16 ms·

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

264 points by HoppedUpMenace 9y ago

manyhands 9y ago
Ted has always been my favorite mathematician. Really a remarkable guy.
altotrees 9y ago
His story is tragic. Tragic in that he was seemingly so smart even he couldn't handle it. Tragic in that people lost their lives. Tragic in the fact that we lost a mind like his and the advancements he could've brought to mathematics potentially. Sad in that he was so impacted by MK ultra. It's a truly terrible, yet captivating story. His neo-Luddism has always been of interest to me also, as one of my classes read his essays in college. They just seem so uneven, like they are trying to grasp at a logical idea but fall short. Yeah, interesting and really sad.
- manyhands 9y ago
  His works are incredibly well-written and precise. They are only unconvincing to us because we have incompatible preferences.
- CalChris 9y ago
  I never read any of his writings. I never thought someone who murdered to call attention to his writings would write anything worth reading. But I read a long biography of him in the NY Times after he was arrested. It said his favorite book was Conrad's The Secret Agent; he read it 20 times. Ok, I'll read that. There's a character, the anarchist who carried a bomb with him everywhere so the police wouldn't arrest him, who he obviously patterned himself after. There was nothing to the man. Aside from some mathematical talent, a mediocrity attempting grandiosity through terrorism.
  - setr 9y ago
    Why did you go out of your way to read his inspiration but not bother to read his actual writings And then come to the conclusion that this was sufficient to judge his writings, and his existence
    - CalChris 9y ago
      I think I explained why I thought he wasn't worth reading. If you think he is then you should explain that. As I said, I read a biographical piece in the NYTimes that mentioned his favorite book. Conrad is a great writer and that had me intrigued. But then after reading it, it didn't raise my opinion of him. As for his existence, the guy sent bombs in the mail to innocent people. Fuck him.
      - setr 9y ago
        >I think I explained why I thought he wasn't worth reading Well no, you said why he wasn't worth reading, and then made claims about him and his work ("There was nothing to the man...") My question is why you went out of your way to ignore the available first-hand sources, and preferred second-hand, and indirect, sources to judge his writing. Why would you read the book he likes, but not what he actually wrote, before making claims about the value of his writing? And more importantly, why would you go out of your way to handle it this way? It seems to me you had interest in the ideas he might have (due to the bibliography) but went on a roundabout way to view them for no particular reason. See, I'd understand if you, say, already knew the book, and considered it trash, and thus decided he probably doesn't know what he's talking about; but you apparently chose to put in the work to read the book over reading his actual writings, when the latter was probably more available and accessible. You specifically chose the indirect route over the direct one, and came to a very direct conclusion, and this decision confounds me.
        CalChris 9y ago
        I did. That's true. I said that someone who murders to call attention to his writing is not worth reading. Moreover, that there is nothing to the man. When Hinkley shot Reagan to impress Jodie Foster, I don't think she was impressed. Now as to your question, I didn't judge his writing; I judged him. Terrorists who murder for acclaim aren't necessarily the most insightful writers cuz like if they were, they wouldn't need to murder. It's apparent that you somehow think there is value or merit to his writing and by extension, him. Then that would be your task, to show that. I don't need to prove the negative. You need to show this great idea that Mr. Kaczynski proffered. Cuz like I'm not seeing it. BTW, if by the book you meant Conrad's The Secret Agent, no I didn't know the book. Conrad is a great writer but this isn't his best which to me would be Heart of Darkness. It's still worth a read, irrespective of Kaczynski.
- tlb 9y ago
  The article paraphrases Ellul criticizing the modern world, "mankind no longer saw technology as merely a tool but now pursued its advancement as an end in itself. Society served technology, not vice versa. Individuals were valued only insofar as they served this end." That was a major influence on Kaczynski. When you say it's tragic that he didn't end up contributing to mathematics, you're judging his life by the values he revolted against. I believe that advancing technology (and knowledge in general) is among the highest callings a person can have, so I agree with you. But he wouldn't.
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata! What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people! The advancement of technology and furthering of knowledge is a noble endeavor, but only in pursuit of a higher goal. Advanced technology not used, or great knowledge never applied, is of no value. It is only with a higher intention for the use of these things that they have any value at all. That higher purpose could be a number of things - The betterment of mankind, of all forms of life, of society. But something greater than the self and certainly greater than no purpose at all. Of course, it's not possible to specifically link advancements in technology and knowledge with specific goals before the advancements are made. What I'm curious about is: Do you view what I've said above as agreeing with your belief, or closer to the view of Jaques Ellul?
    - tlb 9y ago
      If you think that overall, knowledge improve people's lives, then you can take either position and act the same way. If you think that knowledge overall hurts people, then you have to decide (and you should probably go with the people.)
    - fundabulousrIII 9y ago
      Hell is other people.
- zaptheimpaler 9y ago
  You are basically painting the simplistic picture the article argues against. "We need to see Kaczynski as exceptional—madman or genius—because the alternative is so much more frightening."
- lliamander 9y ago
  Although not covered in the article, it is also tragic that at a mere nine months old he had to be placed in isolation in a hospital, and was unresponsive when he returned. Who knows what kind effect that had on his long term development?
- m777z 9y ago
  Do you happen to have a good source on this experiment being part of MK Ultra? As far as I can tell this article doesn't mention MK Ultra at all, and I can't seem to find much else that explicitly says this experiment was part of MK Ultra.
WillyOnWheels 9y ago
Not sure what the point of all this is. Thousands of very smart, accomplished men and women have gone through GenEd at Harvard without murdering multiple people. Personally I think Kaczynski was influenced more by his inability to get a date in his entire life.
- asdfologist 9y ago
  Not sure what the point of all this is. Thousands of very smart, accomplished men and women have gone through date-less lives without murdering multiple people.
  - arnioxux 9y ago
    Newton, Nietzsche, Beethoven, Tesla, etc
- sand500 9y ago
  The point is that he was expirimented on with procedures that could be called torture.
- tray5 9y ago
  >Personally I think Kaczynski was influenced more by his inability to get a date in his entire life. You should read his manifesto, the dude had some funky ideas about society and there's no excuse for murdering innocent poeple, but he does defend what he believes in very vigorously. He wasn't a man without an ideological backing.
  - pvg 9y ago
    That's pretty much "Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." Lots of mentally ill people defend what they believe in very vigorously.
    - ramphastidae 9y ago
      What's wrong with socialism?
bronz 9y ago
ive read a little about this before so i havent bothered to read the article. but as i understand it, ted was cross-examined by someone at harvard as a part of the mk ultra program. and as i understand it, this cross examination was not aided with any kind of drug -- it was a simple verbal exchange. i think a lot of people assume that ted was already crazy, and that is unfortunate because that point of view overlooks the fascinating observation that a persons mind can be broken with nothing but words. i really do find it fascinating. if you pay attention, you will notice that there are many clues floating around. high intelligence has an anecdotal connection with being sensitive or prickly. the flight or fight response is activated when presented with ideas that counter yours, politically. and, there are other events that cause similar symptoms to ted, like a bad breakup. overall, everything points to this vague concept of "identity crisis." i think we have all experienced that feeling at least once. but what is an identity crisis really? it seems to be triggered when our core concepts and ideas about who we are contradict each other. and when its triggered, it can have very serious consequences. so does this mean that someone is justified in keeping their core ideas and principles private? does it mean those things shouldnt be discussed? it is interesting to note that ted could have gone through the examination without any ill effect by simply refusing to disclose things too close to his "core." and there is another interesting concept: the idea of purposefully restructuring ones framework of the mind in order to prevent an identity crisis and similar things. for example, instead of trying to create a logical reason for doing certain things, either during rumination or during cross examination, one could simply say that "i did it because i felt like it." or "because i wanted to." this avoids a cross examiner from pointing out two actions one has taken whose proclaimed motivations contradict each other. "because i felt like it" cannot be contradicted. i think that there are probably a lot of things one might do like this to "harden" ones mind. i think that intelligent people are often more vulnerable to cross examination because they ruminate more often and deeply than other people, and during their ruminations they give structure and motivation to their actions and ideas. once that structure is proven wrong or that multiple parts contradict each other, an intelligent person is unable to ignore it. this causes the brains machinery to grind and in some way stop working correctly. that is what really fascinates me, that an identity crisis is not a conscious thing but the literal gears of the mind grinding against each other. an identity crisis is a manifestation of something low level going wrong in the brain, in my opinion. i wonder if there are drugs or therapies that might stop the gears from grinding.
j9461701 9y ago
The article reminded me of the two cultures lecture by CP Snow, from 1959. Where Snow argued Western intellectual culture was sharply divided between the humanities and the sciences, and great harm was being done by each trying to poison and undermine the other to claim greater cultural cachet. I wonder if this played some role in Kaczynski's strange tragedy. As the article describes, he seemed to have adopted parts of each approach -the moral nihilism and dualism of the sciences, coupled with the anti-technology and anti-empiricism of the humanities. Almost as if he absorbed only those things each camp said to damage the other as true. Of course he ultimately did end up murdering scientists and engineers, so it's clear which side his sympathies fell toward in the end.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  As an immigrant (from a non-Western society) who also spent youth steeped in Western literature, arts, and music, every development after WWI just seems so sad. There's the moral self-loathing (veering towards self-flagellation) of the 'social justice' class, the academic anti-truth of the relativists and the post-modernists, the equally poisonous know-nothingism of parts of the right. Western civilization still lives in the long shadow cast by Europe tearing itself apart not just once, but twice in the span of a generation.
  - tomcam 9y ago
    Give me an example of no-nothingism on the right.
    - CalChris 9y ago
      Besides Trump?
    - smallnamespace 9y ago
      Well, I do think that honest people can disagree in good faith over complicated topics, like how to run the economy, or how much of a problem global warming is, or what to do about illegal immigration. So how about some simple, unambiguous fact that should submit to easy verification? As of late last year, about 42% of Republicans polled disagreed with the assertion that Obama was born in the US, while only 27% of Republicans agreed [1]. Plus the fact that our current sitting president was instrumental in formulating and then popularizing this lie. I submit this to you as a good example of 'know-nothingism' -- if there's some piece of information that challenges your world view, then you will do your damned best to know nothing about it. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persiste...
Chiba-City 9y ago
Wittgenstein gave away his fortune. He left academia and taught kids math. Never equate trinket lusts and synthetics peddlers with sciences. Kaczynski was specifically a young victim of wholly inferior bad men playing with superior men who should be named, denigrated and brutally punished if still breathing. Tit-for-tat for children of bad men is counseled by Harvard game theorists like Thomas Schelling. These are misadventures and not always good jobs at good wages.
- dzdt 9y ago
  This comment hints at either interesting thoughts or craziness, but is about four times too short for me to tell which.
justboxing 9y ago
> The "Bad" Parts of Technology Cannot Be Separated from the "Good" Parts. [1] I thought this was one of the most prophetic statement from his Technology Manifesto. Written in 1995, still true today. Take any technology, and you'll see it has been used for doing "good" things as well as "evil" things, and it's impossible for anyone to separate the two and enforce usage of only the "good" parts. Example: Drones. Used in many countries now to send recon to remote areas for rescue missions [2], drop food or medicinal supplies in conflict zones. Same drones also used by the same countries to remotely kill "suspected terrorists" and by ISIS Jihadis (in Iraq) to drop bombs on Iraqi soldiers [3]. You cannot invent drones and tell people it should only be used for good things, not bad things. Same with Facebook. Used to organize events, connect with family, find missing people, start revolutions and protests. Same Facebook also used to spread fake news, lure unsuspecting victims for robbery and even murder, recruit Jihadis. Every time a new technology is invented, human find a way to use it in a bad, destructive way. Too bad blogging and Podcasting or youtube weren't around when Ted Kaczynski's wrote his technology manifesto, cos maybe then he may have resorted to online medium to spread his message, instead of killing people to get attention for his manifesto. [1] Source: The Unabomber Trial: The Manifesto => http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabo... [2] Source: Drones Help Rescue Missing Hikers => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1VPZ5jt5Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1VPZ5jt5Xw [3] Source: Footage of ISIS drone dropping grenade bombs on Iraqi soldiers => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uw0KWhYAoY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uw0KWhYAoY
- elefanten 9y ago
  How is this prophetic rather than a long-tread subject? Super obvious example are the well-publicized doubts of many scientists involved in inventing nuclear weapons.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- bitexploder 9y ago
  I grew up in a fairly out of the way area in a red state, but we had this cool elective in high school called simply enough "Technology". We had AutoCAD, computers, little bridge building things, etc. One of the few lessons that really stuck with me was when the teacher was discussing technology one day and one of the students grappled with this very philosophical point. Basically the posed it as something like "we should just ban technology X because people do bad things with it". This was 1998 (dating myself) so it isn't like computers were the force they are now in everyone's mind. What unfolded is this basic discussion: people are the ones doing the bad things. Technology is just a force or thought multiplier. He explained it so well. It sort of clicked into my brain then and that discussion still sits pretty firm in my mind. I don't think all technology can find inherently bad uses, but most of it can. Computers are at the heart of every military technology now other than explosives. Physics are at the heart of nuclear weapons. etc. etc. I think Ted would have still did what he did. He was a narcissist at heart. He felt his view on it was somehow that much more special than the same view we arrived at in 1998 in my high school class in many ways. That said, ill just leave this here and say I think this guy saw further into the future than most people ever have, but I see sentiments like this all over HN these days: 50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values. 51. The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the system.
mithunmanohar1 9y ago
http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/08/22/545168709/fbi-profiler-says-linguistic-work-was-pivotal-in-capture-of-unabomber http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/08/22/545168709/f... Here is a podcast with FBI agent who played a pivotal role in solving this case.
- Steko 9y ago
  The profiling is interesting but in this case, the FBI was irrelevant to 'solving the case', Kaczynski's brother and sister-in-law saw the manifesto in the NYT and turned him in.
  - cabinguy 9y ago
    The FBI made the call to publish the manifesto, hoping for this exact outcome.
    - Steko 9y ago
      I stand half corrected, they did encourage publishing along with DoJ and it was the papers which ultimately made the call.
gxs 9y ago
I don't mean to preach, but that is a damn good article, don't just read the comments, read it. So many nuggets, particularly around the maturation process that is mentioned in college where one goes from having a "dualistic" perspective to learning that the world's environment is relative, what happens to to people who reject that view, etc.
freeflight 9y ago
A really interesting read and imho it's quite relevant to our current times. This is the current political climate in a nutshell: > Dualists in a relativistic environment tend to see themselves as surrounded; they become increasingly lonely and alienated. This attitude “requires an equally absolutistic rejection of any ‘establishment’” and “can call forth in its defense hate, projection, and denial of all distinctions but one,” Perry wrote. “The tendency … is toward paranoia.” Reading parts of the manifesto, rambling on about "leftists/collectivists/socialists", also reminded me about rather recent "alt-right" arguments. I guess we humans just prefer our realities to be neatly dualistic or else we might be wasting too much energy actually "thinking" about stuff, what a hassle that would be!
- dmix 9y ago
  Do you have a links to alt right writings and thought leaders that push forward this view? I hear endlessly about this alt right ideology from the left but I can't seem to find a single person other than a few clearly fringe white nationalists who use this label. I try to follow both left and right, anarchist and libertarian groups, on Twitter and elsewhere quite closely and I've been struggling to connect the breathless warnings of the rise of these groups with any actual data/numbers or any prominent leaders to measure the tangible growth and efficacy of their messaging. In terms of rejection of establishment this can equally be found on the fringes of the left as well. Not to mention 'paranoia' and 'feelings of being surrounded' when I frequently read about the rise of 'Nazis' and fascism which again seems to be limited to a fringe at most, unless one takes seriously the extremely broad group of people who are now given these labels. If anything this election has merely amplified political tribalism fuelled by fantasical images of armies of caricatures of their opponents. The reality seems much more boring and less scary. Especially when one tangibly measures how ineffective any of Trumps more extreme policies have been at becoming reality. Even though Trump won he was still fringe and ridiculed within his own party endlessly, which they were quick to forget out of political expediency. The fact these same people chose him over Hillary in some key rust belt states also doesn't lead me to believe his more extreme views are as popular and widespread as we're lead to believe. If anything it seems like his primary offering was emotional gratification about 'winning' over the other tribe. Therefore I'm extremely wary to buy into these narratives generalizing the 'other' tribes views.
pizza 9y ago
I am in a double-bind. On the one hand, I agree with some of his ideas about society's unspoken capacity for alienation. On the other hand, were his actions + manifesto not the pinnacle of cultural junk food? Practically designed for mass-consumption, and hence complicit in consumption's deleterious effect upon humanity itself - - because of how he knew it would receive attention? He deliberately chose to express himself in a way so as to attract the attention of the various distant story-tellers (essayists and journalists and news anchors, etc..) he knew would be drawn to his story like moths to flames. How is it more prophetic than O.J. Simpson's highway chase in The White Bronco, even if academia's chorus say "This is a message that actually is addressed to us!", and even if O.J.'s event was spontaneous, but the Unabomber's was premeditated..? To be honest, mine isn't a totally original idea. I got it from watching a tiny video yesterday about Adorno, on pop music -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7Fhaji8ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7Fhaji8ow
- armitron 9y ago
  His ideas stand on their own and should not be polluted by armchair psychoanalysis or worse, immediate dismissal by people who are too lazy [or too stupid] to read and comprehend what Kaczynski has written. It should be obvious to any educated technologist that reads even a few pages of Kaczynski's output that Kaczynski is a genius. His writings are not the ramblings of a schizophrenic but should be analyzed and discussed without the popular preconceptions that can only serve to cloud one's critical thinking.
  - pizza 9y ago
    It seems you think we disagree? We are both in agreement. (and, yes, the article asserts that attacks against Kaczynski's credibility arose from hypocritical or idiotic critics having to simultaneously merit his ideas and defend orthodoxy, leading to well-poisoning attacks). I think attempts to discount him as schizophrenic are bullshit, that the paranoia he experienced was clearly rational because it was obvious that he would put himself into the crosshairs of law enforcement/a huge adversary, and that to evaporate his responsibility because of hearsay diagnoses would be like a priest condemning an atheist as an evil witch to be burned at the stake for the reason that there would be no reason for anyone who understood the consequences of religion to willingly put themselves into such a compromised position.. if that makes sense. But, to him, his actions must have been his magnum opus, his number 1 feat, not the manifesto. If he had believed his manifesto primarily would have made his intended impact on society, then why would he have needed to architect his campaign before its release? I can believe he prized his behavior over his manifesto AND also believe that the manifesto has more gravity than, and will outlast in public memory, his deeds. I admit the possibility that he realized he needed notoriety or a skin-in-the-game (I'm not a Taleb fanboy I swear) reputation so as to be worth being noticed.. but it all gets fed back into the spectacle at large, which is what he detested. His plot to weaken technological society's tight grasp on the direction of humanity's potential .. had the effect of fortifying all of the same levers of control: a state of emergency leads to boosting ordinary controls to desperate, extraordinary levels, like an immune response. And from my armchair it's easy to say this, but an autoimmune response (where social technological controls would eat away at the survival of those controls themselves) wouldn't have backfired for his plan.. But present-day technology/'the techne' hardly finds itself in situations where it mistakenly combats its own self-maintenance, so it might not really be a possibility.. (yet?)
anotherbrownguy 9y ago
The brainwashing experiment is being done at a much larger scale by the American left and the globalists (i.e. 1. anything that makes human life better in any way is doing some harm to something... it's usually environment or natural way of things or anything else they can come up with, 2. morality is relative, 3. everyone is "equal" etc.). As a result, the world is deeply divided in this regard. We are at a brink of a major world war and it seems unavoidable.
- sctb 9y ago
  Could you please resist the temptation of ideological drive-bys? That's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
    I am sure I am biased but I think it is a statement of fact.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dumbneurologist 9y ago
this section: its research committee approved my request to view the records of this experiment, the so-called data set, which referred to subjects by code names only. But because kaczynski’s alias was by then known to some journalists, I was not permitted to view his records. is straight-up B.S.. the only (putative) purpose of withholding records is to protect confidentiality. but in this case, the journalist was researching with Kaczynski's consent. they might have been playing games with the author (alston chase) and omitted this detail so that he didn't come back with the signed slip of paper, but any of the subject's data should absolutely be available to the subject. I say "putative" because the _real_ purpose seems apparent... to hide from an investigation.
jmull 9y ago
Very interesting article. But I think it's a mistake to believe the ideas he was exposed to as an undergraduate lead to him becoming the unabomber. In his manifesto he works through a lot of these ideas and shows us the world view he's developed around them, but the impetus for it all -- it seems clear to me -- comes from his inability to come to terms with living in a society. It causes him great pain and distress and he's been unable to find a way to make it stop. He's finally decided that society needs to go, and violently. And he's come up with a meticulously constructed world view to support this... (1) that this is somehow OK and (2) that it's possible. While it looks like he clearly used ideas from his Harvard days to create his world view, the motivation existed independent of them. I think he was simply using the materials at hand and would have used other ideas had he not been exposed to the the "Gen Ed" ones... a world view different in details but supporting the same conclusion. It does seem reasonable to wonder whether severe psychological experiments might have pushed a mind on the edge over a precipice, though.
- armitron 9y ago
  Rather than dismissing him in such a crude manner, why don't you take the time to read and comprehend what he has written - and, assuming you find any - try to point out the flaws in his reasoning. Kaczynski was a genius, among other things, and his views deserve better than armchair dismissal and handwaving.
  - golemotron 9y ago
    It was very odd for me, having never read the manifesto before to see Kaczynski arrive at the word 'oversocialization.' I've used the same word to describe what we've become with social media and massively interconnected communication. There's a very natural part of the human psyche that becomes lost when one has to second guess one's unconscious preferences continually to be aware of whether one might be seen as racist, sexist, ableist, or ageist. It might be necessary for everyone to live together successfully but there's something very sad about it also.
  - flexie 9y ago
    Why would anyone try to understand the ramblings of a twisted person who murdered 3 and maimed many more?
megraf 9y ago
Another article made the rounds on Reddit a while back and it motivated me to write to Ted (the Unibomber). I explained that I was a software engineer and found some algorithms intrinsically interesting (Sieve of Eratosthenes, etc.). It's too bad I never heard back from him.
Geekette 9y ago
"Why were the media and the public so ready to dismiss Kaczynski as crazy?" I've always marveled at people's insistence on not believing that others can cultivate and act on bad/evil impulses without necessarily being insane. That insistence also pushes a simplistic view of mental illness: suffering from any of the numerous conditions that fall under it doesn't automatically equate to loss of awareness of self/propriety, societal mores, etc. And even in acute cases involving reduced consciousness/self-awareness, it doesn't mean that it occurs 24-7 or crucially, during the planning and execution of a crime. I was also struck by the noted increase in certain types of “single-issue” terrorism: "Last year the director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, told Congress, “The most recognizable single issue terrorists at the present time are those involved in the violent animal rights, anti-abortion, and environmental protection movements. … the potential for destruction has increased as terrorists have turned toward large improvised explosive devices to inflict maximum damage.”
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  Labeling an adversary as "insane" or "crazy" is a convenient and commonly used way to shut down any discussion or inquiry into the grievances of that person, lest they reveal an underlying problem which we don't want to address.
  - EternalData 9y ago
    "Crazy" is unaddressable. It's a solution that answers any questions that might arise, including questions we might ask of ourselves. The interesting split is to see when something is called "ideologically" driven versus something merely painted as the act of a "crazed" person.
    - Geekette 9y ago
      The interesting split is to see when something is called "ideologically" driven versus something merely painted as the act of a "crazed" person. Indeed. It's interesting to see how people's framing of a topic sometimes communicates more than an answer to direct questioning could. This calls to mind another split where wealth is the cushion: When the poor are deemed crazy but the rich merely eccentric for perpetuating similar, negatively perceived actions.
gerbilly 9y ago
Some people put too much faith in reason. When I read his manifesto it felt to me like it was logically airtight. If you agree with his premises, I think it's difficult to reject his conclusions using reason. But of course we have much more than reason to rely on when making decisions, and it's easy to reject his conclusions if you use your whole mind, some might say your heart. I think it's tragic that people, both individually and at the social level, are so good at reasoning ourselves into situations that we just can't live with.
- milcron 9y ago
  G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad … mathematicians go mad.”
dahoramanodoceu 9y ago
I strongly recommend technologists read the work of Fredy Perlman. It is essential that the builders start thinking about social consequences of their creations. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against-his-story-against-leviathan http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against...
solidsnack9000 9y ago
"Speaking as a former college professor, I can say that most curricula have absolutely no effect on most students."

Ted has always been my favorite mathematician. Really a remarkable guy.

His story is tragic. Tragic in that he was seemingly so smart even he couldn't handle it. Tragic in that people lost their lives. Tragic in the fact that we lost a mind like his and the advancements he could've brought to mathematics potentially. Sad in that he was so impacted by MK ultra. It's a truly terrible, yet captivating story. His neo-Luddism has always been of interest to me also, as one of my classes read his essays in college. They just seem so uneven, like they are trying to grasp at a logical idea but fall short. Yeah, interesting and really sad.

manyhands 9y ago
His works are incredibly well-written and precise. They are only unconvincing to us because we have incompatible preferences.
CalChris 9y ago
I never read any of his writings. I never thought someone who murdered to call attention to his writings would write anything worth reading. But I read a long biography of him in the NY Times after he was arrested. It said his favorite book was Conrad's The Secret Agent; he read it 20 times. Ok, I'll read that. There's a character, the anarchist who carried a bomb with him everywhere so the police wouldn't arrest him, who he obviously patterned himself after. There was nothing to the man. Aside from some mathematical talent, a mediocrity attempting grandiosity through terrorism.
- setr 9y ago
  Why did you go out of your way to read his inspiration but not bother to read his actual writings And then come to the conclusion that this was sufficient to judge his writings, and his existence
  - CalChris 9y ago
    I think I explained why I thought he wasn't worth reading. If you think he is then you should explain that. As I said, I read a biographical piece in the NYTimes that mentioned his favorite book. Conrad is a great writer and that had me intrigued. But then after reading it, it didn't raise my opinion of him. As for his existence, the guy sent bombs in the mail to innocent people. Fuck him.
    - setr 9y ago
      >I think I explained why I thought he wasn't worth reading Well no, you said why he wasn't worth reading, and then made claims about him and his work ("There was nothing to the man...") My question is why you went out of your way to ignore the available first-hand sources, and preferred second-hand, and indirect, sources to judge his writing. Why would you read the book he likes, but not what he actually wrote, before making claims about the value of his writing? And more importantly, why would you go out of your way to handle it this way? It seems to me you had interest in the ideas he might have (due to the bibliography) but went on a roundabout way to view them for no particular reason. See, I'd understand if you, say, already knew the book, and considered it trash, and thus decided he probably doesn't know what he's talking about; but you apparently chose to put in the work to read the book over reading his actual writings, when the latter was probably more available and accessible. You specifically chose the indirect route over the direct one, and came to a very direct conclusion, and this decision confounds me.
      - CalChris 9y ago
        I did. That's true. I said that someone who murders to call attention to his writing is not worth reading. Moreover, that there is nothing to the man. When Hinkley shot Reagan to impress Jodie Foster, I don't think she was impressed. Now as to your question, I didn't judge his writing; I judged him. Terrorists who murder for acclaim aren't necessarily the most insightful writers cuz like if they were, they wouldn't need to murder. It's apparent that you somehow think there is value or merit to his writing and by extension, him. Then that would be your task, to show that. I don't need to prove the negative. You need to show this great idea that Mr. Kaczynski proffered. Cuz like I'm not seeing it. BTW, if by the book you meant Conrad's The Secret Agent, no I didn't know the book. Conrad is a great writer but this isn't his best which to me would be Heart of Darkness. It's still worth a read, irrespective of Kaczynski.
tlb 9y ago
The article paraphrases Ellul criticizing the modern world, "mankind no longer saw technology as merely a tool but now pursued its advancement as an end in itself. Society served technology, not vice versa. Individuals were valued only insofar as they served this end." That was a major influence on Kaczynski. When you say it's tragic that he didn't end up contributing to mathematics, you're judging his life by the values he revolted against. I believe that advancing technology (and knowledge in general) is among the highest callings a person can have, so I agree with you. But he wouldn't.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata! What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, it is the people, it is the people! The advancement of technology and furthering of knowledge is a noble endeavor, but only in pursuit of a higher goal. Advanced technology not used, or great knowledge never applied, is of no value. It is only with a higher intention for the use of these things that they have any value at all. That higher purpose could be a number of things - The betterment of mankind, of all forms of life, of society. But something greater than the self and certainly greater than no purpose at all. Of course, it's not possible to specifically link advancements in technology and knowledge with specific goals before the advancements are made. What I'm curious about is: Do you view what I've said above as agreeing with your belief, or closer to the view of Jaques Ellul?
  - tlb 9y ago
    If you think that overall, knowledge improve people's lives, then you can take either position and act the same way. If you think that knowledge overall hurts people, then you have to decide (and you should probably go with the people.)
  - fundabulousrIII 9y ago
    Hell is other people.
zaptheimpaler 9y ago
You are basically painting the simplistic picture the article argues against. "We need to see Kaczynski as exceptional—madman or genius—because the alternative is so much more frightening."
lliamander 9y ago
Although not covered in the article, it is also tragic that at a mere nine months old he had to be placed in isolation in a hospital, and was unresponsive when he returned. Who knows what kind effect that had on his long term development?
m777z 9y ago
Do you happen to have a good source on this experiment being part of MK Ultra? As far as I can tell this article doesn't mention MK Ultra at all, and I can't seem to find much else that explicitly says this experiment was part of MK Ultra.

WillyOnWheels 9y ago

Not sure what the point of all this is. Thousands of very smart, accomplished men and women have gone through GenEd at Harvard without murdering multiple people. Personally I think Kaczynski was influenced more by his inability to get a date in his entire life.

asdfologist 9y ago
Not sure what the point of all this is. Thousands of very smart, accomplished men and women have gone through date-less lives without murdering multiple people.
- arnioxux 9y ago
  Newton, Nietzsche, Beethoven, Tesla, etc
sand500 9y ago
The point is that he was expirimented on with procedures that could be called torture.
tray5 9y ago
>Personally I think Kaczynski was influenced more by his inability to get a date in his entire life. You should read his manifesto, the dude had some funky ideas about society and there's no excuse for murdering innocent poeple, but he does defend what he believes in very vigorously. He wasn't a man without an ideological backing.
- pvg 9y ago
  That's pretty much "Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." Lots of mentally ill people defend what they believe in very vigorously.
  - ramphastidae 9y ago
    What's wrong with socialism?

bronz 9y ago

ive read a little about this before so i havent bothered to read the article. but as i understand it, ted was cross-examined by someone at harvard as a part of the mk ultra program. and as i understand it, this cross examination was not aided with any kind of drug -- it was a simple verbal exchange. i think a lot of people assume that ted was already crazy, and that is unfortunate because that point of view overlooks the fascinating observation that a persons mind can be broken with nothing but words. i really do find it fascinating. if you pay attention, you will notice that there are many clues floating around. high intelligence has an anecdotal connection with being sensitive or prickly. the flight or fight response is activated when presented with ideas that counter yours, politically. and, there are other events that cause similar symptoms to ted, like a bad breakup. overall, everything points to this vague concept of "identity crisis." i think we have all experienced that feeling at least once. but what is an identity crisis really? it seems to be triggered when our core concepts and ideas about who we are contradict each other. and when its triggered, it can have very serious consequences. so does this mean that someone is justified in keeping their core ideas and principles private? does it mean those things shouldnt be discussed? it is interesting to note that ted could have gone through the examination without any ill effect by simply refusing to disclose things too close to his "core." and there is another interesting concept: the idea of purposefully restructuring ones framework of the mind in order to prevent an identity crisis and similar things. for example, instead of trying to create a logical reason for doing certain things, either during rumination or during cross examination, one could simply say that "i did it because i felt like it." or "because i wanted to." this avoids a cross examiner from pointing out two actions one has taken whose proclaimed motivations contradict each other. "because i felt like it" cannot be contradicted. i think that there are probably a lot of things one might do like this to "harden" ones mind. i think that intelligent people are often more vulnerable to cross examination because they ruminate more often and deeply than other people, and during their ruminations they give structure and motivation to their actions and ideas. once that structure is proven wrong or that multiple parts contradict each other, an intelligent person is unable to ignore it. this causes the brains machinery to grind and in some way stop working correctly. that is what really fascinates me, that an identity crisis is not a conscious thing but the literal gears of the mind grinding against each other. an identity crisis is a manifestation of something low level going wrong in the brain, in my opinion. i wonder if there are drugs or therapies that might stop the gears from grinding.

j9461701 9y ago

The article reminded me of the two cultures lecture by CP Snow, from 1959. Where Snow argued Western intellectual culture was sharply divided between the humanities and the sciences, and great harm was being done by each trying to poison and undermine the other to claim greater cultural cachet. I wonder if this played some role in Kaczynski's strange tragedy. As the article describes, he seemed to have adopted parts of each approach -the moral nihilism and dualism of the sciences, coupled with the anti-technology and anti-empiricism of the humanities. Almost as if he absorbed only those things each camp said to damage the other as true. Of course he ultimately did end up murdering scientists and engineers, so it's clear which side his sympathies fell toward in the end.

smallnamespace 9y ago
As an immigrant (from a non-Western society) who also spent youth steeped in Western literature, arts, and music, every development after WWI just seems so sad. There's the moral self-loathing (veering towards self-flagellation) of the 'social justice' class, the academic anti-truth of the relativists and the post-modernists, the equally poisonous know-nothingism of parts of the right. Western civilization still lives in the long shadow cast by Europe tearing itself apart not just once, but twice in the span of a generation.
- tomcam 9y ago
  Give me an example of no-nothingism on the right.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    Besides Trump?
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    Well, I do think that honest people can disagree in good faith over complicated topics, like how to run the economy, or how much of a problem global warming is, or what to do about illegal immigration. So how about some simple, unambiguous fact that should submit to easy verification? As of late last year, about 42% of Republicans polled disagreed with the assertion that Obama was born in the US, while only 27% of Republicans agreed [1]. Plus the fact that our current sitting president was instrumental in formulating and then popularizing this lie. I submit this to you as a good example of 'know-nothingism' -- if there's some piece of information that challenges your world view, then you will do your damned best to know nothing about it. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persiste...

Chiba-City 9y ago

Wittgenstein gave away his fortune. He left academia and taught kids math. Never equate trinket lusts and synthetics peddlers with sciences. Kaczynski was specifically a young victim of wholly inferior bad men playing with superior men who should be named, denigrated and brutally punished if still breathing. Tit-for-tat for children of bad men is counseled by Harvard game theorists like Thomas Schelling. These are misadventures and not always good jobs at good wages.

dzdt 9y ago
This comment hints at either interesting thoughts or craziness, but is about four times too short for me to tell which.

justboxing 9y ago

> The "Bad" Parts of Technology Cannot Be Separated from the "Good" Parts. [1] I thought this was one of the most prophetic statement from his Technology Manifesto. Written in 1995, still true today. Take any technology, and you'll see it has been used for doing "good" things as well as "evil" things, and it's impossible for anyone to separate the two and enforce usage of only the "good" parts. Example: Drones. Used in many countries now to send recon to remote areas for rescue missions [2], drop food or medicinal supplies in conflict zones. Same drones also used by the same countries to remotely kill "suspected terrorists" and by ISIS Jihadis (in Iraq) to drop bombs on Iraqi soldiers [3]. You cannot invent drones and tell people it should only be used for good things, not bad things. Same with Facebook. Used to organize events, connect with family, find missing people, start revolutions and protests. Same Facebook also used to spread fake news, lure unsuspecting victims for robbery and even murder, recruit Jihadis. Every time a new technology is invented, human find a way to use it in a bad, destructive way. Too bad blogging and Podcasting or youtube weren't around when Ted Kaczynski's wrote his technology manifesto, cos maybe then he may have resorted to online medium to spread his message, instead of killing people to get attention for his manifesto. [1] Source: The Unabomber Trial: The Manifesto => http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabo... [2] Source: Drones Help Rescue Missing Hikers => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1VPZ5jt5Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1VPZ5jt5Xw [3] Source: Footage of ISIS drone dropping grenade bombs on Iraqi soldiers => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uw0KWhYAoY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uw0KWhYAoY

elefanten 9y ago
How is this prophetic rather than a long-tread subject? Super obvious example are the well-publicized doubts of many scientists involved in inventing nuclear weapons.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bitexploder 9y ago
I grew up in a fairly out of the way area in a red state, but we had this cool elective in high school called simply enough "Technology". We had AutoCAD, computers, little bridge building things, etc. One of the few lessons that really stuck with me was when the teacher was discussing technology one day and one of the students grappled with this very philosophical point. Basically the posed it as something like "we should just ban technology X because people do bad things with it". This was 1998 (dating myself) so it isn't like computers were the force they are now in everyone's mind. What unfolded is this basic discussion: people are the ones doing the bad things. Technology is just a force or thought multiplier. He explained it so well. It sort of clicked into my brain then and that discussion still sits pretty firm in my mind. I don't think all technology can find inherently bad uses, but most of it can. Computers are at the heart of every military technology now other than explosives. Physics are at the heart of nuclear weapons. etc. etc. I think Ted would have still did what he did. He was a narcissist at heart. He felt his view on it was somehow that much more special than the same view we arrived at in 1998 in my high school class in many ways. That said, ill just leave this here and say I think this guy saw further into the future than most people ever have, but I see sentiments like this all over HN these days: 50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values. 51. The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the system.

mithunmanohar1 9y ago

http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/08/22/545168709/fbi-profiler-says-linguistic-work-was-pivotal-in-capture-of-unabomber http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/08/22/545168709/f... Here is a podcast with FBI agent who played a pivotal role in solving this case.

Steko 9y ago
The profiling is interesting but in this case, the FBI was irrelevant to 'solving the case', Kaczynski's brother and sister-in-law saw the manifesto in the NYT and turned him in.
- cabinguy 9y ago
  The FBI made the call to publish the manifesto, hoping for this exact outcome.
  - Steko 9y ago
    I stand half corrected, they did encourage publishing along with DoJ and it was the papers which ultimately made the call.

gxs 9y ago

I don't mean to preach, but that is a damn good article, don't just read the comments, read it. So many nuggets, particularly around the maturation process that is mentioned in college where one goes from having a "dualistic" perspective to learning that the world's environment is relative, what happens to to people who reject that view, etc.

freeflight 9y ago

A really interesting read and imho it's quite relevant to our current times. This is the current political climate in a nutshell: > Dualists in a relativistic environment tend to see themselves as surrounded; they become increasingly lonely and alienated. This attitude “requires an equally absolutistic rejection of any ‘establishment’” and “can call forth in its defense hate, projection, and denial of all distinctions but one,” Perry wrote. “The tendency … is toward paranoia.” Reading parts of the manifesto, rambling on about "leftists/collectivists/socialists", also reminded me about rather recent "alt-right" arguments. I guess we humans just prefer our realities to be neatly dualistic or else we might be wasting too much energy actually "thinking" about stuff, what a hassle that would be!

dmix 9y ago
Do you have a links to alt right writings and thought leaders that push forward this view? I hear endlessly about this alt right ideology from the left but I can't seem to find a single person other than a few clearly fringe white nationalists who use this label. I try to follow both left and right, anarchist and libertarian groups, on Twitter and elsewhere quite closely and I've been struggling to connect the breathless warnings of the rise of these groups with any actual data/numbers or any prominent leaders to measure the tangible growth and efficacy of their messaging. In terms of rejection of establishment this can equally be found on the fringes of the left as well. Not to mention 'paranoia' and 'feelings of being surrounded' when I frequently read about the rise of 'Nazis' and fascism which again seems to be limited to a fringe at most, unless one takes seriously the extremely broad group of people who are now given these labels. If anything this election has merely amplified political tribalism fuelled by fantasical images of armies of caricatures of their opponents. The reality seems much more boring and less scary. Especially when one tangibly measures how ineffective any of Trumps more extreme policies have been at becoming reality. Even though Trump won he was still fringe and ridiculed within his own party endlessly, which they were quick to forget out of political expediency. The fact these same people chose him over Hillary in some key rust belt states also doesn't lead me to believe his more extreme views are as popular and widespread as we're lead to believe. If anything it seems like his primary offering was emotional gratification about 'winning' over the other tribe. Therefore I'm extremely wary to buy into these narratives generalizing the 'other' tribes views.

pizza 9y ago

I am in a double-bind. On the one hand, I agree with some of his ideas about society's unspoken capacity for alienation. On the other hand, were his actions + manifesto not the pinnacle of cultural junk food? Practically designed for mass-consumption, and hence complicit in consumption's deleterious effect upon humanity itself - - because of how he knew it would receive attention? He deliberately chose to express himself in a way so as to attract the attention of the various distant story-tellers (essayists and journalists and news anchors, etc..) he knew would be drawn to his story like moths to flames. How is it more prophetic than O.J. Simpson's highway chase in The White Bronco, even if academia's chorus say "This is a message that actually is addressed to us!", and even if O.J.'s event was spontaneous, but the Unabomber's was premeditated..? To be honest, mine isn't a totally original idea. I got it from watching a tiny video yesterday about Adorno, on pop music -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7Fhaji8ow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7Fhaji8ow

armitron 9y ago
His ideas stand on their own and should not be polluted by armchair psychoanalysis or worse, immediate dismissal by people who are too lazy [or too stupid] to read and comprehend what Kaczynski has written. It should be obvious to any educated technologist that reads even a few pages of Kaczynski's output that Kaczynski is a genius. His writings are not the ramblings of a schizophrenic but should be analyzed and discussed without the popular preconceptions that can only serve to cloud one's critical thinking.
- pizza 9y ago
  It seems you think we disagree? We are both in agreement. (and, yes, the article asserts that attacks against Kaczynski's credibility arose from hypocritical or idiotic critics having to simultaneously merit his ideas and defend orthodoxy, leading to well-poisoning attacks). I think attempts to discount him as schizophrenic are bullshit, that the paranoia he experienced was clearly rational because it was obvious that he would put himself into the crosshairs of law enforcement/a huge adversary, and that to evaporate his responsibility because of hearsay diagnoses would be like a priest condemning an atheist as an evil witch to be burned at the stake for the reason that there would be no reason for anyone who understood the consequences of religion to willingly put themselves into such a compromised position.. if that makes sense. But, to him, his actions must have been his magnum opus, his number 1 feat, not the manifesto. If he had believed his manifesto primarily would have made his intended impact on society, then why would he have needed to architect his campaign before its release? I can believe he prized his behavior over his manifesto AND also believe that the manifesto has more gravity than, and will outlast in public memory, his deeds. I admit the possibility that he realized he needed notoriety or a skin-in-the-game (I'm not a Taleb fanboy I swear) reputation so as to be worth being noticed.. but it all gets fed back into the spectacle at large, which is what he detested. His plot to weaken technological society's tight grasp on the direction of humanity's potential .. had the effect of fortifying all of the same levers of control: a state of emergency leads to boosting ordinary controls to desperate, extraordinary levels, like an immune response. And from my armchair it's easy to say this, but an autoimmune response (where social technological controls would eat away at the survival of those controls themselves) wouldn't have backfired for his plan.. But present-day technology/'the techne' hardly finds itself in situations where it mistakenly combats its own self-maintenance, so it might not really be a possibility.. (yet?)

anotherbrownguy 9y ago

The brainwashing experiment is being done at a much larger scale by the American left and the globalists (i.e. 1. anything that makes human life better in any way is doing some harm to something... it's usually environment or natural way of things or anything else they can come up with, 2. morality is relative, 3. everyone is "equal" etc.). As a result, the world is deeply divided in this regard. We are at a brink of a major world war and it seems unavoidable.

sctb 9y ago
Could you please resist the temptation of ideological drive-bys? That's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  I am sure I am biased but I think it is a statement of fact.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dumbneurologist 9y ago

this section: its research committee approved my request to view the records of this experiment, the so-called data set, which referred to subjects by code names only. But because kaczynski’s alias was by then known to some journalists, I was not permitted to view his records. is straight-up B.S.. the only (putative) purpose of withholding records is to protect confidentiality. but in this case, the journalist was researching with Kaczynski's consent. they might have been playing games with the author (alston chase) and omitted this detail so that he didn't come back with the signed slip of paper, but any of the subject's data should absolutely be available to the subject. I say "putative" because the _real_ purpose seems apparent... to hide from an investigation.

jmull 9y ago

Very interesting article. But I think it's a mistake to believe the ideas he was exposed to as an undergraduate lead to him becoming the unabomber. In his manifesto he works through a lot of these ideas and shows us the world view he's developed around them, but the impetus for it all -- it seems clear to me -- comes from his inability to come to terms with living in a society. It causes him great pain and distress and he's been unable to find a way to make it stop. He's finally decided that society needs to go, and violently. And he's come up with a meticulously constructed world view to support this... (1) that this is somehow OK and (2) that it's possible. While it looks like he clearly used ideas from his Harvard days to create his world view, the motivation existed independent of them. I think he was simply using the materials at hand and would have used other ideas had he not been exposed to the the "Gen Ed" ones... a world view different in details but supporting the same conclusion. It does seem reasonable to wonder whether severe psychological experiments might have pushed a mind on the edge over a precipice, though.

armitron 9y ago
Rather than dismissing him in such a crude manner, why don't you take the time to read and comprehend what he has written - and, assuming you find any - try to point out the flaws in his reasoning. Kaczynski was a genius, among other things, and his views deserve better than armchair dismissal and handwaving.
- golemotron 9y ago
  It was very odd for me, having never read the manifesto before to see Kaczynski arrive at the word 'oversocialization.' I've used the same word to describe what we've become with social media and massively interconnected communication. There's a very natural part of the human psyche that becomes lost when one has to second guess one's unconscious preferences continually to be aware of whether one might be seen as racist, sexist, ableist, or ageist. It might be necessary for everyone to live together successfully but there's something very sad about it also.
- flexie 9y ago
  Why would anyone try to understand the ramblings of a twisted person who murdered 3 and maimed many more?

megraf 9y ago

Another article made the rounds on Reddit a while back and it motivated me to write to Ted (the Unibomber). I explained that I was a software engineer and found some algorithms intrinsically interesting (Sieve of Eratosthenes, etc.). It's too bad I never heard back from him.

Geekette 9y ago

"Why were the media and the public so ready to dismiss Kaczynski as crazy?" I've always marveled at people's insistence on not believing that others can cultivate and act on bad/evil impulses without necessarily being insane. That insistence also pushes a simplistic view of mental illness: suffering from any of the numerous conditions that fall under it doesn't automatically equate to loss of awareness of self/propriety, societal mores, etc. And even in acute cases involving reduced consciousness/self-awareness, it doesn't mean that it occurs 24-7 or crucially, during the planning and execution of a crime. I was also struck by the noted increase in certain types of “single-issue” terrorism: "Last year the director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, told Congress, “The most recognizable single issue terrorists at the present time are those involved in the violent animal rights, anti-abortion, and environmental protection movements. … the potential for destruction has increased as terrorists have turned toward large improvised explosive devices to inflict maximum damage.”

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
Labeling an adversary as "insane" or "crazy" is a convenient and commonly used way to shut down any discussion or inquiry into the grievances of that person, lest they reveal an underlying problem which we don't want to address.
- EternalData 9y ago
  "Crazy" is unaddressable. It's a solution that answers any questions that might arise, including questions we might ask of ourselves. The interesting split is to see when something is called "ideologically" driven versus something merely painted as the act of a "crazed" person.
  - Geekette 9y ago
    The interesting split is to see when something is called "ideologically" driven versus something merely painted as the act of a "crazed" person. Indeed. It's interesting to see how people's framing of a topic sometimes communicates more than an answer to direct questioning could. This calls to mind another split where wealth is the cushion: When the poor are deemed crazy but the rich merely eccentric for perpetuating similar, negatively perceived actions.

gerbilly 9y ago

Some people put too much faith in reason. When I read his manifesto it felt to me like it was logically airtight. If you agree with his premises, I think it's difficult to reject his conclusions using reason. But of course we have much more than reason to rely on when making decisions, and it's easy to reject his conclusions if you use your whole mind, some might say your heart. I think it's tragic that people, both individually and at the social level, are so good at reasoning ourselves into situations that we just can't live with.

milcron 9y ago
G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad … mathematicians go mad.”

dahoramanodoceu 9y ago

I strongly recommend technologists read the work of Fredy Perlman. It is essential that the builders start thinking about social consequences of their creations. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against-his-story-against-leviathan http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/fredy-perlman-against...

solidsnack9000 9y ago

"Speaking as a former college professor, I can say that most curricula have absolutely no effect on most students."