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" Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological system is controlled by non-left

" Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in those of our universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away from everyone else's academic freedom. (This is "political correctness.") The same will happen with leftists and technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if they ever get it under their own control. " This is a passage from the Unabomber's manifesto he wrote back in the 1990s. Turned out to be disturbingly prophetic.

rapnie 6y ago
Might as well replace with "extremists on the fringe" and "extremists in control" be they on the left or right side of the divide.
- simonh 6y ago
  Right, there's nothing prophetic about this. Extremists on both the right and the left take extreme positions and are prepared to take extreme measures. It goes with the territory. I also don't think the right and left axis is misleading. It's up to the majority on right and left to realise they generally have more in common with the majority on the 'other' side than they have with the extremists on 'their' side.
WalterGR 6y ago
Since this article doesn’t seem to be a WSJ Op Ed, it may actually turn out to be more balanced than the terrorist’s ramblings. Perhaps someone who pays for the WSJ can weigh in.
- barbacoa 6y ago
  There are browser plugins that you can use to bypass paywall sites. https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
drummer 6y ago
Amazingly prophetic.
shitbowl 6y ago
Most of his essay is spot on. It’s not that he’s prophetic per-se, but that a lot of people are myopic (including most of HN) and cannot use their minds eye to see and weigh risks and benefits of what might happen. Whether it’s due to (willful) ignorance or just inability is an exercise left up to the reader. For anyone who can connect the dots and has not read the full essay, I strongly recommend it. It’s not too long and every section is to the point.
- throwaway556179 6y ago
  Reading the essay it felt very ressentiment-driven, that is, while some phenomena were described with wit, they lacked a somewhat sympathetic grounding - it all screamed: I just do not like it. For one, a strong society is one that allows both the subject and its critique to live without fear. Beside: There exist far deeper dissections of society, even darker, containing more uncomfortable truth, and not grounded in ressentiments at all.
  - shitbowl 6y ago
    He clearly had issues and an axe to grind. Today we would feign pity, and magazines would put his face up on the cover and turn him into a martyr trying to sidestep the fact that he murdered people. But this isn’t the pretty boy from Boston, this is a well educated erudite who saw things others did not wish to confront.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      "He clearly had issues". You don't say. He tried to down a commercial airliner. My friend Thomas sees things others don't wish to confront, too. He was just removed from his university physics professorship for, among other things, seeing the 5G waves that are killing us all, the obvious falsity of the moon landings, the hollow core of the Earth, and the ways in which Jewish people are controlling society. He sleeps in his basement, away from his wife, with a wire connecting him to a power outlet. I forget the logic behind that. Kaczynski slept in a tiny shack. He had a hole cut in the floor to use as a toilet. He is probably the only person in ADX Florence to have been given a drastic lifestyle upgrade upon incarceration. It's funny how people are so driven to mascotize him. When something horrible happens to Thomas (I worry about this a lot), I wonder what the message board people will say about the forbidden truths he managed to confront in his writings.
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
Party in power tries to do anything it can to hold power. This is not an interesting or prophetic statement, it's simply how human beings have worked and have always worked. This is honestly restating the obvious and IMHO not contributing much to intelligent discussion here.
- tryonenow 6y ago
  Except the point is that some parties are more oppressive in power than others, and as it happens the party that is ostensibly against oppressiveness becomes far more oppressive - which we're already seeing online with people using justification like "the paradox of tolerance" to silence others, which is a decidedly leftist/progressive refrain. Ted was prescient. One of the most interesting aspects of the manifesto, IMO, is how little the progressive mindset has changed so many decades after it was written. Moreover, if one accepts that human ability has some distribution with variance, then it follows that the only way to enforce total equity, which is in fundamental contradiction with human nature in a scarce universe, is by extreme authoritarianism and oppression. But idealists don't see that part of the picture until it's far too late - which is the pattern of color revolutions across time and space.
mellosouls 6y ago
There were other people equally prophetic without the appalling character defects that demanded murder and mayhem be used to argue their case rather than ideas. It's unfortunate that the glamour of violence adds nostalgic credibility that isn't particularly deserved.
- tptacek 6y ago
  It's funny, because the Manifesto is usually weaponized the other way: people appeal to pre-industrial (and often reactionary) ways of life, to conservatism, against political correctness, against policing, or statism, or capital, or popular culture, or indoor plumbing, or whatever, and the dunk on them is that they're supposedly espousing Kaczynskism; it's ordinarily a way of discrediting an argument. (It's a bad way of discrediting an argument; there's little in the Manifesto that isn't a regurgitation of some other previous thinker, and unless you're in the cabin pooping in the hole with him, there's really no such thing as Kaczynskism).
dang 6y ago
This is the second time you posted this in a couple hours. Please don't do that. Repetition adds noise, and obviously this material is flamebait. Maybe in some narrow context it would make specific sense to add, but randomly sprinkling it across various threads is negligence if not vandalism. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- barbacoa 6y ago
  Apologies. I came across this found it interesting and decided to share. If I post something but later find a more appropriate place to make that comment would it be better to delete the old comment?
  - dang 6y ago
    They both have replies, so better not to delete - but I wouldn't worry about it. As long as it's truly relevant and not a habit, you should be fine.

rapnie 6y ago

Might as well replace with "extremists on the fringe" and "extremists in control" be they on the left or right side of the divide.

simonh 6y ago
Right, there's nothing prophetic about this. Extremists on both the right and the left take extreme positions and are prepared to take extreme measures. It goes with the territory. I also don't think the right and left axis is misleading. It's up to the majority on right and left to realise they generally have more in common with the majority on the 'other' side than they have with the extremists on 'their' side.

WalterGR 6y ago

Since this article doesn’t seem to be a WSJ Op Ed, it may actually turn out to be more balanced than the terrorist’s ramblings. Perhaps someone who pays for the WSJ can weigh in.

barbacoa 6y ago
There are browser plugins that you can use to bypass paywall sites. https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

drummer 6y ago

Amazingly prophetic.

shitbowl 6y ago

Most of his essay is spot on. It’s not that he’s prophetic per-se, but that a lot of people are myopic (including most of HN) and cannot use their minds eye to see and weigh risks and benefits of what might happen. Whether it’s due to (willful) ignorance or just inability is an exercise left up to the reader. For anyone who can connect the dots and has not read the full essay, I strongly recommend it. It’s not too long and every section is to the point.

throwaway556179 6y ago
Reading the essay it felt very ressentiment-driven, that is, while some phenomena were described with wit, they lacked a somewhat sympathetic grounding - it all screamed: I just do not like it. For one, a strong society is one that allows both the subject and its critique to live without fear. Beside: There exist far deeper dissections of society, even darker, containing more uncomfortable truth, and not grounded in ressentiments at all.
- shitbowl 6y ago
  He clearly had issues and an axe to grind. Today we would feign pity, and magazines would put his face up on the cover and turn him into a martyr trying to sidestep the fact that he murdered people. But this isn’t the pretty boy from Boston, this is a well educated erudite who saw things others did not wish to confront.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    "He clearly had issues". You don't say. He tried to down a commercial airliner. My friend Thomas sees things others don't wish to confront, too. He was just removed from his university physics professorship for, among other things, seeing the 5G waves that are killing us all, the obvious falsity of the moon landings, the hollow core of the Earth, and the ways in which Jewish people are controlling society. He sleeps in his basement, away from his wife, with a wire connecting him to a power outlet. I forget the logic behind that. Kaczynski slept in a tiny shack. He had a hole cut in the floor to use as a toilet. He is probably the only person in ADX Florence to have been given a drastic lifestyle upgrade upon incarceration. It's funny how people are so driven to mascotize him. When something horrible happens to Thomas (I worry about this a lot), I wonder what the message board people will say about the forbidden truths he managed to confront in his writings.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

Party in power tries to do anything it can to hold power. This is not an interesting or prophetic statement, it's simply how human beings have worked and have always worked. This is honestly restating the obvious and IMHO not contributing much to intelligent discussion here.

tryonenow 6y ago
Except the point is that some parties are more oppressive in power than others, and as it happens the party that is ostensibly against oppressiveness becomes far more oppressive - which we're already seeing online with people using justification like "the paradox of tolerance" to silence others, which is a decidedly leftist/progressive refrain. Ted was prescient. One of the most interesting aspects of the manifesto, IMO, is how little the progressive mindset has changed so many decades after it was written. Moreover, if one accepts that human ability has some distribution with variance, then it follows that the only way to enforce total equity, which is in fundamental contradiction with human nature in a scarce universe, is by extreme authoritarianism and oppression. But idealists don't see that part of the picture until it's far too late - which is the pattern of color revolutions across time and space.

mellosouls 6y ago

There were other people equally prophetic without the appalling character defects that demanded murder and mayhem be used to argue their case rather than ideas. It's unfortunate that the glamour of violence adds nostalgic credibility that isn't particularly deserved.

tptacek 6y ago
It's funny, because the Manifesto is usually weaponized the other way: people appeal to pre-industrial (and often reactionary) ways of life, to conservatism, against political correctness, against policing, or statism, or capital, or popular culture, or indoor plumbing, or whatever, and the dunk on them is that they're supposedly espousing Kaczynskism; it's ordinarily a way of discrediting an argument. (It's a bad way of discrediting an argument; there's little in the Manifesto that isn't a regurgitation of some other previous thinker, and unless you're in the cabin pooping in the hole with him, there's really no such thing as Kaczynskism).

dang 6y ago

This is the second time you posted this in a couple hours. Please don't do that. Repetition adds noise, and obviously this material is flamebait. Maybe in some narrow context it would make specific sense to add, but randomly sprinkling it across various threads is negligence if not vandalism. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

barbacoa 6y ago
Apologies. I came across this found it interesting and decided to share. If I post something but later find a more appropriate place to make that comment would it be better to delete the old comment?
- dang 6y ago
  They both have replies, so better not to delete - but I wouldn't worry about it. As long as it's truly relevant and not a habit, you should be fine.