John C. Dvorak: Closet Luddite?

One of my favorite podcasts is Cranky Geeks (crankygeeks.com), a weekly podcast that takes a somewhat cranky view of the week’s tech and tech-related stories. John Dvorak is the head crank/geek and his snide, acidic approach to the world is something I find generally appealing, if occasionally over-the-top strictly for the sake of being over-the-top. He has a panel every week and the end result is a well-rounded and entertaining overview of the week’s tech-ish events.

But I’m starting to get a little worried about Dvorak. He seems to be fashioning himself into some new form of Luddite.

(From Wikipedia: The Luddites were a social movement of English textile workers in the early 1800s who protested — often by destroying textile machines — against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their jobs. The movement, which began in 1811, was named after a mythical leader, Ned Ludd. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the government included a mass trial at York in 1813 that resulted in many death penalties and transportations (deportation to a penal colony).)

This past week in a discussion of the iPod/Nike product that lets your shoes communicate with your iPod, but as it turns out also allows others to stalk you, the talk turned to other devices that have GPS or tracking features. The subject of cell phones and their accompanying tracking capability came up and Dvorak was quick to state that he didn’t ever carry one. One of the guests asked incredulously, “you don’t carry a cell phone?” Dvorak’s reply, “I don’t carry any of this crap, I don’t want to be tracked”

So I guess John is afraid of cell phones, PDA’s, Bluetooth enabled devices etc? Maybe he’s scared of Wi-fi? Perhaps he’s only comfortable with “Big Iron” era tech devices. It’s strange that the consummate Mac-Baiter would be reluctant to embrace an entire segment of tech development.

Perhaps he’s starting a new movement, the Dvorakites. Any technology that uses communication and GPS capability is “evil” and must be dismissed and ridiculed, perhaps even destroyed. This could get out of hand if he is able to recruit enough followers and starts smashing cell phone towers and trashing Verizon stores.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.