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I was stuck by this passage from an interview (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-an-interview-with-ted-kaczynski https://theanarchistlibrary

by stared 6y ago

I was stuck by this passage from an interview (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-an-interview-with-ted-kaczynski https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-an-int...): > In living close to nature, one discovers that happiness does not consist in maximizing pleasure. It consists in tranquility. Once you have enjoyed tranquility long enough, you acquire actually an aversion to the thought of any very strong pleasure—excessive pleasure would disrupt your tranquility. > Finally, one learns that boredom is a disease of civilization. It seems to me that what boredom mostly is is that people have to keep themselves entertained or occupied, because if they aren’t, then certain anxieties, frustrations, discontents, and so forth, start coming to the surface, and it makes them uncomfortable. Boredom is almost nonexistent once you’ve become adapted to life in the woods. If you don’t have any work that needs to be done, you can sit for hours at a time just doing nothing, just listening to the birds or the wind or the silence, watching the shadows move as the sun travels, or simply looking at familiar objects. And you don’t get bored. You’re just at peace.

shadowgovt 6y ago
It's nice words, but a man who mails bombs to other people instead of just letting them exist apart from himself clearly hasn't achieved tranquility, regardless of what he would have other people believe.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  timeline matters. he wasn't born a terrorist neither did he just take a black-pill and suddenly turn violent. It was a process that lasted decades in which he drove himself to isolation, alienation, hate and finally violence.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    Timeline does matter, but this interview happened after he was arrested and convicted. This is him looking back with hindsight, and it's interesting to me that he can see the virtues of an isolated lifestyle without, apparently, noticing how that isolation left plenty of room for philosophical solipsism and, eventually, the conclusion that other people's lives didn't matter.
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  Not to argue that it's valid to mail bombs as a result of ideology but this part is disingenuous. > instead of just letting them exist apart from himself From his vantage point they weren't letting him exist apart from themselves. "The best place, to me, was the largest remnant of this plateau that dates from the tertiary age. It's kind of rolling country, not flat, and when you get to the edge of it you find these ravines that cut very steeply in to cliff-like drop-offs and there was even a waterfall there. It was about a two days hike from my cabin. That was the best spot until the summer of 1983. That summer there were too many people around my cabin so I decided I needed some peace. I went back to the plateau and when I got there I found they had put a road right through the middle of it" His voice trails off; he pauses, then continues, "You just can't imagine how upset I was. It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system. Revenge. " (https://web.archive.org/web/20090318135703/http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/tedk.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20090318135703/http://www.insurg...)
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    The tranquility he's describing would, I imagine, guide one to understand that you can't control other people's actions. And even if the wilderness around him was shrinking, he still had plenty of it. A tranquility that kills people that harshes its buzz isn't tranquility.
    - ethanwillis 6y ago
      From the same interview I linked in my parent comment. He was killing in the name of protecting tranquility itself. Why is it that shrinking tranquility is seen as politically legitimate but protecting it is not? "I decided to relate to him the story of how one of my graduate advisors, Dr. Resnick, also a Harvard alumni, once posed the following question in a seminar on political legitimacy: Say a group of scientists asks for a meeting with the leading politicians in the country to discuss the introduction of a new invention. The scientists explain that the benefits of the technology are indisputable, that the invention will increase efficiency and make everyone's life easier. The only down side, they caution, is that for it to work, forty-thousand innocent people will have to be killed each year. Would the politicians decide to adopt the new invention or not? The class was about to argue that such a proposal would be immediately rejected out of hand, then he casually remarked, "We already have it--the automobile." He had forced us to ponder how much death and innocent suffering our society endures as a result of our commitment to maintaining the technological system--a system we all are born into now and have no choice but to try and adapt to. Everyone can see the existing technological society is violent, oppressive and destructive, but what can we do?"
The_Colonel 6y ago
It's the classical "I feel this way so everybody should feel this way". People have been seeking pleasure since they were living in a cave. Boredom thing also sounds completely baseless. I still remember when I was bored as a child - it had nothing to do with anxiety, frustration or anything like that (I didn't have any). Children (and then adults) simply have drive to do something interesting/enjoyable (for quite clear evolutionary reasons). I could stay for a couple of hours just relaxing in a forest, but only because I'm not so used to that. If I had to do that every day then I would get bored. There are people who are trying to "distract away" themselves from their problems, but that's far from general boredom.
- smart_jackal 6y ago
  The caveman pleasures were limited to the culinary (having food) and the carnal (having sex). But today's human has surpassed any and every definition of greed for pleasure. Capitalists having billions in their banks and shareholding across companies still crave for more and more pleasure. I just don't understand what kind of pleasure people are after today.
  - The_Colonel 6y ago
    Yes, pleasure is today more accessible than ever and people sort of get hooked on it. But the original argument was that if you are in harmony with nature you even dislike the idea of strong pleasure (like sex) and that's just clearly wrong.
  - esperent 6y ago
    That's unfair in the extreme to the intellect of cavemen and women. No doubt they had rich and complex internal lives and were as capable as you or I of enjoying birdsong, beautiful sunsets, and so on.
  - doukdouk 6y ago
    Given that animal grieve and mourn their dead [0], cows have best friends [1], or many species of animals play [2], among many other things, assuming that cavemen lives is only "culinary" and "carnal" pleasure means humans not long ago ("cavemen") had internal lives far, far simpler than what many animal species experience. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/do-animals-experience-grief-180970124/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/do-animals-exp... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/cows-best-friends https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/cows-b... [2] https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/games_animals_play https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/games_animals_...
dijit 6y ago
In some ways I completely understand. When I was a boy I was exceedingly poor, not that I often went hungry- basic needs were met. A side-effect of that is that there's really a limited number of things you can do in a city, outside the library, playing with neighbours or the 2-3 toys you have. I learned that doing nothing is fine, and actually grew to like it; paying attention to distinct little sounds, the feel of the cold on my skin and the porous nature of the ceiling. It sounds dark and frightening now but I became exceedingly peaceful and honestly I look back it fondly; I'm not able to get into that mindset now... there's always "something" that needs to be done (or, can be done, like checking hackernews). That said; it speaks volumes about his mental illnesses that he states these things openly then commits acts of incredible, meticulous and calculating violence against others.
totalZero 6y ago
Here's the HN way of saying what I want to say: The striking part of this passage, to me, is that Kaczynski deprived innocent people of the very tranquility that he valued and sought for himself. He sought his own form of peace despite causing generalized anxiety for millions of Americans, and suffering for those who lost loved ones or were themselves injured. There could have been no peace or tranquility in that man's mind, because peace and tranquility are not consistent with actions like his. Violence, impulsivity, and narcissism are not peaceful and tranquil traits. Here's the Reddit way of saying what I want to say: "i LiKe TraNqUiLiTy AnD BlOwInG PeOpLe Up"
dri_ft 6y ago
The lines on tranquility are great. I will note that Ted Kaczynski was thought by at least one forensic psychiatrist[0] to have schizoid personality disorder[1], and that this seeking after tranquility is a very schizoid trait. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski [1] N.B. Not schizophrenia. The two are not really as alike as their names suggest: one is a psychosis, the other's a personality disorder. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at the time of his trial, but two prison psychiatrists later described this as 'ridiculous' and a 'political diagnosis'.
Aunche 6y ago
>If you don’t have any work that needs to be done, you can sit for hours at a time just doing nothing, just listening to the birds or the wind or the silence, watching the shadows move as the sun travels, or simply looking at familiar objects. Anyone in the US can do this today if they really wanted to. Plenty of backpackers on the Appalachian trail just do a couple months of manual labor, and live minimalistically the rest of the year.

by stared 6y ago

shadowgovt 6y ago

It's nice words, but a man who mails bombs to other people instead of just letting them exist apart from himself clearly hasn't achieved tranquility, regardless of what he would have other people believe.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
timeline matters. he wasn't born a terrorist neither did he just take a black-pill and suddenly turn violent. It was a process that lasted decades in which he drove himself to isolation, alienation, hate and finally violence.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Timeline does matter, but this interview happened after he was arrested and convicted. This is him looking back with hindsight, and it's interesting to me that he can see the virtues of an isolated lifestyle without, apparently, noticing how that isolation left plenty of room for philosophical solipsism and, eventually, the conclusion that other people's lives didn't matter.
ethanwillis 6y ago
Not to argue that it's valid to mail bombs as a result of ideology but this part is disingenuous. > instead of just letting them exist apart from himself From his vantage point they weren't letting him exist apart from themselves. "The best place, to me, was the largest remnant of this plateau that dates from the tertiary age. It's kind of rolling country, not flat, and when you get to the edge of it you find these ravines that cut very steeply in to cliff-like drop-offs and there was even a waterfall there. It was about a two days hike from my cabin. That was the best spot until the summer of 1983. That summer there were too many people around my cabin so I decided I needed some peace. I went back to the plateau and when I got there I found they had put a road right through the middle of it" His voice trails off; he pauses, then continues, "You just can't imagine how upset I was. It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system. Revenge. " (https://web.archive.org/web/20090318135703/http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/tedk.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20090318135703/http://www.insurg...)
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  The tranquility he's describing would, I imagine, guide one to understand that you can't control other people's actions. And even if the wilderness around him was shrinking, he still had plenty of it. A tranquility that kills people that harshes its buzz isn't tranquility.
  - ethanwillis 6y ago
    From the same interview I linked in my parent comment. He was killing in the name of protecting tranquility itself. Why is it that shrinking tranquility is seen as politically legitimate but protecting it is not? "I decided to relate to him the story of how one of my graduate advisors, Dr. Resnick, also a Harvard alumni, once posed the following question in a seminar on political legitimacy: Say a group of scientists asks for a meeting with the leading politicians in the country to discuss the introduction of a new invention. The scientists explain that the benefits of the technology are indisputable, that the invention will increase efficiency and make everyone's life easier. The only down side, they caution, is that for it to work, forty-thousand innocent people will have to be killed each year. Would the politicians decide to adopt the new invention or not? The class was about to argue that such a proposal would be immediately rejected out of hand, then he casually remarked, "We already have it--the automobile." He had forced us to ponder how much death and innocent suffering our society endures as a result of our commitment to maintaining the technological system--a system we all are born into now and have no choice but to try and adapt to. Everyone can see the existing technological society is violent, oppressive and destructive, but what can we do?"

The_Colonel 6y ago

It's the classical "I feel this way so everybody should feel this way". People have been seeking pleasure since they were living in a cave. Boredom thing also sounds completely baseless. I still remember when I was bored as a child - it had nothing to do with anxiety, frustration or anything like that (I didn't have any). Children (and then adults) simply have drive to do something interesting/enjoyable (for quite clear evolutionary reasons). I could stay for a couple of hours just relaxing in a forest, but only because I'm not so used to that. If I had to do that every day then I would get bored. There are people who are trying to "distract away" themselves from their problems, but that's far from general boredom.

smart_jackal 6y ago
The caveman pleasures were limited to the culinary (having food) and the carnal (having sex). But today's human has surpassed any and every definition of greed for pleasure. Capitalists having billions in their banks and shareholding across companies still crave for more and more pleasure. I just don't understand what kind of pleasure people are after today.
- The_Colonel 6y ago
  Yes, pleasure is today more accessible than ever and people sort of get hooked on it. But the original argument was that if you are in harmony with nature you even dislike the idea of strong pleasure (like sex) and that's just clearly wrong.
- esperent 6y ago
  That's unfair in the extreme to the intellect of cavemen and women. No doubt they had rich and complex internal lives and were as capable as you or I of enjoying birdsong, beautiful sunsets, and so on.
- doukdouk 6y ago
  Given that animal grieve and mourn their dead [0], cows have best friends [1], or many species of animals play [2], among many other things, assuming that cavemen lives is only "culinary" and "carnal" pleasure means humans not long ago ("cavemen") had internal lives far, far simpler than what many animal species experience. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/do-animals-experience-grief-180970124/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/do-animals-exp... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/cows-best-friends https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/cows-b... [2] https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/games_animals_play https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/games_animals_...

dijit 6y ago

In some ways I completely understand. When I was a boy I was exceedingly poor, not that I often went hungry- basic needs were met. A side-effect of that is that there's really a limited number of things you can do in a city, outside the library, playing with neighbours or the 2-3 toys you have. I learned that doing nothing is fine, and actually grew to like it; paying attention to distinct little sounds, the feel of the cold on my skin and the porous nature of the ceiling. It sounds dark and frightening now but I became exceedingly peaceful and honestly I look back it fondly; I'm not able to get into that mindset now... there's always "something" that needs to be done (or, can be done, like checking hackernews). That said; it speaks volumes about his mental illnesses that he states these things openly then commits acts of incredible, meticulous and calculating violence against others.

totalZero 6y ago

Here's the HN way of saying what I want to say: The striking part of this passage, to me, is that Kaczynski deprived innocent people of the very tranquility that he valued and sought for himself. He sought his own form of peace despite causing generalized anxiety for millions of Americans, and suffering for those who lost loved ones or were themselves injured. There could have been no peace or tranquility in that man's mind, because peace and tranquility are not consistent with actions like his. Violence, impulsivity, and narcissism are not peaceful and tranquil traits. Here's the Reddit way of saying what I want to say: "i LiKe TraNqUiLiTy AnD BlOwInG PeOpLe Up"

dri_ft 6y ago

The lines on tranquility are great. I will note that Ted Kaczynski was thought by at least one forensic psychiatrist[0] to have schizoid personality disorder[1], and that this seeking after tranquility is a very schizoid trait. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski [1] N.B. Not schizophrenia. The two are not really as alike as their names suggest: one is a psychosis, the other's a personality disorder. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at the time of his trial, but two prison psychiatrists later described this as 'ridiculous' and a 'political diagnosis'.

Aunche 6y ago

>If you don’t have any work that needs to be done, you can sit for hours at a time just doing nothing, just listening to the birds or the wind or the silence, watching the shadows move as the sun travels, or simply looking at familiar objects. Anyone in the US can do this today if they really wanted to. Plenty of backpackers on the Appalachian trail just do a couple months of manual labor, and live minimalistically the rest of the year.