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Ted Kaczynski has died
- Blackstrat 3y agoKaczynski’s ideas are irrelevant. What matters are his actions. For those, he should have been executed. Why he did what he did, what he believed, what he said, are all irrelevant.
- alex_lav 3y agoGood.
- skellyclock 3y agoA few people on 4chan's /g/ technology board used to write to him regularly to keep him updated on the horridness of modern technology and always got a letter back. He always complained about censorship of his mail.
- drones 3y agoIt's frustrating how he articulates so well the problems of modern society as it pertains to progress in human development, equality, and the environment, yet his actions were essentially the result of personal grievances against coworkers he didn't like. If only the 80's had twitter he'd be such a great poster.
- veave 3y ago[flagged]
- DirectorKrennic 3y agoNot really. It's a lot of disorganized nonsense with a high noise-to-signal ratio. Random excerpts: > 14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men. > 15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful. > 22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss. > 35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.
- joenot443 3y agoAre those "random"? It seems like you chose them pretty specifically, actually. You seem like you're inching towards a point here, but not quite making one. Maybe you can expand a bit?
- DirectorKrennic 3y ago> 77. Not everyone in industrial-technological society suffers from psychological problems. Some people even profess to be quite satisfied with society as it is. We now discuss some of the reasons why people differ so greatly in their response to modern society. > 97. Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but they do not serve to guarantee much more than what might be called the bourgeois conception of freedom. According to the bourgeois conception, a “free” man is essentially an element of a social machine and has only a certain set of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms that are designed to serve the needs of the social machine more than those of the individual. Thus the bourgeois’s “free” man has economic freedom because that promotes growth and progress; he has freedom of the press because public criticism restrains misbehavior by political leaders; he has a right to a fair trial because imprisonment at the whim of the powerful would be bad for the system. This was clearly the attitude of Simon Bolivar. To him, people deserved liberty only if they used it to promote progress (progress as conceived by the bourgeois). Other bourgeois thinkers have taken a similar view of freedom as a mere means to collective ends. Chester C. Tan, “Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century,” page 202, explains the philosophy of the Kuomintang leader Hu Han-min: “An individual is granted rights because he is a member of society and his community life requires such rights. By community Hu meant the whole society of the nation.” And on page 259 Tan states that according to Carsum Chang (Chang Chun-mai, head of the State Socialist Party in China) freedom had to be used in the interest of the state and of the people as a whole. But what kind of freedom does one have if one can use it only as someone else prescribes? FC’s conception of freedom is not that of Bolivar, Hu, Chang or other bourgeois theorists. The trouble with such theorists is that they have made the development and application of social theories their surrogate activity. Consequently the theories are designed to serve the needs of the theorists more than the needs of any people who may be unlucky enough to live in a society on which the theories are imposed. > 116. Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to modify human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number of people who cannot or will not adjust to society’s requirements: welfare leeches, youth-gang members, cultists, anti-government rebels, radical environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of various kinds. As I said, a whole bunch of nonsense.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoYeah, he wasn't wrong about some things-the industrial revolution and its consequences have had some pretty big downsides.
- fredgrott 3y agoyou are aware that his mind was harmed when he was a child at Harvard, right? See https://exploringyourmind.com/the-harvard-experiment-that-led-to-the-unabomber/#:~:text=Ted%20Kaczynski%2C%20better%20known%20as,progress%20between%201976%20and%201995 https://exploringyourmind.com/the-harvard-experiment-that-le....
- drones 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPlease don't do this here.
- inglor_cz 3y agoDang, I am not sure he is wrong. His comment is snarky, but there are reasons to think that the explosion of social networks has led to a major mental health crisis, especially among the young, and it may indeed be true that social networks are optimized to make you angry, depressed and resentful.
- dang 3y agoOn HN, not being snarky is more important than not being wrong—especially when it comes to drive-by oneliners. This is not a borderline call! Your longer explanation would have been fine as the GP, for example, but the GP comment wasn't anything like that.
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
- markx2 3y agoFBI: https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/unabomber https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/unabomber
- hguant 3y agoThe FBI of course giving the credit to their "linguistic analysis team" and "fearless investigators" when Ted's brother literally turned him, told them where he lived, and that he had talked about bombing the targets in question. Many, if not most, murder investigations are resolved by confessions, or someone turning the culprit in. Absent that, after...I want to say 48 hours, the police know that they should essentially write off the case. There are obvious exceptions, especially if there's public notoriety (crudely, young white coeds or "sexy shit"), but most murders are poor drug addicts murdering other poor drug addicts. Source: worked 2 years in DC as a freelance reporter, was ultimately not successful there, but soaked up a lot of stories/cynicism
- swellguy 3y ago[flagged]
- mahathu 3y agoWhy does that make him a hypocrite?
- swellguy 3y agoI guess he is a hero? I hope he didn't mail you anything before he died. He had a grudge and took it out on random people. He survived longer in prison than he did in nature. Weird/Toxic lifestyle, IMO.
- meepmorp 3y agoBut how does it make him a hypocrite?
- swellguy 3y agoI you talk big, you must act big. You can't go around using a post office and subjecting yourself to prison time and lawyers. It's as simple as that. Otherwise you are not pure and sane and a real naturalist. In fact you're insane and a hypocrite living in prison for ~40 years.
- justinator 3y agoHis opinions may be credible. His methods to gain attention towards them were absolutely not. A travesty how he was treated in those medical experiments. It's always tragic to find out reasons why people hurt others.
- Shinma 3y ago[flagged]
- sneak 3y agoCredible? Absolutely - I wouldn't have read his manifesto had he not systematically engaged in the premeditated slaughter of human beings. That doesn't make his methods not reprehensible.
- justinator 3y agoI think it's worth thinking about how climate science during the 80's and 90 s (at least) was suppressed by the very companies that were in business to profit from practices that actively harmed all life on Earth. There's rarely justice against huge multinationals. It's just business as usual. I don't condone domestic terrorism (especially with so many innocent hurt), but I also don't condone climate change denial for shareholder profit. Is that ever going to stop? Given the velocity already created, I would say: not in my lifetime.
- dsego 3y agoWould his methods be credible if he was doing it in the 40s and they were directed against nazi intelligentsia for example?
- justinator 3y agoLOL wut? I'm not a ChatGPT prompt - use your own critical thinking skills for your thought experiment.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mutant_glofish 3y agoArchived version: https://archive.is/hhw9F https://archive.is/hhw9F
- bigmattystyles 3y agoNo mention of MKUltra, it doesn’t excuse his behavior but does explain why he may have been pushed over the edge.
- reaperman 3y agoYeah I don’t think it excuses it at all but I wonder at what point it would? If MKUltra had removed 70% of his brain, would that excuse his actions?
- wslh 3y agoIs there more precise and credible information about MKUltra program and Ted K.?
- meepmorp 3y agoNo. The only thing that's really documented is that he participated in a psychology experiment at Harvard. People have alleged that it was part of MKULTRA, but there's nothing to support that beyond allegations and some circumstantial things (e.g., Murray consulted for the OSS on a profile of Hitler during the war). There were also just a lot of unethical experiments done on people in the 50s and 60s.
- wslh 3y agoIsn't weird that Ted hasn't written about this? I mean, based on his writing style and ideas skipping talking about this experience as a lab rat seems like a missing piece of a specific puzzle.
- surfingdino 3y agoThis. The CIA story is likely based on the fact that Henry A. Murray did work for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Kaczynski may have been taking part in the experiments that led to the creation of the Thematic Apperception Test. The CIA may have been interested in the results of these experiments as all intelligence agencies are.
- mberning 3y agoBlowing people up is wrong. But his manifesto was right about many things. It’s interesting to skim through it every couple years.
- bheadmaster 3y ago> Blowing people up is wrong. So is performing torture experiments on them to see what happens them locking them up when they crack.
- davisr 3y agoMelting the polar ice caps, killing most if not all life on Earth, is also wrong. While Ted overstepped his boundaries on a man-to-man basis, the argument can certainly be made that it's _more_ wrong to see the wreck of this sick society and where it leads (death to all Earthly life) and doing nothing to stop it. I don't agree with Ted's actions that directly hurt other people (not random people by the way), but god damn he was hurting too. We should all feel the same pain he felt. The world would be better if we did, and maybe then we could kick our addiction to finite resources and short-term monkey-brain thinking.
- dredmorbius 3y agoFor those missing the reference, this being arguably what may have occurred in the present instance: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Murray#Harvard_human_experiments,_1959%E2%80%9362 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Murray#Harvard_human_exp...> Covered in Harvard and the Unabomber : the education of an American terrorist: <https://archive.org/details/harvardunabomber00chas/page/18/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/harvardunabomber00chas/page/18/m...>
- spurgu 3y agoThe problem he realized was that there's no political solution. Bombing people is obviously wrong but if you're convinced that humanity is heading down a destructive path then doing whatever you can to stop it makes sense, where the damage/suffering of the bombings would be comparatively (way) less than letting said future play out.
- martythemaniak 3y ago[flagged]
- hn2017 3y ago[dead]
- George83728 3y ago[flagged]
- fallingmeat 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y ago"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- George83728 3y ago[flagged]
- mihaic 3y agoThe one thing I still wonder about Ted is actually how many more actually good and thought provoking "manifestos" like his are out there, only for nobody to push them to in the public's eye. After all, almost all smart people that identify uncomfortable truths won't go to extremes to convince strangers of actually giving their non-mainstream ideas a chance.
- drones 3y agoThere are way more Ted K's running around today - it's just that you don't need to kill people to get heard anymore. Nowadays the spectacle of ruining your own life is enough to get noticed. Anyone with an internet connection today has access to world stage provided they are interesting enough. Back then you'd need to catch the eye of a producer for a mainstream news broadcast to get any coverage. Now you can just fire up a camera and there's a 50% chance you'll end up on a podcast circuit and end up talking to Joe Rogan.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoYou seem to suggest that Kaczynski murdered as a kind of marketing strategy for his ideas. I highly doubt that.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoFrom the manifesto itself: "In order to attract attention to our ideas, we've had to kill people." Quoting from memory - may not be word for word. So, if you can believe him, then yes, he murdered as a marketing strategy.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoThat's interesting. I'm skeptical enough though (having read books about the Zodiac Killer, for example) that I see it just as likely to have been an unexpected opportunity that Kaczynski exploited. I guess I'm not surprised that a murderer, enjoying their new-found public lectern, might engage in rationalization of their murders.
- carabiner 3y ago[flagged]
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoNot to mention nearly every prediction in the Manifesto came true. He was a genius broken by the government. We should blame the CIA, not him. He was just a math nerd in the beginning.
- relyks 3y agoHe was literally a murderer... no one like that deserves a black bar here even if they did make important contributions to technology, sciences, and/or engineering
- crhulls 3y agoHis manifesto is worth reading. Although he was obviously a twisted man many of his predictions for the future were eerily prescient. http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf
- rvz 3y ago> many of his predictions for the future were eerily prescient Especially as his predictions were also true in technology in the past decades and is now more relevant with AI.
- Eumenes 3y agoIt should be required reading in public schools
- Shinma 3y ago[flagged]
- moffkalast 3y agoI don't suppose anyone has a short summary?
- brvsft 3y agoreject humanity, return to monke Edit: In all seriousness, it's been a while since I read it. His general ideas are that technology has been a disaster for humankind because, among other reasons, it's freed up time for us to be preoccupied with unimportant bullshit, to the point that it causes mental problems with people. People start to act out in various ways in resistance of our current state because we 'know' somewhere in our bodies that this existence is meaningless. People without the luxury of free time do not have to preoccupy themselves with this struggle for meaning. He also goes on at length about how leftists are self-hating people and worship victimhood, and their mentality is partly a product of this existential dilemma. But these are just a couple of points I took away. It's much more well-written than I could personally attempt to summarize in an internet comment.
- californiadreem 3y agoAnyone who disagrees with Kaczynski's ideas because they came from a convicted terrorist should read the works of Jacques Ellul instead, of which Kaczynski's was largely a popular reduction. The Technological Society is the clearest influence on Kaczynski's manifesto, but Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes is possibly more pertinent in this day and age. Ellul was a professor, a pacifist, and a Christian anarchist. Attacks the ideas, not the man.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago[flagged]
- bryanrasmussen 3y agounless you can show with substantive research that there are some ideas that cannot be held by violent terrorists I don't see why that would color these particular ideas.
- bmitc 3y agoPeople are human and not logical, purely rational (whatever that would mean), data machines. We're emotional. I can certainly understand the perspective when the above commenter has seen the pain and suffering that those ideas, threaded amplified through either mental illness and/or pathological personality, led to. Okay, maybe Kaczynski had some points that resonate and concur with other more respected scholars and critics, but it is quite difficult to dissociate his ideas from his actions, especially when one can easily find others who did not violently kill and maim others with the same ideas. The substantive research is all of human psychology, biology, and sociology.
- mdp2021 3y ago> human Those things endowed with the capability of effortful judgement, abstracting from more "primitive" (biologically ancestral) instances.
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- local_crmdgeon 3y ago[flagged]
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- thr0waway001 3y ago[flagged]
- dj_mc_merlin 3y agoWhat do you mean? Half of US will like you for doing the latter two. Ted Kaczynski is more acceptable to like than most terrorists because of MKUltra and since his ideas are more advanced than "my religion is good" or "I hate $minority!". Doesn't mean it's not wrong to bomb people, but he is easier to understand than a guy who brings an AK47 to a concert.
- bheadmaster 3y agoTed Kaczynski was a genius, a mathematical child prodigy, became a professor at Berkeley at 25 and had a bright future. I completely blame CIA experiments for his downfall into radicalism and extremism. His ideas were very valid, but his mind was too tortured to deal with them in a healthy manner. Rest in peace.
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoThe media will report on this as the death of a terrorist. None of the real terrorists will be brought to justice - the CIA has done so many abhorrent things here and abroad. We act like the KGB/FSB is this unfathomable, foreign evil. We have the bigger, scarier thing that killed it in our backyard.
- next_xibalba 3y ago> real terrorists Did the CIA fabricate and mail the bombs?
- Sebguer 3y agoNo, but they've bombed a lot more innocent people than TedK did. For one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Lawrence_Pope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Lawrence_Pope
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
- pfdietz 3y ago[flagged]
- bm3719 3y agoCertain points in Kaczynski's manifesto greatly influenced how I view the world, and I feel they have positively influenced my life in many ways (e.g., trying to live life less wastefully, using nature to ground oneself in reality, evaluating the true total cost of ownership of products of industry). RIP.
- jstarfish 3y agoThe person who erected the Georgia Guidestones had a similar philosophy, and engraved his own manifesto for peaceful and sustainable living on slabs of granite as a monument for all to enjoy. It was recently bombed into rubble.
- dennis_jeeves1 3y agoNice profile you have. Some wisdom there.
- dennis_jeeves1 3y agoWell if that manifesto influenced you, have a look at my profile and the link on it which have my cynical writings.
- neonate 3y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20230610201529/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/10/us/ted-kaczynski-dead.html http://web.archive.org/web/20230610201529/https://www.nytime... https://archive.ph/e8HVU https://archive.ph/e8HVU
- hnuser847 3y agoIt’s fun to drop verbatim quotes from his manifesto into random internet discussions without attribution. A lot of people agree with his ideas without realizing it.
- znpy 3y agoone of the funniest things for me is the fact that many left-wing people add Kaczynski quotes without realizing that left-wing people are basically the first people to be criticized and almost mocked in Ted's main piece, "Industrial society and its future"
- timeon 3y agoNot sure why is funny agreeing with selected quotes while not agreeing with others.
- znpy 3y agowould you still stand by your point if the quote came from (extreme case) Adolf Hitler? if the answer is no... there you go.
- happytoexplain 3y agoThis doesn't seem like the tough question you think it is. I assume Hitler had some opinions that, taken away from the context of his goals, are reasonable to agree with. What makes you think it's an exception to the parent's point?
- krapp 3y agoHis "criticisms" of the left read like something a denizen of /pol/ or Reddit would come up with. It's entirely possible to see the merits of his arguments against technology while dismissing his deranged hatred of leftists, feminists, etc.
- piaste 3y ago
- dang 3y agoAll: please either post thoughtful, substantive comments or don't post. We want curious conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- neilv 3y agoMany of the comments are taking the occasion to speak favorably of the Unabomber's manifesto. IMHO, there's a time to consider ideas, but I think it would be better not to do that when talking about a terrorist who attacked innocents to promote exposure of those ideas. Otherwise, it would seem to be validating and rewarding terrorism, and thereby encouraging future terrorists.
- Shinma 3y ago[flagged]
- IceHegel 3y agoBest manifesto of the 20th century imo. Modern man is an animal in a cage. He behaves increasingly abnormally because his environment is unfamiliar and out of his direct control.
- miramba 3y agoI don’t think that‘s modern, it was the same in the centuries and millenias before. Unless you were born into the 1% upper class, you were ruled by them with random degrees of benevolence. I would argue that although you could say that this hasn’t changed much, everyday life for most of us ruled subjects is equal or better in almost every respect, for example being able to write this comment to you, my fellow underling.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoGraeber & Wengrow would like a word with you about that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36276100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36276100
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 3y agoThe modern man is the best man that has ever been. Ted was just a nutcase.
- IceHegel 3y agoOn what measure? Certainly he is quite healthy and even considered sick.
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 3y agoOn every measure, there was never a better time in the history of civilization to live.
- IceHegel 3y agoObesity rate.
- perardi 3y agoI know the tendency to mythologize serial killers and terrorists is disgusting—serial killer TV shows and movies are sure-fire hits, which is a pretty dark insight into human nature. (I mean, Netflix is like half serial killer shows now.) And trying to generalize and overanalyze and learn lessons from one-off instances of people snapping and killing is just not productive. But… …it’s hard not to mythologize and over-analyze Kaczynski. He had what appears to be a totally average suburban upbringing, he was unambiguously wildly intelligent, and yet he done broke bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
- BMc2020 3y agoThere was a lot of controversy about publishing his manifesto, but his brother saw it, recognized his writing style and tipped off the police.
- martythemaniak 3y agoI find it very curious the fawning treatment this murderer's death is receiving here. The guy killed three innocent people and maimed a number of others because he went crazy and wanted to get back at the world. What is wrong with you people? You know there's plenty of people that are smarter than him, being able to produce more coherent, balanced and informed views of society, and also not murder people.
- brvsft 3y agoThis moral argument doesn't really work on people from the US after about 20 years of global militarism, especially that whole stint in Iraq and Afghanistan. I hate murder as much as the next guy, but our political and military leaders constantly make decisions that result in needless deaths. You don't even know how upset I personally was after voting for Obama and seeing him continue using drones to target terrorists while also killing innocent civilians as collateral damage. Please, grant me the luxury to like this one guy who killed three innocent people because I just think his manifesto was pretty good. My 'leaders' have already taught me that murder can be overlooked by the vast majority of the public, or at least one half of it, every 4-8 years. I think I'm allowed to like Uncle Ted.
- Invictus0 3y agoYou know what we did before drones were developed? Carpet bombs. Drones are a huge improvement.
- brvsft 3y agoSorry, I forgot about carpet bombs and nukes. You're right, dronebombing a terrorist and killing an innocent child in the process is net actually good because even worse bombs existed and were used sometimes in the past. Everything the US government and military does is good, and Ted Kaczynski was bad, especially the terrible things he wrote. I promise I will buy more of these new Apple products, in resistance of Mr. Kaczynski's evil message. *I place my hand on my chest patriotically.* I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
- celtoid 3y agoKaczynski is a warning to all intellectuals with an an activist streak. If harming and killing innocents is your solution, you're already off the path. In this regard, he was no different from many of the people and institutions he critiqued.
- whatscooking 3y ago[dead]
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago[flagged]
- jzellis 3y agoTed's manifesto is a remarkable piece of analysis. It's his solutions that weren't really, uh, constructive.
- dredmorbius 3y agoIt's a classic challenge in Big Problem resolution: - Is there a problem? - What is the problem? - What is its cause? - How can it be remediated / addressed? There are a few elements, though those tend to be the big ones. It's possible to go wrong at pretty much any point in the chain. <https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarchy_of_failures_in_problem_resolution/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarc...>
- calvinmorrison 3y ago[flagged]
- api 3y agoI have never been able to accept any form of primitivism or reactionary ideology for many reasons. Chief among them is this: if everything was so great in this imagined past, why are we here and why if we did go back and revive this past would we not end up right back here “repeating the grade” so to speak? The second is that (as I hinted above) I am extremely skeptical of narratives that excessively glorify the past. I think it’s all a bunch of survivorship bias. Things often seem better in the past because we are experiencing only those cultural artifacts of the past that survived, which tend to be the most memorable or interesting. Lastly, I have doubts about the very possibility of revisiting the past. The arrow of time is unidirectional. I can’t think of a way we could even attempt to return without an insanely totalitarian system that attempted to forcibly suppress modernity at incredible cost in human life and freedom. That would end up looking like the worst caricature of precisely the totalitarian tendencies of modernity that these authors often call out. Pol Pot is kind of an example from history of someone who tried to return a society to a pastoral mode of existence by force. At their core these writers are critics, and I’ve come to see mere criticism of any form as broadly intellectually weak. It is far easier to criticize than it is to improve or fix things. Creation is infinitely more difficult than accusation or destruction. All our significant problems must be very hard to solve or they would already be solved. If they seem simple it’s because we haven’t fully grasped their scope, which in most cases includes ourselves. The reactionary is a particularly lazy kind of critic. They don’t even bother to propose an unworkable solution. That’s too much work for them. They just point back at an imagined past and blame people for having done things between then and now.
- notacoward 3y agoYou've buried an assumption in there: that there is only one possible future. That we can only choose between that one future and the past. Since at least the original Luddites, the real tension has been between multiple futures enabled by technology. Kaczynski was in this tradition. It was an argument against inevitability, against the same glorification of one future that you condemn when it's about the one past. I suggest that you consider the possibility of one or more different futures, where technology still exists but is applied in ways that enhance our humanity instead of suppressing it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nimish 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4xrnzKN1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4xrnzKN1Y is a good exposition of his mathematical work for the non-mathematician. His other work is better known, of course.
- arp242 3y agoGary Greenberg's "In the Kingdom of the Unabomber"[1] is a pretty interesting write-up of the palace intrigue stuff surrounding Kaczynski while he was in prison, Greenberg also did a great interview with Errol Morris about it.[2] [1]: best quality I can find right now: https://www.garygreenbergonline.com/media/unabomber_letter.pdf https://www.garygreenbergonline.com/media/unabomber_letter.p... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECNsiK5MB-4&list=PLVmRJGCDzW4QL42BGfwC-QpMMl46zDGJ9&index=8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECNsiK5MB-4&list=PLVmRJGCDzW...
- waihtis 3y agoKaczynski's entire opposition to technology seems to focus purely on amplifying the negative aspects of technological advancement. But after reading David Deutsch, I cannot but think all and any technological advancement is desirable and there's little merit to technological doomerism.
- notacoward 3y ago"Any and all"? It's not a particularly surprising attitude to find here, but I think it's a hard one to justify. Does ubiquitous surveillance technology not bother you at all, no matter how it's likely to be used? Are new methods of killing people always good? How about mind control? Not that we have it, but "any and all" would cover it. Is "doomerism" the only alternative you can think of to infinite optimism? That's a textbook example of the excluded middle. I hope you just phrased that poorly, because if that attitude were widely and sincerely held it would be scary indeed. I say that, BTW, as someone who's generally optimistic about the possibilities inherent in new technology, and has even created a bit here and there. The uses and effects of technology must always be considered, not just naively assumed to be beneficial. Un-nuanced optimism is just as simplistic and "meritless" as its mirror image.
- dennis_jeeves1 3y agoPeople on this forum are generally the un-nuanced peasants of yesteryear who now have white collar jobs.
- waihtis 3y agoSurveillance tech is usually a derivative of other technological advancements which would still result in a net benefit. The middle ground between infinite optimism and doomerism seems to be regulation which more often than not results in very subpar conditions. I feel there's really no other position to hold.
- mypastself 3y agoIt’s been years since I’ve read Industrial Society and its Future, but I remember it felt like the author was rationalizing his own emotional state into a philosophy supposedly explaining society. It contained many subjective ideas presented as hard fact, as well as some naive romanticization of pre-industrial societies. He was right about one thing, though. No one would give his writings a second look if he wasn’t a terrorist. Even if the many copycat manifestos would be much worse.
- californiadreem 3y ago>It contained many subjective ideas presented as hard fact, as well as some naive romanticization of pre-industrial societies. You may enjoy reading this: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-truth-about-primitive-life-a-critique-of-anarchoprimitivism https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-tr...
- mypastself 3y agoInteresting, will check it out.
- icpmacdo 3y agoHere is a timestamped clip of George Hotz Twitch stream from 6 days ago making the same point about rationalizing his own emotional state of powerlessness in Industrial Society and its Future https://youtu.be/Mr0rWJhv9jU?t=7169 https://youtu.be/Mr0rWJhv9jU?t=7169
- JamesLeonis 3y ago> I remember it felt like the author was rationalizing his own emotional state into a philosophy supposedly explaining society. Your intuition is correct. Here's TK's own words on the matter [0]: > But even leaving aside all questions of “political” utility and considering only my personal predilections, I have little interest in philosophical questions such as the desirability or undesirability of the “herd mentality.” The mountains of Western Montana offered me nearly everything I needed or wanted. If those mountains could have remained just as they were when I first moved to Montana in 1971, I would have been satisfied. The rest of the world could have had a herd mentality, or an individualistic mentality or whatever, and it would have been all the same to me. But, of course, under modern conditions there was no way the mountains could have remained isolated from the rest of the world. Civilization moved in and squeezed me, so… [0]: https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-s-letter-correspondence-with-david-skrbina#toc4 https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-s-lette...
- dbcooper 3y ago[flagged]
- whatscooking 3y ago[flagged]
- comeonbro 3y ago> He targeted people like me and you, and would probably kill you in person if he had the choice. Yeah. I initially came into this news ready to edgelord out with everybody else, but, synthesizing from some other comments I've read on the internet today: Thinking of the dads that owned their little computer stores in the 80s getting their fingers blown off and dying in their parking lots while reading these comments. > Friends recall Hugh as a man who embraced life, a gentle man with a sense of humor who had traveled around the world, climbed mountains, and studied languages. He cared about politics, was “fair and kind” in business, and was remembered as “straightforward, honest, and sincere.” He left behind his mother, sister, family members, a girlfriend who loved him dearly, and a circle of friends and colleagues who respected and cared for him. Kaczynski’s account of the killing: > Experiment 97. Dec. 11, 1985. I planted a bomb disguised to look like a scrap of lumber behind Rentech Computer Store in Sacramento. According to the San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 20, the “operator” (owner? manager?) of the store was killed, "blown to bits, on Dec. 12. Excellent. Humane way to eliminate somebody. He probably never felt a thing. 25,000 reward offered. Rather flattering.
- ahoy 3y agoKaczynski was essentially a blackpilled fascist. He spends the huge bulk of his manifesto ranting against leftism. I think its fine to attack the ideas as well.
- selfmodruntime 3y agoNone of his ideas have anything to do with fascism. Rallying against leftism does not make one a fascist. As far as I remember, in Industrial Society and its Future, Kaczynski did not propose authoritarianism or nationalism in any way or form.
- readthenotes1 3y ago"Rallying against leftism does not make one a fascist." You must have missed the memo that defines "fascism to be anything someone more conservative than AOC believes in.
- adamrezich 3y agoit would be nice if that word wasn't overused to the point of becoming essentially meaningless in contemporary discourse—it seems like a word that should probably retain a significant amount of gravitas!
- theodric 3y agoTed is, for better or worse, one of my heroes. Not for his entirely ineffective, pointless, counter-productive explosives work, but because reading his work, Thoreau's, and others, helped pull me out of a serious funk at the bottom of my burnout curve and find a new direction for my life after tech. It inspired me to spend €200k of the tech cash I'd hoarded on a farmstead and land in the Irish countryside, and try to do something that doesn't make the world worse in the way that working in edtech (one of the parasites keeping tuition high) or finance/fintech (no explanation required) does. I'm not a Luddite, and I'm certainly not opposed to technology - I use it everywhere - but I agree with Ted that surrogate activities hamper our capacity for fulfilment. That they stop us from seeing the fruits of our labors and connecting them viscerally, emotionally to positive outcomes in our lives. That focusing on meta-level societal noise only serves to make us unhappier. That living deliberately empowers and breeds satisfaction. I'm poor as shit now, from an income perspective, but I've never been more fulfilled. Pity it took me 40 years to figure this all out. RIP TedK.
- ehsankia 3y agoMaybe a stupid question, but I'm curious what he's been up to in the decades since in prison. A brain like his doesn't stop working just because he's in jail, does it? I'm not sure what kind of terms he had, was he allowed to read? to write?
- spurgu 3y agoHe's written a couple of books (didn't have complete freedom to do it, I remember him complaining about some hurdles) and done mail correspondence with various people.
- drexlspivey 3y ago> and done mail correspondence with various people I hope the prison guards checked those mails thoroughly
- ehsankia 3y agoFrom some cruising on Wikipedia, apparently all his correspondence is available University of Michigan's Special Collections Library (over 400 letters), though the identity of the people won't be unsealed until 2049.
- digbybk 3y agoI vacillate between excitement for the future and fear that people like Kaczynski are right (not the violence, obviously). It often does feel as though the direction of technological progress is independent of what is best for the wellbeing of humanity.
- fwungy 3y agoK. made the rational observation that no one would pay attention to him unless he did something drastic to force it. He'd just be a forgotten loner who scribbled in notebooks. A politician might kill or harm many more people in the course of pursuing their objectives but they'll always have the story on their side provided they win. K. had to understand that the achievement of his objective, publishing the manifesto, would likely lead to his capture, but he did it anyway. He sacrificed himself in the end. If you believed you had information that would save the planet but you had to kill some innocent people to make it known? Utilitarians would say yes because saving billions of innocent lives is more important. K. probably saw himself as someone taking revenge on an evil system that had harmed him. He's one of the more fascinating characters of modern history in that he was so effective in attaining his goals with violence.
- sealeck 3y agoBut he attained none of his goals?
- dbcooper 3y agoGreat to see that most of this site is celebrating a mass murderer. He would have killed any of you by choice.
- infamouscow 3y agoHave you read the manifesto?
- andrewinardeer 3y agoThat's two heavyweights from Florence Supermax dead in two weeks. Hanssen is the other.
- tyingq 3y agoI'm very surprised he didn't die earlier. Take his mental state at sentencing, then consider he was in ADX Florence Supermax from 1998 to December of 2021...23 years. The regimen there is 23 hours a day by yourself in your cell. There's one hour a day outside in a sunken concrete area, each prisoner is placed in an individual 12x18 foot wire-mesh cage, and can speak to other nearby caged prisoners under the watch of guards. There's a thin slit window in the cell that shows only the sky, no landscape visible. All meals eaten in the cell, passed through a hole. They did transfer him to a medical prison in December of 2021.
- arp242 3y agoHis cell was apparently 12×7-foot, or 3.6×2.1 metres (I was curious). Seems awfully tiny, and personally I consider it inhumane no matter what he has done, but apparently he wasn't too unhappy with it: "I consider myself to be in a (relatively) fortunate situation here. As correctional institutions go, this place is well-administered. It’s clean, the food is good, and it’s quiet, so that I can sleep, think and write (usually) without being distracted by a lot of banging and shouting."[1] Come to think of it, I might prefer a smaller cell over a larger one if it's clean and doesn't have "a lot of banging and shouting", but that probably says more about the general state of the US prison system than anything else. [1]: https://news.yahoo.com/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-life-210559693.html https://news.yahoo.com/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-...
- boppo1 3y agodid they allow much of his writing out of the prison? Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US?
- tyingq 3y agoThere's not a universal country-wide law in the US. Some states have "Son of Sam" laws that keep prisoners from profiting from publicity about their crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law Though with Ted, he probably had things other than his crimes he could have published and made money from. Of course, any earnings could end up going to a civil suit or existing orders of victim restitution. None of that seems directly related to intellectual property rights though. The prisoner retains those just like anyone else. I suppose there might be some cases of asset forfeiture for remediation or fines?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- voisin 3y agoNo praise for his methods but reading his manifesto a few years ago I was surprised about how much I found to have been an accurate warning of what would happen.
- dijondreams 3y agoAnyone else find it strange that Ted and Robert Hanssen died at the same time? Locked in the same place....
- paganel 3y agoRIP to one of the few real prophets of our time. We’re long past gone the point where anything could have been done to avert all this current dystopic madness (two years ago, when I entered a bookshop, I had to show some QR magic code that I had gotten as a result of having a needle inject me stuff in my body), but we can’t say we hadn’t been warned.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- digbybk 3y agoDo we know how his views changed, if at all, over the years?
- jmull 3y ago[flagged]
- martythemaniak 3y ago[flagged]
- s5300 3y ago[dead]
- brvsft 3y agoAt least most of us have the ability to engage in a discussion about it. You seem to be here to do some backslapping with people who agree with you, and you have no response to a refutation of your normie opinion that He KiLL tHrEe PeOpLe = bAd. Keep on with those deep thoughts that fixate on who Kaczynski killed and never turn that ire towards your government or society. Real brave of you.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agohe moved into a shack in the mountains searching for tranquility and silence. just to get tormented there by noise from local wood industry and dogs. So, he kills the dogs and then sabotages machinery. for me - he's an unsung hero. may he finally rest in peace now.
- jmull 3y agoHe’s a hero for killing dogs because they annoyed him? I think that’s sick, not heroic.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoi find it reasonable if the owners don't discipline the dogs effectively.
- arisAlexis 3y agoApproaching the era of AGI we will see a lot of more occurrences of technofobia, violence and probably new movements to go back to sq1 and live like 200k years ago. It looks inevitable if the pace grows exponential.
- pseudolus 3y agoThere was an interesting podcast about the Unabomber and his eventual capture - "Project Unabom". [0] Some of the episodes feature material about his relationship with his family and the pool of other suspects that emerged during the investigation. [0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/project-unabom/id1627613321?utm_source=podcast+description+for+PR https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/project-unabom/id16276...
- activiation 3y ago[flagged]
- ROTMetro 3y agoFYI Butner might be a medical designation spot but it's definitely the 'where they send the crazy people' spot and also a higher security level (I think it's a medium). Would not have wanted to do time there.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- darkclouds 3y agoI wrote to him a few years ago after hearing about him. I wanted to understand his point of view to see if it could be changed, but I never got a response so I dont know if one of the five eyes (US or UK) or some other entity was interfering. My position/point of view is something caused the events, so what where they? Those events are what need tackling, Mr Kacynski is the product in much the same way as Google users are the product!
- alphanullmeric 3y agoGotta love the terrorist sympathizers in the comments. Always bet on a certain side of the political spectrum to violate the ‘force is only justified in response to force’ rule when they find it convenient.
- booleandilemma 3y agoWhich side is that?
- alphanullmeric 3y agoLook around, I only see one side defending a murderer.
- VerminOctopus1 3y agoThe right wing anarchist side?
- alphanullmeric 3y agoWhich right wingers support Ted? I’ve yet to find one in these comments.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- GnarfGnarf 3y agoWe cannot escape that "all our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end" (Thoreau). The perversion of knowledge is a paradox that was known to the writers of Genesis: it's the Tree of Knowledge that gets the first humans in trouble.
- j3s 3y agoi read ted's manifesto awhile back and wrote a review about it: https://j3s.sh/review/industrial-society-and-its-future.html https://j3s.sh/review/industrial-society-and-its-future.html overall i was pretty disappointed. ted's writing wasn't very good at all & his arguments did not convince me. i was surprised because of his writing seems to be universally praised in tech circles. in my opinion it isn't worth reading. it's philosophical cosplay.
- mdp2021 3y agoPoints #171 to #178 - chapter "The Future" - of ISaiF contain the discussion about Artificial Intelligence and general Automation (and further prospective areas such as Genetic Engineering). The analysis, while lucidly exposed, lacks the sophistication which should reveal more major possibilities (e.g. the machine as an enhancer for the decisor and the public). Nonetheless, we read > On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite where the missed addition of quantifiers and specifiers in the expression «may have control» makes said relative "lack of sophistication" even optimistic.
- fairity 3y agoMy takeaway from Kacynski’s manifesto is that he makes an astute observation about the root causes of unhappiness, but then proposes an absurd solution. The astute observation is that a lot of unhappiness is driven by over-socialization and a commitment to inauthentic, subjective values. The solution, to tear down technology to force mankind to work on more primitive goals, only makes sense if there are no alternatives. Thankfully there are many alternatives. First and foremost, I think people like Ted just need to realize that the yearning to be important and useful is natural, but something you can let go of if you stop taking life so seriously.
- dennis_jeeves1 3y ago>Thankfully there are many alternatives. What exactly are they? (the last I checked is that it's virtually impossible to live somewhere (even remote) off the land, without paying a ton in taxes, if you did succeed in some manner without attracting attention in a remote place it would soon get the attention of authorities in due course).
- fairity 3y agoIMO, the alternatives are all based on a reframing of mindset versus a change in external environment. My understanding is that most of Kacynski’s disillusionment was born out of: - a recognition of how artificial most people’s values and goals are - an inability to find authentic & fulfilling values and goals - an innate urge to be useful and important Put another way, Kacynski didn’t want to be like the brainwashed masses that chase status, approval, and riches. But, when he looked around for better things to spend his time on, he didn’t find any bc technology is so advanced. I think the alternative to burning everything down is learning how to disconnect from the need to feel important and useful. It’s this inability to disconnect from the need to be useful and authentic that ultimately causes the disillusionment. The ability to do so starts with an acceptance of the absurdity of life and a release of one’s ego. To put it colloquially, learning to not take things so seriously.
- dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
- pierat 3y agoTo be fair, he seemed to line up pretty strongly with Ned Ludd, and the evils of capitalism in relation to 'who owns the machines'. Note: the original Luddites weren't against technology. They were against technology minimizing worker power. I don't follow why he chose to send bombs to people. But at least to the Luddites, sabotage of the means of production was considered laudable.
- catminou 3y agoI remember in the 90s a classmate in my junior high lived across the street from the house that Ted grew up in (evergreen park, il). When all this was going down he mentioned how before it went public that there was a suspicious amount of people visiting that house and removing things in boxes (I guess Teds brother owned the house and still had his writings in the attic).
- bkohlmann 3y agoOne of my good friend’s dad was brutally murdered by Kaczynski when she was a young teenager. A small bomb in a package that used razor blazes, nails, and other bits of metal to nearly tear his head off while his young family was in the house with him. And it turns out the victim was the “wrong” man, as he didn’t even work on the project Kaczynski wanted to bring “retribution” for. Kaczynski May have said some interesting things, but he physically tore apart the lives of many, leaving a wake of destruction during his crusade. Actions speak louder than words. Even eloquent ones.
- alphanullmeric 3y ago[flagged]
- getmeinrn 3y agoI don't know much about the Unabomber's victims. Where can I read about your friend's dad?
- searealist 3y agoThere are only 3 victims to narrow down. edit: Only one of 3 victims was killed in his home: > In 1994, Burson-Marsteller executive Thomas J. Mosser was killed after opening a mail bomb sent to his home in New Jersey. In a letter to The New York Times, Kaczynski wrote he had sent the bomb because of Mosser's work repairing the public image of Exxon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago[flagged]
- californiadreem 3y agoThey did PR for Union Carbide following Bhopal, so not hypothetical: "Considered the world's worst industrial disaster, over 500,000 people in the small towns around the plant were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC). Estimates vary on the death toll, with the official number of immediate deaths being 2,259. In 2008, the Government of Madhya Pradesh paid compensation to the family members of 3,787 victims killed in the gas release, and to 574,366 injured victims. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases."
- LatteLazy 3y agoA sad end to a sad life.
- chasing 3y agoOn one hand, he murdered a bunch of people and ruined a huge number of lives. On the other hand, wrote a mildly interesting manifesto that only attracted any sort of attention because it was published by The Washington Post in a desperate bid to figure out who he was so we could get him to stop murdering people. (Which worked, by the way.) So, y'know. Evens right out... Interested in his ideas? Read better manifestos by people who gained notice for their words and ideas, not because they murdered a bunch of people. Maybe there were explanations for why he did what he did, but at the end of the day his was a wasted life that made the world a worse place.
- catiopatio 3y agoNone of what you said has any bearing on the intellectual validity of his manifesto. There’s nothing to “even out” — we can and do separate the work from the author. I found some degree of edification in reading his manifesto, and I see no justification for your attempt to dissuade others from reading it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 3y ago"Evens right out..." Put down the strawman, it's already dead.
- Aerbil313 3y agoAre you saying only those manifestos who gain organic public attention are worth reading/can hold significant truth? Are you a the-majority-cannot-be-wrong or if-everyone-agrees-it-must-be-right person?
- chasing 3y agoAre you replying to the wrong comment? Because none of that is anywhere near what I wrote.
- iJohnDoe 3y agoIt’s too bad the CIA isn’t even mentioned. Horrible what they did to him and other students. I can’t remember, but I think the professors that ran the experiments were all mostly killed or killed themselves. Doesn’t excuse what Kaczynski did. Others should have been brought to justice as well. Watch the Netflix series. Really well done.
- Nasrudith 3y agoI find it deeply disturbing the number of people here who take this complete historical illiterate seriously. Seriously get some self-esteem and stop with this self-flagellating "technology is the source of all problems" bullshit.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoA lot of comments here talk about how terrible Kaczynski’s actions were, and I agree with them. I do wonder, though, at what point does such behavior qualify one as mentally insane? He seems fairly insane to me, and I’m not sure whether we should see him as an evil person with true agency or someone with a mental illness.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago[flagged]
- RagnarD 3y agoIt's worth noting Kaczynski was the subject of a brutal psychological experiment while a young student at Harvard. It's unfortunate in the present day that so many naive tech individuals don't understand that they've been deliberately recruited by the left in universities worldwide via indoctrination one class at a time. https://www.history.com/news/what-happened-to-the-unabomber-at-harvard https://www.history.com/news/what-happened-to-the-unabomber-...
- l33t233372 3y ago> Harvard. It's unfortunate in the present day that so many naive tech individuals don't understand that they've been deliberately recruited by the left in universities worldwide via indoctrination one class at a time Can you elaborate what you mean by that? I find the notion ridiculous, but I’d like more detail before I write it off.
- lucaspfeifer 3y agoUniversities, especially the more prestigious ones, have been trending towards aggressively simplistic labeling of complex social issues. While their stated goal is to protect minorities, the oversimplification increases polarization and division. These doctrines in fact harm the minorities that they were intended to help, by forcing people to choose a side. Plus, they focus too much on the negatives, when we need more positive, meaningful, constructive discourse.
- l33t233372 3y agoYou specifically said “one class at a time” what did you mean? > trending towards aggressively simplistic labeling of complex social issues I think that’s the opposite of true.
- UberFly 3y agoThis I've had bookmarked for a while - lots of photos from inside his cabin: https://helenair.com/photos-a-look-inside-the-unabombers-montana-cabin/collection_41103cf1-dc68-5950-babc-17861f0b8858.html#1 https://helenair.com/photos-a-look-inside-the-unabombers-mon... Also, for those who don't know, they actually moved his cabin to a museum in DC: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-unabombers-cabin-washington-dc https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-unabombers-cabin-was...
- syndacks 3y agoJust goes to show you what kind of freaks are on HN, idolizing one of their own. Ole Ted was also a proponent of remote work from his lil cabin on the prairie.
- naravara 3y agoThere’s a podcast series called “Cabin” by The Relentless Picnic that does an excellent dive into Kaczynski’s manifesto, the relatable bits as well as his deficiencies, and contrasts it with Thoreau, ties it into some email they got from an angry incel type guy, as well as a bunch of personal stuff the casters are going through themselves. It really defies categorization into a genre or anything but it’s really insightful.
- sterlind 3y agoI read Industrial Society to my parents last year. They were both quite surprised that, rather than just being the schizophrenic ramblings of a crank, it made a lot of sense and raised good points. Uncomfortable, finding yourself in agreement with some points raised by a notorious domestic terrorist and murderer. I recommend the Manifesto to the HN audience. The section on AI is particularly timely, but a lot of it holds up well - especially the discussion of surrogate activities and the problem with hobbies.
- mxkopy 3y agoI think we should all feel a little more guilt for gluttonously consuming everything all around us and making such consumption morally defensible under the guise of "just taking care of family"/"living a peaceful life". We should all feel a little more hatred to those aloof imbeciles smiling and pointing at animals to their children in zoos. Though I think we would eventually reach this conclusion without needing to kill random people.
- not2b 3y agoIn the early 90s I was a grad student and research assistant with a desk in Cory Hall at UC Berkeley, where I spent a lot of time for 3.5 years. That building has the distinction of being the only place that Kaczynski (we didn't know his name then) bombed twice. He maimed a professor with his first bomb and a grad student with his second. He wasn't caught until after I left, and I made sure never to deal with mail at the office. Good riddance.
- kajaktum 3y agoNot enough scrutiny/blame have been given to the US government. TK is not entirely to blame for his crimes. This is why we should make away with libertarian concept of free-will. If a cow had been poisoned to murder people, no one would necessarily blame the cow or think that it "deserves" some kind of punishment. After killing the cow to simply stop its spree, we would focus our attention to the actual perpetrators. In this case its the US government. However, all I see in this thread, most of it anyways, is directed directly towards TK. He was undeniably a genius with so much ahead of him, but all of that went to waste. To some people, it is not enough that he is murdered/punished, he needs to be made "rightly" suffered through similar pains. Why? If there is a cure to mental illness, why would we not administer this drug and let the man free? Without free will, this concept of "punishment" would simply wither away.
- paiute 3y agoI'm surprised mention of David Gelertner hasn't come up at all. He is a computer scientist who was attack by Ted kaczynski. He is an interesting person.
- dredmorbius 3y agoWhat might you have to say about him that's of interest? (It's generally more interesting to contribute to the conversation you find lacking or underrepresented then to meta-comment on it. I do this (contributing, not meta-comment) frequently myself.)
- DonHopkins 3y agoIt's "interesting" that he pushes Intelligent Design, denies climate change, supports Donald Trump, and defends birtherism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter#Positions_on_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter#Positions_on_s... The Washington Post, profiling him in early 2017 as a potential science advisor to Donald Trump, called Gelernter "a vehement critic of modern academia" who has "condemned 'belligerent leftists' and blamed intellectualism for the disintegration of patriotism and traditional family values."[29] Shortly thereafter, The Atlantic published a rebuttal of The Washington Post profile, saying it was "hard to imagine a more misleading treatment" of the "pioneering polymath" Gelernter.[30] Gelernter has "expressed skepticism about the reality" of anthropogenic climate change,"[31][32] rejecting the overwhelming scientific consensus in the field.[33] In July 2019, in a review of Stephen Meyer's book Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design, which Gelernter wrote for the Claremont Review of Books, he also rejected the scientific consensus of evolutionary biology.[34] On the other hand, Gelernter stipulates he "cannot accept" intelligent design either, saying that "as a theory, it would seem to have a long way to go."[35] In "A Response to David Gelernter's Attack on Evolution", Patheos, August 26, 2019, Bob Seidensticker writes: "Let's subtitle this story, 'Guy who made his career in not-biology is convinced by other not-biologists that Biology's core theory is wrong.'"[36] Computer scientist and mathematician Jeffrey Shallit wrote: "Gelernter's review was not published in a science journal, but in a politics journal run by a far-right think tank. His review cites no scientific publications at all, and makes claims like 'Many biologists agree' and 'Most biologists think' without giving any supporting citations. So, not surprisingly ... Gelernter makes a fool of himself in his review, which resembles a 'greatest hits' of creationist misconceptions and lies."[37] https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/unabomber-couldnt-kill-gelernter https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/una... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/david-gelernter-donald-trump-why-liberals-hate-trump-op-ed.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/david-gelernter-...
- spencerchubb 3y agoI don't find Ted Kaczynski's manifesto to be insightful. It points out that technology has flaws, which is frankly quite obvious and is a fact that everyone already agrees with. Furthermore, his proposed solution is crap. He proposes that we just go back to wilderness, which is bad for many obvious reasons. Technology and division of labor has allowed us to spend our days improving humanity rather than finding food just to survive. We need to find better coordination mechanisms that allow us to apply technology towards good things.
- lumb63 3y agoI had a different take on his writings than yours. Rather than thinking his solution was bad, he encouraged me to question why we “spend our days improving humanity”. What does “improving humanity” even mean? What’s the metric we are optimizing for? Are we, humanity, any happier than we were when we were hunter-gatherer tribes? I don’t think so - we’ve just found new metrics to focus on and to be disappointed in ourselves in. His writing encouraged me to consider that we are evolutionarily ill-suited for our current situation. We have resources far in excess of our needs, and yet we struggle. We find new issues to focus on, new problems, new fights, new causes. Our desire to “improve humanity” will never end, because it cannot end. When it does, we will find something new to take its place. Maybe our purpose in life is to find food to survive. It is the task our ancestors evolved to do for millions and millions of years. It is our inheritance, in that way.
- bbor 3y ago> Are we, humanity, any happier than we were when we were hunter-gatherer tribes? I don’t think so - we’ve just found new metrics to focus on and to be disappointed in ourselves in. This seems crazy to me, leaning heavily on the proof that you yourself obviously are not choosing that life when you easily could. It’s possible in the same way that anything is possible, but cmon - the world is objectively less violent, sick, and ignorant. Sure we might be sad because the economy sucks, but I’d rather be sad than, ya know, fighting for my life… A basic rundown from GPT expresses why I think this. Curious to hear where you disagree! “Sure, let's consider these factors: 1. *Pleasure (Epicurus)*: Likely harder in a tribal society. Threats of violence and disease may significantly limit opportunities for pleasure and heighten experiences of pain. 2. *Virtuous Life (Aristotle)*: Potentially harder in a tribal society due to the pressures of survival, which might necessitate actions that conflict with virtues like honesty and generosity. 3. *Self-Actualization (Maslow)*: Much harder in a tribal society. The constant threats of violence and disease could make fulfilling basic needs a priority, leaving little room for self-actualization. 4. *Moderation (Confucius)*: Easier in a tribal society, as the threat of violence or disease could necessitate moderation and caution to ensure survival. 5. *Freedom (Sartre)*: Likely easier in modern society. The risks of violence and disease in tribal societies may limit the opportunity for individual freedom and choice. 6. *Inner Peace (Buddha)*: Likely harder in tribal societies, where the constant threat of violence and disease might disrupt efforts towards finding inner peace. 7. *Authenticity (Heidegger)*: Likely harder in a tribal society, where survival concerns might pressure individuals to adopt roles for the group's benefit rather than personal authenticity. 8. *Community (Marx)*: Likely easier in tribal societies, as the constant threats would necessitate cooperation and mutual support, fostering a strong sense of community. 9. *Mindfulness (Thich Nhat Hanh)*: Likely harder in a tribal society, where the constant threats could make it difficult to focus on the present moment and achieve mindfulness. 10. *Acceptance (Stoics)*: Equal in both societies; acceptance is about personal perspective and can be challenging in any circumstance, including violence or disease. 11. *Physical Well-being (Plato)*: Much harder in a tribal society due to a higher risk of injury from violence, more limited medical knowledge and treatment, and potential prevalence of disease. 12. *Purpose (Nietzsche)*: Likely harder in a tribal society, where survival threats might narrow the scope of one's purpose to primarily physical survival. 13. *Knowledge (Socrates)*: Easier in modern society due to broader access to information, whereas tribal societies may lack the resources to gain knowledge beyond immediate survival needs. 14. *Creativity (Fromm)*: Harder in a tribal society where threats of violence and disease might limit the time, resources, and mental energy available for creative pursuits. 15. *Love (Fromm)*: Possibly harder in tribal societies, where the constant threats could overshadow relationships and the expression of love.”
- userbinator 3y ago"There's a fine line between genius and insanity."
- carabiner 3y agoPossible suicide: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/unabomber-ted-kaczynski-found-dead-jail-cell/story?id=99984583 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/unabomber-ted-kaczynski-found-...
- maratbn 3y agoAccording to the US law enforcement system, in the context of TK, a long slow torturous death is more moral and humane than a quick execution. Another aspect to TK's story is that prior to becoming a murderer he was involved as a subject in the "MK Ultra" human experimentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra There is a public perception that the effect of this dirty experimentation (that also involved help from good ol' dirty German Nazis, which BTW could not have been any less evil or murderous than TK, but were spared the kind of prison term that he got) was not sufficiently considered during TK's trial and sentencing.
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- fsckboy 3y agodark humor, my favorite haiku, one last time: open your present! no, you open your present! Kaczynski Christmas.
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- hknmtt 3y agoi have his "industrial society and its feature" saved but haven't got time to read it(200 pages).
- nottorp 3y agoPlease add "unabomber" to the title?
- vonnik 3y agoI grew up in the nearest large town to Ted’s Montana hideout, Helena. A friend’s father was his early defense attorney. We shopped at the same used book store, borrowed from the same town library. I just want to say here that lots of smart people fleeing to Montana fetishize the wilderness and vilify American society, even as they continue to depend on the latter in many ways large and small. Their way has nothing to offer. A primitive existence barely above subsistence, and a closed future in a war they can’t win. What’s more, despite his intellectual capacity, let’s pause for a moment to consider the arrogance, wrongheadedness and unhappiness tipping into insanity of a man who left civilization and assumed for himself the role of passing death sentences on sometimes random strangers. He’s a more literate school shooter whose best offering is a form of nihilism.
- Aerbil313 3y agoSomeone can condemn his actions yet agree with his views on technology, except his opinion we should use violence to bring the technological system down.
- mynonameaccount 3y agoGlad he's dead. Modern technology is evil" I call using a stove modern technology. He wears clothing. He uses a knife, pot. Total psycho and hypocrite.