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It'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 h

by drones 3y ago

It'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 ago
  Not 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 ago
    Are 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 ago
Yeah, he wasn't wrong about some things-the industrial revolution and its consequences have had some pretty big downsides.
fredgrott 3y ago
you 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 ago
    Please don't do this here.
    - inglor_cz 3y ago
      Dang, 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 ago
        On 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.

by drones 3y ago

veave 3y ago

[flagged]

DirectorKrennic 3y ago
Not 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 ago
  Are 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 ago

Yeah, he wasn't wrong about some things-the industrial revolution and its consequences have had some pretty big downsides.

fredgrott 3y ago

you 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 ago
  Please don't do this here.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    Dang, 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 ago
      On 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.