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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 +

by 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?)

by pizza 9y ago

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?)