, not realizing that was a brave new world for their parents.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
A snapshot of concerns in first decade of 20th century.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Parents yearn for the good old days of childhood for their kids, not realizing that was a brave new world for their parents.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
If you’re not hypervigilant in filtering out self interested, irrational hysteria that greets new technologies it is unlikely you’re going to successfully identify & mitigate any real downsides/risks of those new technologies. Path of least resistance is tropes driven by populists & protectionists
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Matt Anderson @mattbegins.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
LONDON: All the radio waves in the air are turning women into men and men into women. CHICAGO: We’re gonna pump the air so full of radio waves until he becomes Gal Capone.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Feels like people totally forgot widespread beeper bans in U.S. high schools and in some places age limits on owning them! newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-forgot...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
The Forgotten War on Beepers
30 years before parents and lawmakers sought to save youth from smartphones via age limits and bans in schools, a similar conversation took place about a pre-cursor to the cellphone: pagers Through th...
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bjkeefe @bjkeefe.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Ah, a simpler time. Effectively a quote post of bsky.app/profile/pess... but I wanted to the ALT text.
Old newspaper clipping.

Cross Word Puzzles And Radio Banned For N.Y. Policemen

New York, Nov. 26.—Cross word puzzles and long distance radio were frowned upon by the police department today."The men are spending too much time in looking up two-toed sloths and three-lettered Australian birds or attempting to tune in on Honolulu," Commissioner Enright in an eddict written before he sailed for South America and made effective today, said."I want them from now on to spend all their spare time in target practice. I am tired of hearing about half a dozen policemen and deputies employing their guns at a crook, with no damage done on either side except that the crook invariably escapes."
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
“The men are spending too much time in looking up two-toed sloths and three-lettered Australian birds or attempting to tune in on Honolulu," - 1924
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Matt Anderson @mattbegins.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
He probably played too many violent nickelodeons and listened to victrolas. with hidden satanic messages.
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Richard Price (they/them) @advincensorship.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
When are we finally going to learn and close the picture houses?!
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
“The men are spending too much time in looking up two-toed sloths and three-lettered Australian birds or attempting to tune in on Honolulu," - 1924
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
116 years ago - in 1910 - The New York Times reported on a case involving arson committed by a 12-year-old blamed on moving pictures
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
In the year 2000 Japan put PS2 under export controls. Anyone taking more than one out of the country risked a 5 year prison term.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
A 1956 cartoon satirizing the lump of labor fallacy
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Nostalgia ignores pessimism, it forgets: The moon mission was unpopular Novel reading was frowned upon The Walkman was anti-social The Bicycle 'corrupted' women After all, why would anyone have thought the good old days were bad? newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/most-ameri...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Most of America Opposed the Moon Landing
July 20th, 2025 marks the 56th anniversary of the moon landing.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
The 3 Ps of Tech-Pessimism: PARENTS: What's this doing to my children!? PROTECTIONISTS: What's this doing to my profits!? PATRIARCHS: What's this doing to our women!?
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Feels like people totally forgot widespread beeper bans in U.S. high schools and in some places age limits on owning them! newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-forgot...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
The Forgotten War on Beepers
30 years before parents and lawmakers sought to save youth from smartphones via age limits and bans in schools, a similar conversation took place about a pre-cursor to the cellphone: pagers Through th...
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
0G conspiracy theory (1911)
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Before NYC prevented Waymo, it prevented Underground Railroads The year is 1866, the recently opened London Underground was a roaring success, a year later a similar project was proposed in New York City, Omnibus & Railroad lobby made sure it was stopped
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
In 1948 there were calls for a 21 age limit on pinball machines in Moline, Illinois. A judge suggested it be lowered to 16.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
When the British had a moral panic about VHS movies: “Findings by the parliament inquiry group published yesterday indicate that nearly half the children aged between seven and 16 in England and Wales, have watched video "nasties" featuring sadistic sex and horrific violence.” - The Guardian, 1984
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
When the British had a moral panic about VHS movies: “Findings by the parliament inquiry group published yesterday indicate that nearly half the children aged between seven and 16 in England and Wales, have watched video "nasties" featuring sadistic sex and horrific violence.” - The Guardian, 1984
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Oh, you thought MYTHOS was without historical precedent? newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/before-myt...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Before MYTHOS, SATAN: a 1990s Software Satanic Panic
In 1995 an app called 'SATAN' could find software vulnerabilities automatically, when its creators announced a public release panic ensued.
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Jms Dnns @jmsdnns.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I LOVE that Pessimist's Archive has woken up again It explores the history of rejecting technological progress and it is ALWAYS eye opening bsky.app/profile/pess...
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
✅ Thanks for joining the movement newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-forgot...
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Before MYTHOS, SATAN... We explore the forgotten 1995 panic about 'SATAN' - software that automated finding software security vulnerabilities. newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/before-myt...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Before MYTHOS, SATAN: a 1990s Software Satanic Panic
In 1995 an app called 'SATAN' could find software vulnerabilities automatically, when its creators announced a public release panic ensued.
053
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
In 1908 the Lancet called for an 18+ age limit on reading in bed for U.K. children.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Before MYTHOS, SATAN... We explore the forgotten 1995 panic about 'SATAN' - software that automated finding software security vulnerabilities. newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/before-myt...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Before MYTHOS, SATAN: a 1990s Software Satanic Panic
In 1995 an app called 'SATAN' could find software vulnerabilities automatically, when its creators announced a public release panic ensued.
053
Reposted by Pessimists Archive
Robby Raschke @rtr.tombob.com · 16/06/2026
Growing up in the 70s, it was a common admonishment to not read in bed because it would ruin your eyesight. I always found that super duper weird, right up there with masturbating making you blind. Old creeps making shit up to excuse being controlling assholes seems to be a time honoured tradition.
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
No one show this to Keir Starmer (1982)
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Pessimists Archive @pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
We can’t let the poors have legal counsel! newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/nyc-once-b...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
NYC Once Banned Free Legal Advice over Radio
Before NYC moved to ban AI legal advice, it moved to ban legal advice over radio.
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