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I wonder if Ted Kaczynski will be hailed as a great philosopher in the future and humans 100 years from now will condemn our time for our treatment of him while

I wonder if Ted Kaczynski will be hailed as a great philosopher in the future and humans 100 years from now will condemn our time for our treatment of him while justifying his actions as that of a desperate man on the right side of history. It's ironic writing this on a website.

daoist_shaman 4y ago
Rewilding is an extreme answer, but an answer nonetheless. Could humanity ever have the discipline to only allow “some technology?” Maybe, but the extreme answer will always be there waiting for us. That his ideas were undermined by his actions is just as sad as the actions themselves. They weren’t terrible ideas. As you’ve pointed out, we might be on the path to a dystopian future where we’ll look back and say, “Damn, Ted was right.”
- pixl97 4y ago
  >Rewilding is an extreme answer, but an answer nonetheless. Right up until the point some easily solvable by science calamity occurs and people re-invent science for that reason. I mean at this point we're treading off into "The Foundation" and setting up techno-priests to regulate learning and technology.
mellosouls 4y ago
No. He is only famous because of the callous methods he used to get his paper published.
- aliqot 4y ago
  Within the confines of this thought experiment: I wonder sometimes if anybody would have read it at all had he not committed these crimes. Obviously the gravity of his crimes overshadowed any bit of sense in what he wrote, and effectively nullifies all ability in most people to even bring reason to the words as they read them. That being said, there is undoubted truth in some of what he said regarding the perils of modern technology and the sociological effects on society. In the beginning it was great. These inventions unified everyone and made knowledge available, but then we got so far ahead of ourselves, that knowledge is now buried upon layer and layer of neon colored saccharine trash.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Many people have wrote what Ted wrote in one form or another, you don't know their names.
    - daoist_shaman 4y ago
      Many people also have trouble separating ideas from individuals. Ideas are imagination. They aren’t real until they are actualized. They can be beautiful or they can be toxic. Ideas are one thing, but the transmission of them is another. The moment an idea is uttered is the moment that its meaning is jeopardized. Interpretation is the demise of the idea. People have ruthlessly killed each other for millennia because they believe in the same idea but could not agree on the same word to describe it. A tragedy, not one that the historians would tell you.
      - filoeleven 4y ago
        > Ideas are imagination. They aren’t real until they are actualized. > Ideas are one thing, but the transmission of them is another. The moment an idea is uttered is the moment that its meaning is jeopardized. Interpretation is the demise of the idea. Pleas explain why this is not incoherent.
        alexvoda 4y ago
        This is Platonic philosophy. The dichotomy between the world of ideas where ideals and perfection is the default and the material world where everything is a corrupted version of an idea.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Banana699 4y ago
What do you mean the future ? I hail my Ted as a hero on the right side of history now.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  What's your threshold? How many innocent people does he have to kill and/or maim before you no longer are willing to consider him a hero? And yes, they were innocent. The one I met personally was a tech at the store where I bought my first computer. (And if you consider that enough to make him "not innocent", well, you're using a computer to read and comment here, so...) To me, he is condemned by his methods. If you're willing to deliberately, actively, persistently attempt to blow up innocent people, I can't trust your judgment on how people should interact with each other to make society better.
  - Banana699 4y ago
    As indicated by your comment, you probably live/born in the US. So you probably have as a hero at least one of those 3 people : [George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt\Harry Truman]. Every one of those people killed far more than Ted ever ever dreamed of or imagined. One of them fought personally in wars of colonization and was responsible for the death of countless original inhabitants of the land his country stole, before leading the fighting in a war that, besides killing a hundred thousand person (in an era before humanity hit its first billion, 0.01% of the all humans dead in a single war), set in motion the ignition system for one of the bloodiest and most brutal revolution the world had seen at the time. The second one ignited the first industrial war in history, and brought a wave of destruction and death upon his own country so terrible its effects was felt, is felt, a century later and beyond. The third pair, among their many achievements, had developed a weapon of indescribable power, and unleashed it on a bunch of civilians to own a geopolitical enemy. That weapon remains a permanent guillotine over the head of civilization, patiently waiting for an executioner who will release it. If you hold any one of those people as a heros, no, if you hold any one of those people as anything less than the devil himself personified, then you already understand the fundamentals of what Ted had in mind when he did what he did, you merely disagree with his premises. Ted killed a measly sum of 3 people (according to my rusty memory of the wiki article I'm too lazy to re-read), this is laughable by the standards of a hero. Look at your own superhero movies, look at the sheer amount of destruction and mayhem that the hero releases on his own city to rid it of bad guys. How can the culture that produces these movies, that idolizes Washington and Lincoln and Truman, that is responsible for Korea and Vietnam and Iraq, how can it not forgive a man for an honest-but-misguided effort to steer humanity away from the slavery it inflicted upon itself ? I'm not saying those 3 people or the 20-or-so he injured are not important and significant moral costs, I'm just amazed by the standards you impose on Ted, standards that you reserve only for Ted. You already accept far far more than what Ted did, you already accept hundreds of methods that put his methods to childish innocent shame, you just accept them in contexts that you are told\brainwashed are worthy. >If you're willing to deliberately, actively, persistently attempt to blow up innocent people The good\bad thing about civilization is that its a distributed system, a massive distributed system based on tyranny, slavery and suffering. You can't disable a distributed system without damaging at least some of the nodes. Your statement applies perfectly to every single war hero americans (and every people on the planet with their own war heros) idol, go ahead, see how many of your heros blew up to shreds innocent people and killed and maimed. Count the bodies honestly and fairly. Humans kill 70 billion animal a year, every day a human spends not killing or blowing up humans is a sin, a day lived by an immoral coward who doesn't deserve to live. That includes me and you. There is no species on earth that kills its own number 7x+ times each year. Every single innocent soul of those animals slaughtered and cannibalized is blood all over your hands, your body, your mind, your conscience. You live in blood, you thrive on it, you build your life and that of your loved ones on suffering that makes Hitler a Saint and Stalin a harmless Grandpa. Ted is the best and most moral of us. May he rest in peace and love.
filoeleven 4y ago
From the manifesto: > But it is obvious that modern [REDACTED] philoso- phers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psycho- logical needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satis- fies the drive for power. More importantly, the [REDACTED] hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior). Without looking, what should [REDACTED] be replaced by?
- nemo44x 4y ago
  Obviously “post-modern”.
  - revolvingocelot 4y ago
    >>they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior) You think that this describes post-modernism? I thought post-modernism was all about, well, relativism. Upon looking it up, I'm amazed to discover that Kaczynski wrote "leftists", because the excerpted paragraph sure as hell describes the modern conservative. Raging against science and rationality and truth to serve an emotional drive to power? Trump, Bolsonaro, Putin... I think perhaps this is, uh, a difference in worldview.
    - nemo44x 4y ago
      I was going to say leftists of more federally liberals but settled on post modernism since it’s taken up by those groups. Post modernists say there is no truth and that everything comes down to power structures and control. That everything is made up anyways so feel free to throw away all grand narratives and indulge in whatever decadence you want. Because truth doesn’t exist and is a function of power structures. I think modern liberals are against science and rationality just as much as conservatives. They’re just think they aren’t. Liberals tend to be smart and conservatives tend to be wise.

daoist_shaman 4y ago

Rewilding is an extreme answer, but an answer nonetheless. Could humanity ever have the discipline to only allow “some technology?” Maybe, but the extreme answer will always be there waiting for us. That his ideas were undermined by his actions is just as sad as the actions themselves. They weren’t terrible ideas. As you’ve pointed out, we might be on the path to a dystopian future where we’ll look back and say, “Damn, Ted was right.”

pixl97 4y ago
>Rewilding is an extreme answer, but an answer nonetheless. Right up until the point some easily solvable by science calamity occurs and people re-invent science for that reason. I mean at this point we're treading off into "The Foundation" and setting up techno-priests to regulate learning and technology.

mellosouls 4y ago

No. He is only famous because of the callous methods he used to get his paper published.

aliqot 4y ago
Within the confines of this thought experiment: I wonder sometimes if anybody would have read it at all had he not committed these crimes. Obviously the gravity of his crimes overshadowed any bit of sense in what he wrote, and effectively nullifies all ability in most people to even bring reason to the words as they read them. That being said, there is undoubted truth in some of what he said regarding the perils of modern technology and the sociological effects on society. In the beginning it was great. These inventions unified everyone and made knowledge available, but then we got so far ahead of ourselves, that knowledge is now buried upon layer and layer of neon colored saccharine trash.
- pixl97 4y ago
  Many people have wrote what Ted wrote in one form or another, you don't know their names.
  - daoist_shaman 4y ago
    Many people also have trouble separating ideas from individuals. Ideas are imagination. They aren’t real until they are actualized. They can be beautiful or they can be toxic. Ideas are one thing, but the transmission of them is another. The moment an idea is uttered is the moment that its meaning is jeopardized. Interpretation is the demise of the idea. People have ruthlessly killed each other for millennia because they believe in the same idea but could not agree on the same word to describe it. A tragedy, not one that the historians would tell you.
    - filoeleven 4y ago
      > Ideas are imagination. They aren’t real until they are actualized. > Ideas are one thing, but the transmission of them is another. The moment an idea is uttered is the moment that its meaning is jeopardized. Interpretation is the demise of the idea. Pleas explain why this is not incoherent.
      - alexvoda 4y ago
        This is Platonic philosophy. The dichotomy between the world of ideas where ideals and perfection is the default and the material world where everything is a corrupted version of an idea.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

Banana699 4y ago

What do you mean the future ? I hail my Ted as a hero on the right side of history now.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
What's your threshold? How many innocent people does he have to kill and/or maim before you no longer are willing to consider him a hero? And yes, they were innocent. The one I met personally was a tech at the store where I bought my first computer. (And if you consider that enough to make him "not innocent", well, you're using a computer to read and comment here, so...) To me, he is condemned by his methods. If you're willing to deliberately, actively, persistently attempt to blow up innocent people, I can't trust your judgment on how people should interact with each other to make society better.
- Banana699 4y ago
  As indicated by your comment, you probably live/born in the US. So you probably have as a hero at least one of those 3 people : [George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt\Harry Truman]. Every one of those people killed far more than Ted ever ever dreamed of or imagined. One of them fought personally in wars of colonization and was responsible for the death of countless original inhabitants of the land his country stole, before leading the fighting in a war that, besides killing a hundred thousand person (in an era before humanity hit its first billion, 0.01% of the all humans dead in a single war), set in motion the ignition system for one of the bloodiest and most brutal revolution the world had seen at the time. The second one ignited the first industrial war in history, and brought a wave of destruction and death upon his own country so terrible its effects was felt, is felt, a century later and beyond. The third pair, among their many achievements, had developed a weapon of indescribable power, and unleashed it on a bunch of civilians to own a geopolitical enemy. That weapon remains a permanent guillotine over the head of civilization, patiently waiting for an executioner who will release it. If you hold any one of those people as a heros, no, if you hold any one of those people as anything less than the devil himself personified, then you already understand the fundamentals of what Ted had in mind when he did what he did, you merely disagree with his premises. Ted killed a measly sum of 3 people (according to my rusty memory of the wiki article I'm too lazy to re-read), this is laughable by the standards of a hero. Look at your own superhero movies, look at the sheer amount of destruction and mayhem that the hero releases on his own city to rid it of bad guys. How can the culture that produces these movies, that idolizes Washington and Lincoln and Truman, that is responsible for Korea and Vietnam and Iraq, how can it not forgive a man for an honest-but-misguided effort to steer humanity away from the slavery it inflicted upon itself ? I'm not saying those 3 people or the 20-or-so he injured are not important and significant moral costs, I'm just amazed by the standards you impose on Ted, standards that you reserve only for Ted. You already accept far far more than what Ted did, you already accept hundreds of methods that put his methods to childish innocent shame, you just accept them in contexts that you are told\brainwashed are worthy. >If you're willing to deliberately, actively, persistently attempt to blow up innocent people The good\bad thing about civilization is that its a distributed system, a massive distributed system based on tyranny, slavery and suffering. You can't disable a distributed system without damaging at least some of the nodes. Your statement applies perfectly to every single war hero americans (and every people on the planet with their own war heros) idol, go ahead, see how many of your heros blew up to shreds innocent people and killed and maimed. Count the bodies honestly and fairly. Humans kill 70 billion animal a year, every day a human spends not killing or blowing up humans is a sin, a day lived by an immoral coward who doesn't deserve to live. That includes me and you. There is no species on earth that kills its own number 7x+ times each year. Every single innocent soul of those animals slaughtered and cannibalized is blood all over your hands, your body, your mind, your conscience. You live in blood, you thrive on it, you build your life and that of your loved ones on suffering that makes Hitler a Saint and Stalin a harmless Grandpa. Ted is the best and most moral of us. May he rest in peace and love.

filoeleven 4y ago

From the manifesto: > But it is obvious that modern [REDACTED] philoso- phers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psycho- logical needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satis- fies the drive for power. More importantly, the [REDACTED] hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior). Without looking, what should [REDACTED] be replaced by?

nemo44x 4y ago
Obviously “post-modern”.
- revolvingocelot 4y ago
  >>they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior) You think that this describes post-modernism? I thought post-modernism was all about, well, relativism. Upon looking it up, I'm amazed to discover that Kaczynski wrote "leftists", because the excerpted paragraph sure as hell describes the modern conservative. Raging against science and rationality and truth to serve an emotional drive to power? Trump, Bolsonaro, Putin... I think perhaps this is, uh, a difference in worldview.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    I was going to say leftists of more federally liberals but settled on post modernism since it’s taken up by those groups. Post modernists say there is no truth and that everything comes down to power structures and control. That everything is made up anyways so feel free to throw away all grand narratives and indulge in whatever decadence you want. Because truth doesn’t exist and is a function of power structures. I think modern liberals are against science and rationality just as much as conservatives. They’re just think they aren’t. Liberals tend to be smart and conservatives tend to be wise.