45 ms·

Before he was the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski was a mind-control test subject

420 points by whitepaint 3y ago

j-bos 3y ago
Given how often people online write to praise or condemn him, I'm surpised today is the first time I read about this.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Even if it was very well known, you could be one of the 10,000 - https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- evgen 3y ago
  Given that it is mostly unsubstantiated bullshit it is not surprising that you have not heard of it before. The claims made are tenuous at best. While an undergrad Kaczynski participated in a psych experiment run by someone who worked for the OSS in WWII, that is literally the extent of the known truth here. It seemed to have not impacted his undergrad years, his graduate studies, his postgrad work, or getting one of the youngest professorships at Berkeley. The same people who claim Kaczynski's transition to the Unabomber was caused by the, otherwise hidden, trauma of this participation in an undergrad psych experiment will also gush effusively about Ted's manifesto and how profound it is; you are likely seeing people taking a person and set of events and pouring into it their own hopes/fears/expectations rather than anything of greater significance. Either way, check the evidence before believing the claims remains useful advice.
  - whitepaint 3y ago
    > Given that it is mostly unsubstantiated bullshit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra
    - gilleain 3y ago
      I have no particular bias (I think!) either way, and certainly no background ... However. That wiki page has Kaczynski under 'Alleged subjects' not under 'Documented subjects'.
  - hjrtl 3y ago
    I have not seen the link between talking about the Mk Ultra connection and endorsing the manifesto at all. In this very Washington Post article there is no such connection. If the program at Harvard was innocent, why does Harvard refuse to comment (again, according to the WP)? Why was there such a program in the first place?
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    I think it is possible to say a guy that got jacked up on drugs and experimented on, and was traumatized, would later act out violently, without also treating him as some eco-messiah. The Occom's razer is, the experimenting just pushed someone borderline over the edge. Not that he was a sleeper agent. I guess you are saying that because he seemed to have several 'normal' years, that is proof that the experiments did nothing. But that seems to go against how others with trauma live normally for years before it manifests. It seems to be a common curve through life. Because Ted went so extreme and got famous for it, we forget that it probably wouldn't have taken much to go another direction. Like "hey Ted you seem to be acting out lately, here, have some help", and then he gets help, goes back to a normal but troubled life, he has thoughts of the past trauma, has some violent thoughts, but learns to deal with it.
  - eggy 3y ago
    I wouldn't call it "unsubtantiated bullshit" or "tenuous at best" claims. They put Kaczynski in the ballpark of being a participant of the MK Ultra program. Do you think they have shared and took away all redacted bits of information? "Conspiracy Theory" with Mel Gibson and Julia Robers looks less like a comedy the older I get, and the more I find out. Don't be the government puppet in the techno spy thriller who stares wide-eyed in horror with disbelief while tied to a chair as the CIA goons put the needle in your arm ;)
  - 0x_rs 3y ago
    >it is mostly unsubstantiated bullshit It certainly is convenient most of the documents were destroyed at CIA director's orders and those surviving were due to a categorization error, and all involved had very little to recall about it also. Involvement, whether confirmed or not, should not be a justification—by any means—but the extent of psychological damage caused to the subjects involved I don't think has been properly evaluated over time. To be fair, this wasn't the first nor the last human experimentation project the US committed on their own ground or in other countries, so it might not have been considered as important as other, more "physical" programs. It still remains abhorrent. [Gottlieb, project head] came to me and said that he was retiring and that I was retiring and he thought it would be a good idea if these files were destroyed. And I also believe part of the reason for our thinking this was advisable was there had been relationships with outsiders in government agencies and other organizations and that these would be sensitive in this kind of a thing but that since the program was over and finished and done with, we thought we would just get rid of the files as well, so that anybody who assisted us in the past would not be subject to follow-up or questions, embarrassment, if you will. (former CIA director Richard Helms testimony, 9/11/75)
    - venusenvy47 3y ago
      Kaczynski didn't feel that the sessions were abusive in any way. Whether he is telling the truth can be debated, but he himself doesn't claim he went through anything more than simple written tests. There's a quote on this topic in this article: https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/19050/retired_fbi_agent_the_unabomber_and_i_agree_--_tv_series_is_inaccurate https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/19050/retired_fbi_a...
jbm 3y ago
On a semi-related note, his short story, "Ship of Fools" is still depressingly accurate.
- ElFitz 3y ago
  Didn't know of it. It reminded me of Plato's.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I had to find it online. The point of the story appears to justify murder as a legitimate means to enact change. Hard disagree here. I think a movement that turns to murder as a means of gaining power will continue using murder even should it achieve its goals. Someone in the past pointed out to me that the American Revolution is an exception to that. I don't disagree but so many other examples in history would seem to support my view.
  - throwanem 3y ago
    It is a very interesting reading of American history in which murder as a tool of statecraft ended with the American Revolution, or indeed at all.
    - nemo44x 3y ago
      Yeah it’s sort of the foundation of NRx/Dark Enlightenment in that the Enlightenment and it’s progressivism (the dominant force in Western government the last few hundred years) has resulted in the most violent and destructive governments the world has ever seen. Even when not violent it’s incredibly coercive through its system of creating dependent states and of course justifying it because a democracy happened. Going back to the American revolution it was in essence a battle between the Tories and the Whigs with the rebels and a great deal of the British leadership being Whigs and making “the progress” of Americas founding inevitable.
      - throwanem 3y ago
        Yeah, it's sort of the foundation of NRx/Dark Enlightenment to take historical events broadly agreed in all credible quarters to have taken place, and then spin the goddamnedest nonsense anyone ever heard out of them. Not that you'd know it by Moldbug or his imitators, but is possible to criticize American hegemony without playacting Jane Fonda at the Reichskanzlei.
ninesnines 3y ago
Yikes; I know there have been a couple of high profile psychological experiments that have gone wrong, e.g. Stanford prison experiment etc, but even with that context these CIA based studies on students seem like huge ethical red flags; even from a 1970s perspective. But I would like to point out that the eyeroll vilification of LSD just for fun in this article is not ideal; many drugs can induce an individual to be more suggestible and many drugs can hurt individuals that are already prone to schizophrenia and other psychotic breakdowns
- harshreality 3y ago
  That's the safe view, that the studies caused mental pathologies in some subjects to bubble up to the surface, leading to their commission of notable violent crimes or susceptibility to political causes that turned violent. I personally don't believe, since I haven't seen evidence of it, that the CIA ran those studies to create sleeper agents that they could command to do things for nefarious purposes. However, it's possible that's what it turned into once the principal experimenters realized they had a group of people they'd made highly suggestible. Parts of the CIA, at least up through the Reagan era, were extremely shady.
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    Then what? They grew a conscience when Bush Sr became president? What was their "come to Jesus" moment that led to reform in how they conduct themselves?
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      911 and the patriot act maybe? More (unchecked) power always leads to more idealism /s
    - harshreality 3y ago
      From what I can tell, the reactions to Iran-Contra and the end of the Cold War put an end to some of the more, umm, creative approaches within the CIA.
beardyw 3y ago
https://archive.ph/pIFm7 https://archive.ph/pIFm7
slim 3y ago
I wonder if all those MK-ULTRA experiments failed in finding ways to make human beings violent and politically disruptive
tyingq 3y ago
I was curious how many sessions, and how long the sessions were. A Guardian article[1] suggests the sessions were 2 hours long, once a week, and the typical total time for participants was 200 hours. The overall process sounded a bit like something you see in military basic training, but with the additional wrinkle of the paper they made the Harvard students write beforehand...outlining their core beliefs. Drill instructors in basic training do a sort of less deep version of this. They observe people and try to induce stress with personalized yelling and screaming based on observations and some amount of data on the person (detailed "job" applications, ASVAB tests, etc). [1] https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/jun/22/features11.g2 https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/jun/22/features...
- 23B1 3y ago
  Having been through basic training (OSUT) and done my own cadre time at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Bragg... I have never experienced nor customized training to a student based on their beliefs, or background, etc. The training is to the standard, not to the student – and ain't nobody got time to look at student's records anyway.
  - tyingq 3y ago
    Perhaps you're younger? It was, at one time, pretty common to base the rage abuse on the recruit's religion, place of birth or induction, personal items/photos in the locker/wallet, observations on what made the recruit react, records, tests and so on. It was not hidden or subtle. There was a pretty big swing in the training in the 90's, following the Tailhook and other scandals where the physical stuff, constant swearing and humiliation was phased down. There have been a few rounds of this, over the years, usually following pressure from a scandal. I've also been in basic training, but in the late 1980's. I definitely got the personalized plan. I also got to hear the DI yell about other people's specific details. Who didn't have a father listed, who had a criminal record, who had to fill out details of pre-induction drug use, who almost flunked the ASVAB, who had a GED instead of a high school diploma, what idiot would be a JEE-HOVAS-WITNESS and so on. And worse. Didn't happen in my stay, but "blanket party beatings" and other hazing for some recruits was sometimes encouraged. My DI was more careful with physical stuff, though he did have this thing where he would drive his stiff hat brim into your eyes, lips, ears, etc. And quite a lot of saliva sprayed in my face whilst being yelled at.
tommypalm 3y ago
I really recommend everyone listen to the 4 part series on MK Ultra from Behind The Bastards[1]. Its absolutely insane that the government did this and BTB really delves deep on how it all came about. [1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-mkultra-when-the-cia-tried-to-destroy-free-will/id1373812661?i=1000582269166 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-mkultra-when-...
- krick 3y ago
  I tried to listen BTB a couple of times, and while the topic and overall worldview they try to project is very interesting to me, the hosts of the podcast and the style of it makes it really hard and unpleasant to listen, and when after finishing a 4-hour long series on some person I ask myself: "So, what have I learned?" I often find that I really don't have anything to say in response. Except for 5-minute worth of basic biography facts from wikipedia (which I usually have to check anyways, to get a clearer picture) the rest mostly is hosts exchanging remarks like "geez, man, get a life! haha… what an asshole!" while the hosts being in fact the most disgusting assholes I ever heard, distastefully trying to make fun of most mundane, sensible life facts and decisions. I really wish there was something like BTB, but from… you know, better people.
  - boppo1 3y ago
    Age of Napoleon isn't the same topic at all, but it's exactly the opposite tone. I've been glued to it lately. If you don't already know about Napoleon, this will probably scratch an itch for you.
  - thunfischbrot 3y ago
    You put into words what I could not articulate. Having tried to get into it several times as well, I concluded they were going for a fast-paced conversation well-suited for a bar, not for substance.
  - pitaj 3y ago
    Simply based on the people on Reddit and such that recommend this podcast, I knew that it was not for me.
jwilk 3y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36272409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36272409 ("Ted Kaczynski has died", >600 comments)
inglor_cz 3y ago
One of the thing that bothers me about such explanations is the inherent bias "post hoc, ego propter hoc" (afterwards, therefore caused by). People who like such explanations tend to ignore myriads of counterexamples set by people who survived worse, while not becoming serial murderers. I can't even begin imagining what was it like to be in Nazi concentration camps, almost surely worse than whatever young Ted Kaczynski went through. And yet there wasn't a wave of brutal crime unleashed by the survivors once they got out. Instead, there was a lot of art, literature etc. It is possible that Kaczynski's mind was uniquely predisposed towards terrorism and the experiments he underwent at 17 were the final nudge that slowly pushed him to start distributing bombs 20 years later. Yet he himself maintained that they didn't. AFAIK it was mostly his lawyers who tried to arguing so during his trial - not he himself. Edit: this is obviously a controversial comment, as I saw it falling from +5 to +1 in a matter of minutes. I would recommend reading up some works by Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychologist who survived four concentration camps. He studied the crushing effects of the camps on human minds in detail; after reading his work, I am almost certain that a two-hour-weekly experiment done on a Harvard campus cannot compare.
- hjrtl 3y ago
  I don't see how events like the Holocaust and a mind control experiment are related. The first one is a universally acknowledged shared experience, i.e. no substitution of reality takes place. The latter is literally designed to make the victims doubt their own sanity.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    Being kept as a prisoner in a mass murder factory for years, IMHO, is a much stronger negative influence than undergoing whatever psychological experiment for two hours a week. While I agree that the experiments run by Murray were nasty, the students were volunteers and spent vast majority of their personal time on their own activities, not in any kind of closed brainwashing facility where you just can't escape.
    - 11235813213455 3y ago
blumomo 3y ago
People have been called out and framed „Conspiracy Theorists“ (CT) for saying, years ago, that those government programs are one of the causes of amok runs in the US, repeatedly killing innocent people, i.e. in schools. Is it now allowed to talk openly about MKUltra, CIA involvement and amok runs? Or do CTs still need to hide, even after media outlets like Washing Post write about that, conforming its existence?
- jon-wood 3y ago
  It may have been a factor in a few cases, but I think people are being called out there for blaming a CIA program for school shootings rather than the woeful lack of mental health care and easy access to guns.
  - detrites 3y ago
    > It may have been a factor in a few cases This is not something to casually dismiss.
  - logicchains 3y ago
    >rather than the woeful lack of mental health care and easy access to guns Easy access to guns and lack of mental health care has been a thing in the US for over a century, but curiously mass shootings only started happening a few decades ago, so maybe something else is the cause? Interestingly mass shootings started happening around the time that certain psychiatric medications came into widespread usage, medications for which homicidal ideation is a know but very rare side effect. It makes sense that even if a side effect is super rare, when millions of people start taking the drug you'd expect the rare effect to happen on a regular basis.
    - _kbh_ 3y ago
      > Easy access to guns and lack of mental health care has been a thing in the US for over a century, but curiously mass shootings only started happening a few decades ago, so maybe something else is the cause? Interestingly mass shootings started happening around the time that certain psychiatric medications came into widespread usage, medications for which homicidal ideation is a know but very rare side effect. It makes sense that even if a side effect is super rare, when millions of people start taking the drug you'd expect the rare effect to happen on a regular basis. Except that these drugs are likely used in lots of places in the world, and that large school shootings often is a uniquely American concept.
tupolef 3y ago
I was glad to see a topic in which most HN contributors seem freely critical of US actions, which is not the case with more recent events. Talking of MK programs, I wanted to emphasize how far these agencies could go awry, see the alleged LSD poisoning of an entire French village in 1951 [1]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-10996838 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-10996838
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  Plenty of more recent events which are pretty universally despised, like the invasion of Iraq, and the prison at Guantanamo, for instance.
  - ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
    Although one must be critical of these events, please be aware that soviet undermining is active in pushing these subjects. Just don't give up all hope and throw any babies out with the bathwater i guess.
    - shakow 3y ago
      Soviet undermining for things that happened... after the fall of the USSR? What?
    - black_puppydog 3y ago
      Lol, nice illustration of GP's point, thanks.
    - tehwebguy 3y ago
      “Although you make a good point, a ‘bad person’ made it too” Incredibly embarrassing post
    - nasmorn 3y ago
      I thought the invasion of Iraq and use that f Guantanamo are universally accepted to have been pretty idiotic even by super power standards. The USA gained no security and lost inordinate amounts of money, blood and good will.
WiSaGaN 3y ago
The United States had been interested in unconventional warfare before the CIA was established in 1947. The Japanese Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. While Unit 731 researchers arrested by Soviet forces were tried at the December 1949 Khabarovsk war crime trials, those captured by the United States were secretly given immunity in exchange for the data gathered during their human experiments. The United States covered up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. The Americans co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own biological warfare program, much like what had been done with Nazi German researchers in Operation Paperclip. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
  Whenever this subject comes up, I struggle internally a little. On the one hand, the sacrifice made to obtain this knowledge was already high in terms of human life; not taking that knowledge is saying all that pain was for nothing. On the other, taking and absorbing that knowledge almost invariably means that it is acceptable, which means it will be done again and as humans we have an incentive to make it undesirable.
  - WiSaGaN 3y ago
    This struggle is entirely reasonable. I think it comes down to how we, as world citizens, should regulate this technology, including research, dissemination, and use (if it should be used at all). What I find abhorrent is the immunity given to those Japanese war criminals who conducted those experiments on Chinese civilians (and ultimately killed them) by the United States at the time.
    - saiya-jin 3y ago
      Yeah, if the deal would be along: we dont execute you if you cooperate, but your crimes are too horrible to ignore, so we will give you humane decent prison time for X decades/life while you cooperate. But if they were actually pardoned, then it means human suffering and killings were reduced to just numbers on spreadsheet by somebody very high in decision chain. Which means same people without morals get to decide on hundreds if not thousands other situations, without any morality. Maybe the correct conclusion is that morality is very thin and disposable for those 3 letter agencies, so one should never ever trust just their words, since they mean less than fart in the wind. Also expect bad things happening by default. Nah, I am sure those on HN who posted previously about their 3-letter employer how they pick only very moral, driven and hardworking individuals and how absolutely great it all is were for sure telling truth and onpy truth.
jacquesm 3y ago
I know some other people that have been radicalized and they too actually claim that they were mind control test subjects and that the CIA is conducting such experiments. They also are 911 truthers and see bogeymen behind every bush. There isn't a conspiracy theory that they aren't promoters of and believer in. Before jumping to conclusions here it would be prudent to assume that the link here is tenuous at best given the evidence available. Besides the title the article then goes out of its way to downplay the effect this may have had, noteworthy passages: > questions remain over whether — or to what extent — he was affected by the experiment > There has not been evidence to suggest LSD or similar substances were used at Harvard on Kaczynski. > the “effect of Murray’s dubious, unethical experiment on Kaczynski is unknown.” At best this is informed speculation, at worst the strong suggestion that Kaczynski was 'made by the CIA' has no support. My own reading of this is that there are individuals who are prone to flipping out, even though they may well be very intelligent. In fact, intelligence may well be a net negative: you're going to see a lot of stuff in society that is extremely frustrating and you probably can't do a thing about it. Blessed are those that do not know. Putting a lot of pressure on such an individual is definitely not going to help, but to make a 1:1 isn't helping either: chances are that your average individual exposed to these techniques isn't going to turn into the Unabomber, and that Kaczynski would have gone down that route anyway sooner or later. Just like my friends, who definitely were not part of a CIA mind control program. Fortunately they are not yet radicalized to take action beyond 'prepping' and moving away from society into a little hut in the bush but that may only be a matter of time. As long as the internet is feeding their beliefs I'm not very hopeful they will get better.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > even though they may well be very intelligent. In fact, intelligence may well be a net negative: you're going to see a lot of stuff in society that is extremely frustrating Further than frustration: the rational individual will be overburdened in the attempt of digesting the unbelievable load of "irrational" that this world presents - personalities leaning on rationality will "desperately" try and make the instances of the irrational fit into some organic framework which would make them manageable. The intelligent will be under a staggering amount of internal fatigue, if somehow incapable of "leaving puzzling absurdities aside". (Edited to better explain what is meant with "digestion".)
ivxvm 3y ago
I'll just save some quotes here since I really like them: > Kaczynski likened science to a “surrogate activity” that is “directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward” or some sense of fulfillment. > “Scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself,” he wrote. “… Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research.”
- dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
  Reminds me of people here who will passionately argue which some js framework is next best thing after sliced bread.
- elif 3y ago
  It is kind of true that the neoliberal lense through which science and academics are directed and funded is a form of ideology which is not always parallel with the improvement of the human condition, and I would argue at times it is even contrary to improvement of the human condition.. But there is no replacement ideology which can guide science uniformly toward an objectively better human condition. That is because any such ideology is as beholden to capitalism as neoliberalism. Science cannot escape the overarching power of capital while still depending upon it's forces to propel it. Thus I agree it is an artificial goal, but more than a lie told by controlling beurocrats, it a lie told even to its adherents, as is inherent in ideology. Further, it is an inescapable lie produced by the organization of means. The answer to this ideological trap we find science caught in is succinctly responded to by Star Trek. Post-capitalist post-materialism is what liberates science from these constraints, not some "opening of minds" accomplished through terrorism.
  - ivxvm 3y ago
    I think you get the wrong idea. What he basically says is that scientists mostly do science because they enjoy doing it, and everything else he says is a consequence of that. People in general tend to gravitate to activities which they enjoy in terms of process, and science is no exception. Usefulness of their work would be a nice side effect, but people rarely do things purely for result, especially when it's something that requires a lot of time and efforts. Basically we are inherently hedonistic creatures and there's no way changing that.
hash872 3y ago
So was Whitey Bulger! He went through the actual MK Ultra program when he was in prison, which sounds quite a bit rougher. (Oddly this is no longer in his Wiki page, it used to be) https://apnews.com/article/us-news-ap-top-news-whitey-bulger-crime-weekend-reads-8dff185e1324cb7079b8a86c48c2ec56 https://apnews.com/article/us-news-ap-top-news-whitey-bulger...
- swayvil 3y ago
  It there was a vast and organized attempt to eradicate all public knowledge on this subject, what would it look like? EDIT I really am asking a question here. No premise implied.
  - sbarre 3y ago
    It probably wouldn't look like editing the most popular public wiki in the world that records and reviews historical edits and changes?
    - swayvil 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - sbarre 3y ago
        Geez, calm down with the insults. I have no positive proposal because I think the underlying premise is ridiculous. That is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it. I respect yours even if I don't agree with it, give me the same courtesy?
      - gregjw 3y ago
        Put the tinfoil hat away. They publically display anonymous edits.
      - dang 3y ago
        You can't post like this to HN and we ban accounts that do. No more of this, please. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
some_random 3y ago
I'm honestly not convinced that this was part of MK-ULTRA, there's no hard evidence and what I think people don't really appreciate is that Psychologists (especially around this time) were performing "studies" where they basically just tortured people. For example, the Stanford Prison "Experiment"
- aaomidi 3y ago
  How many more Mk-ultras were there that we just never found out about?
  - vorpalhex 3y ago
    "Anyone who is a conspiracy theorist has clearly never been a project manager. It's impossible to get a dozen people to do the right thing, much less keep it a secret." If the CIAs most secret illicit experiment came to light, what makes you think they are meaningfully hiding more?
    - __ryan__ 3y ago
      If I know that an entity goes to great lengths to conceal secrets, why would I ever believe I know of their most secret secret?
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      I disagree. Let's say I work on a project where we keep Elvis alive in a super secret bunker in antarctica. What can I do? Call the cnn and tell them? Make a post on 4chan? Make such a claim here? Look, I'm leaking top secret info, and nothing will happen. Until CIA officially admits keeping Elvis there, noone will believe me... (except a few conspiracy theorists, branded as nutjobs by the general public).
      - roge7331 3y ago
        Let's just say... You are not that far off. 36 272
    - 3y ago
daedlanth 3y ago
[dead]
dangitnotagain 3y ago
[flagged]
- schnuri 3y ago
  Have you considered consulting a psychiatrist?
  - dangitnotagain 3y ago
    So these can “help? This secret was revealed to me later in life, after living a full life, so my mind was already well developed before this infestation set upon me. Have none of you heard of creeper culture? Where people report being “gang stalked?” Where mysterious mobs of apparently random strangers appear to stalk and harass individuals? These are signs of controls messing with you. of course anything that can be said has a perfectly easy to blow off response, that does not make it untrue.
- danparsonson 3y ago
  What you're describing sounds more like schizophrenia and I would encourage you to speak to a doctor about it.
  - dangitnotagain 3y ago
    Dude, of course it’s explained away. People who have chemical imbalances are more sensitive, and obviously crazy enough to talk about it. We are not alone in our own minds.
    - danparsonson 3y ago
      Diagnosis of a mental illness would be an explanation, not explaining it away. You have used your brain to form the hypothesis that you are experiencing mind control by the government; but if that brain has a chemical imbalance (or some other difficulty), then all your thoughts are affected by it, including your self assessment. It's a bit like using a broken computer to diagnose itself - if the computer has a problem then you can't be sure that it's diagnosis is correct because the problem might prevent an accurate diagnosis. How about this - you could have a chat with a doctor anyway, and maybe they can help you. If they can't, well, then you're no worse off than you were before.
layer8 3y ago
https://archive.ph/ksVuF/ https://archive.ph/ksVuF/
ErikAugust 3y ago
No ads: https://trimread.org/articles/38917 https://trimread.org/articles/38917
User23 3y ago
He was also an autogynephile[1], something today’s prestige media won’t touch with a ten foot pole, but that was well documented at the time. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/09/12/gender-confusion-sex-change-idea-fueled-kaczynskis-rage-report-says/eb33b946-8595-427d-af4c-9ccaada45935/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/09/12/g...
- jrflowers 3y ago
  I haven’t heard that term in a long time! It’s a shame that prestige media no longer discusses his unbalanced humors or shallow brainpan. Perhaps his vapors brought about by poor constitution could have been alleviated with some trepanning.
wslh 3y ago
Isn'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 puzzle.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  He did. I read his works/letters extensively in the past, IIRC he said he wasn’t affected/traumatized by the experiment. Yet my memory is foggy on that, I give it %85 chance that I remember correctly.
  - wslh 3y ago
    Could you please locate that and give here the URL? It would be insightful for this thread.
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      I tried but couldn’t.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kahirsch 3y ago
Here's what Ted Kaczynski wrote in February 2018 about the experiments in a letter[1] to journalist Andrew Kaczynski (no relation): > ... media reports about me have generally been loaded with bull manure. In particular, reports about the Murray study have been wildly, wildly exaggerated. People write to tell me how sorry for me they feel because I was "tortured" again and again by the Murray group as part of an "MK Ultra experiment allegedly carried out by the CIA. Actually, there was only one unpleasant experience in the Murray study; it lasted about half an hour and could not reasonably have been described as "traumatic." Mostly the study consisted of interviews and filling out pencil-and-paper personality tests. The CIA was not involved. > About 15 or 20 years ago a TV journalist named Chris Vlasto (if I remember the name correctly) looked up some of the other participants in the study and found that nothing had happened that was worth reporting in the media. My brief correspondence with Vlasto should be available in the University of Michigan's Special Collections library at Ann Arbor. You can actually hear one minute of the recording of that half hour session with Ted Kaczynski on a series "A History of Persuasion" produced by WNYC, that was on their podcasts On the Media and The Stakes. It starts about 9:50 into the episode 2[2]. > AMANDA: But I wanted to find out what actually happened that day in that room. And I managed to track down a recording of this actual interview with Kaczysnki. > MALE VOICE: This is Monday evening, March 14th, 1960. Dyad #12 is about to begin between Mr Sh- and Mr Kaczynski. K-A-C…. > AMANDA: ... Only a handful of people have ever heard this before. This is the law student: > INTERROGATOR: I ought to warn you before I start this, I do not have a very favorable impression of you as a result of reading your philosophy but let me just tick off a few preliminaries and then we will get to what I really didn’t like. First... > AMANDA: And this... is Kaczynski > TED KACZYNSKI: Yeah well all through this thing, uh, you’ve been saying well this and that, but you haven’t given me any arguments or reasons, you say that… > INTERROGATOR: Well, Mr Kaczynski I have just formed an opinion of you and it’s not particularly favorable... > AMANDA: You can hear, Kaczynski sounds annoyed. > KACZYNSKI: I think the reason, one of the reasons you attack my philosophy so vigorously is because you don’t want to believe it. > INTERROGATOR: (laughs) > KACZYNSKI: And, in your, you uh… I think the way you laugh is an indication of that too. > INTERROGATOR: Do you really? > KACZYNSKI 1960: Yeah I do. But of course I’m no psychologist. > INTERROGATOR: I’m trying to keep this -- hold on, I’m no psychologist Mr Kaczynski … > AMANDA: To me, it sounds like a very uncomfortable college debate class. > KAI: Right, I mean it’s hard to imagine that would break somebody. > AMANDA: Right. I also managed to find someone who was there. Another undergrad who took part in the experiment at Harvard. Philip Bradley says yes, this was a pretty uncomfortable. But the idea it was damaging...? > PHILIP BRADLEY: Bullshit. Or I should say, that's ridiculous. > AMANDA: And you're sure because... you were, you were there, it sounds like.... > BRADLEY: Yeah. I mean how, how could you think that something like that would be permanently psychologically damaging to someone that would push somebody into becoming a psychopath. I mean I just... that idea is just to me so far fetched and I don't know how it's become part of popular lore. > AMANDA: It’s clear that this theory just isn’t true. This is not what broke Ted Kaczysnki. It’s not the reason he tried to kill James McConnell. And yet it’s totally taken off. It’s been in all of these books, there’s these articles, it was in the TV show “Manhunt,” about the Unabomber. [1] https://i.imgur.com/VP4Qpag.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VP4Qpag.jpg [2] https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/on-the-media-history-persuasion-part-2 https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/on-the-media-history-persu...
dukeofdoom 3y ago
One criticism I read of meditation, and mindfulness is that it can make you more passive and accepting of your circumstances. Kind of like people taming with age. Which is not always desirable.
kornhole 3y ago
I have heard that the LSD experiments were stopped when they realized that it did not work well for mind control. Contrary to the propaganda that LSD makes you hallucinate, it actually breaks down the hallucinations and see some things clearly. I suspect Ted saw the reality before he then opened page 20 of this magazine and knew what he needed to do. https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/rcc_00098010-5_redacted_0.pdf https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/ke...
Blackstrat 3y ago
We're living in the midst of one of the greatest mind control experiments in history. Why would we think these agencies have cleaned up their act? What do you think all the BS of the last several years have been about? The corruption of the FBI, CIA, and DOJ are visible daily. The sad thing is how well it's working.

420 points by whitepaint 3y ago

j-bos 3y ago

Given how often people online write to praise or condemn him, I'm surpised today is the first time I read about this.

bombcar 3y ago
Even if it was very well known, you could be one of the 10,000 - https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
evgen 3y ago
Given that it is mostly unsubstantiated bullshit it is not surprising that you have not heard of it before. The claims made are tenuous at best. While an undergrad Kaczynski participated in a psych experiment run by someone who worked for the OSS in WWII, that is literally the extent of the known truth here. It seemed to have not impacted his undergrad years, his graduate studies, his postgrad work, or getting one of the youngest professorships at Berkeley. The same people who claim Kaczynski's transition to the Unabomber was caused by the, otherwise hidden, trauma of this participation in an undergrad psych experiment will also gush effusively about Ted's manifesto and how profound it is; you are likely seeing people taking a person and set of events and pouring into it their own hopes/fears/expectations rather than anything of greater significance. Either way, check the evidence before believing the claims remains useful advice.
- whitepaint 3y ago
  > Given that it is mostly unsubstantiated bullshit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra
  - gilleain 3y ago
    I have no particular bias (I think!) either way, and certainly no background ... However. That wiki page has Kaczynski under 'Alleged subjects' not under 'Documented subjects'.
- hjrtl 3y ago
  I have not seen the link between talking about the Mk Ultra connection and endorsing the manifesto at all. In this very Washington Post article there is no such connection. If the program at Harvard was innocent, why does Harvard refuse to comment (again, according to the WP)? Why was there such a program in the first place?
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  I think it is possible to say a guy that got jacked up on drugs and experimented on, and was traumatized, would later act out violently, without also treating him as some eco-messiah. The Occom's razer is, the experimenting just pushed someone borderline over the edge. Not that he was a sleeper agent. I guess you are saying that because he seemed to have several 'normal' years, that is proof that the experiments did nothing. But that seems to go against how others with trauma live normally for years before it manifests. It seems to be a common curve through life. Because Ted went so extreme and got famous for it, we forget that it probably wouldn't have taken much to go another direction. Like "hey Ted you seem to be acting out lately, here, have some help", and then he gets help, goes back to a normal but troubled life, he has thoughts of the past trauma, has some violent thoughts, but learns to deal with it.
- eggy 3y ago
  I wouldn't call it "unsubtantiated bullshit" or "tenuous at best" claims. They put Kaczynski in the ballpark of being a participant of the MK Ultra program. Do you think they have shared and took away all redacted bits of information? "Conspiracy Theory" with Mel Gibson and Julia Robers looks less like a comedy the older I get, and the more I find out. Don't be the government puppet in the techno spy thriller who stares wide-eyed in horror with disbelief while tied to a chair as the CIA goons put the needle in your arm ;)
- 0x_rs 3y ago
  >it is mostly unsubstantiated bullshit It certainly is convenient most of the documents were destroyed at CIA director's orders and those surviving were due to a categorization error, and all involved had very little to recall about it also. Involvement, whether confirmed or not, should not be a justification—by any means—but the extent of psychological damage caused to the subjects involved I don't think has been properly evaluated over time. To be fair, this wasn't the first nor the last human experimentation project the US committed on their own ground or in other countries, so it might not have been considered as important as other, more "physical" programs. It still remains abhorrent. [Gottlieb, project head] came to me and said that he was retiring and that I was retiring and he thought it would be a good idea if these files were destroyed. And I also believe part of the reason for our thinking this was advisable was there had been relationships with outsiders in government agencies and other organizations and that these would be sensitive in this kind of a thing but that since the program was over and finished and done with, we thought we would just get rid of the files as well, so that anybody who assisted us in the past would not be subject to follow-up or questions, embarrassment, if you will. (former CIA director Richard Helms testimony, 9/11/75)
  - venusenvy47 3y ago
    Kaczynski didn't feel that the sessions were abusive in any way. Whether he is telling the truth can be debated, but he himself doesn't claim he went through anything more than simple written tests. There's a quote on this topic in this article: https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/19050/retired_fbi_agent_the_unabomber_and_i_agree_--_tv_series_is_inaccurate https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/19050/retired_fbi_a...

jbm 3y ago

On a semi-related note, his short story, "Ship of Fools" is still depressingly accurate.

ElFitz 3y ago
Didn't know of it. It reminded me of Plato's.
JKCalhoun 3y ago
I had to find it online. The point of the story appears to justify murder as a legitimate means to enact change. Hard disagree here. I think a movement that turns to murder as a means of gaining power will continue using murder even should it achieve its goals. Someone in the past pointed out to me that the American Revolution is an exception to that. I don't disagree but so many other examples in history would seem to support my view.
- throwanem 3y ago
  It is a very interesting reading of American history in which murder as a tool of statecraft ended with the American Revolution, or indeed at all.
  - nemo44x 3y ago
    Yeah it’s sort of the foundation of NRx/Dark Enlightenment in that the Enlightenment and it’s progressivism (the dominant force in Western government the last few hundred years) has resulted in the most violent and destructive governments the world has ever seen. Even when not violent it’s incredibly coercive through its system of creating dependent states and of course justifying it because a democracy happened. Going back to the American revolution it was in essence a battle between the Tories and the Whigs with the rebels and a great deal of the British leadership being Whigs and making “the progress” of Americas founding inevitable.
    - throwanem 3y ago
      Yeah, it's sort of the foundation of NRx/Dark Enlightenment to take historical events broadly agreed in all credible quarters to have taken place, and then spin the goddamnedest nonsense anyone ever heard out of them. Not that you'd know it by Moldbug or his imitators, but is possible to criticize American hegemony without playacting Jane Fonda at the Reichskanzlei.

ninesnines 3y ago

Yikes; I know there have been a couple of high profile psychological experiments that have gone wrong, e.g. Stanford prison experiment etc, but even with that context these CIA based studies on students seem like huge ethical red flags; even from a 1970s perspective. But I would like to point out that the eyeroll vilification of LSD just for fun in this article is not ideal; many drugs can induce an individual to be more suggestible and many drugs can hurt individuals that are already prone to schizophrenia and other psychotic breakdowns

harshreality 3y ago
That's the safe view, that the studies caused mental pathologies in some subjects to bubble up to the surface, leading to their commission of notable violent crimes or susceptibility to political causes that turned violent. I personally don't believe, since I haven't seen evidence of it, that the CIA ran those studies to create sleeper agents that they could command to do things for nefarious purposes. However, it's possible that's what it turned into once the principal experimenters realized they had a group of people they'd made highly suggestible. Parts of the CIA, at least up through the Reagan era, were extremely shady.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  Then what? They grew a conscience when Bush Sr became president? What was their "come to Jesus" moment that led to reform in how they conduct themselves?
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    911 and the patriot act maybe? More (unchecked) power always leads to more idealism /s
  - harshreality 3y ago
    From what I can tell, the reactions to Iran-Contra and the end of the Cold War put an end to some of the more, umm, creative approaches within the CIA.

beardyw 3y ago

https://archive.ph/pIFm7 https://archive.ph/pIFm7

slim 3y ago

I wonder if all those MK-ULTRA experiments failed in finding ways to make human beings violent and politically disruptive

tyingq 3y ago

I was curious how many sessions, and how long the sessions were. A Guardian article[1] suggests the sessions were 2 hours long, once a week, and the typical total time for participants was 200 hours. The overall process sounded a bit like something you see in military basic training, but with the additional wrinkle of the paper they made the Harvard students write beforehand...outlining their core beliefs. Drill instructors in basic training do a sort of less deep version of this. They observe people and try to induce stress with personalized yelling and screaming based on observations and some amount of data on the person (detailed "job" applications, ASVAB tests, etc). [1] https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/jun/22/features11.g2 https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/jun/22/features...

23B1 3y ago
Having been through basic training (OSUT) and done my own cadre time at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Bragg... I have never experienced nor customized training to a student based on their beliefs, or background, etc. The training is to the standard, not to the student – and ain't nobody got time to look at student's records anyway.
- tyingq 3y ago
  Perhaps you're younger? It was, at one time, pretty common to base the rage abuse on the recruit's religion, place of birth or induction, personal items/photos in the locker/wallet, observations on what made the recruit react, records, tests and so on. It was not hidden or subtle. There was a pretty big swing in the training in the 90's, following the Tailhook and other scandals where the physical stuff, constant swearing and humiliation was phased down. There have been a few rounds of this, over the years, usually following pressure from a scandal. I've also been in basic training, but in the late 1980's. I definitely got the personalized plan. I also got to hear the DI yell about other people's specific details. Who didn't have a father listed, who had a criminal record, who had to fill out details of pre-induction drug use, who almost flunked the ASVAB, who had a GED instead of a high school diploma, what idiot would be a JEE-HOVAS-WITNESS and so on. And worse. Didn't happen in my stay, but "blanket party beatings" and other hazing for some recruits was sometimes encouraged. My DI was more careful with physical stuff, though he did have this thing where he would drive his stiff hat brim into your eyes, lips, ears, etc. And quite a lot of saliva sprayed in my face whilst being yelled at.

tommypalm 3y ago

I really recommend everyone listen to the 4 part series on MK Ultra from Behind The Bastards[1]. Its absolutely insane that the government did this and BTB really delves deep on how it all came about. [1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-mkultra-when-the-cia-tried-to-destroy-free-will/id1373812661?i=1000582269166 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-mkultra-when-...

krick 3y ago
I tried to listen BTB a couple of times, and while the topic and overall worldview they try to project is very interesting to me, the hosts of the podcast and the style of it makes it really hard and unpleasant to listen, and when after finishing a 4-hour long series on some person I ask myself: "So, what have I learned?" I often find that I really don't have anything to say in response. Except for 5-minute worth of basic biography facts from wikipedia (which I usually have to check anyways, to get a clearer picture) the rest mostly is hosts exchanging remarks like "geez, man, get a life! haha… what an asshole!" while the hosts being in fact the most disgusting assholes I ever heard, distastefully trying to make fun of most mundane, sensible life facts and decisions. I really wish there was something like BTB, but from… you know, better people.
- boppo1 3y ago
  Age of Napoleon isn't the same topic at all, but it's exactly the opposite tone. I've been glued to it lately. If you don't already know about Napoleon, this will probably scratch an itch for you.
- thunfischbrot 3y ago
  You put into words what I could not articulate. Having tried to get into it several times as well, I concluded they were going for a fast-paced conversation well-suited for a bar, not for substance.
- pitaj 3y ago
  Simply based on the people on Reddit and such that recommend this podcast, I knew that it was not for me.

jwilk 3y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36272409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36272409 ("Ted Kaczynski has died", >600 comments)

inglor_cz 3y ago

One of the thing that bothers me about such explanations is the inherent bias "post hoc, ego propter hoc" (afterwards, therefore caused by). People who like such explanations tend to ignore myriads of counterexamples set by people who survived worse, while not becoming serial murderers. I can't even begin imagining what was it like to be in Nazi concentration camps, almost surely worse than whatever young Ted Kaczynski went through. And yet there wasn't a wave of brutal crime unleashed by the survivors once they got out. Instead, there was a lot of art, literature etc. It is possible that Kaczynski's mind was uniquely predisposed towards terrorism and the experiments he underwent at 17 were the final nudge that slowly pushed him to start distributing bombs 20 years later. Yet he himself maintained that they didn't. AFAIK it was mostly his lawyers who tried to arguing so during his trial - not he himself. Edit: this is obviously a controversial comment, as I saw it falling from +5 to +1 in a matter of minutes. I would recommend reading up some works by Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychologist who survived four concentration camps. He studied the crushing effects of the camps on human minds in detail; after reading his work, I am almost certain that a two-hour-weekly experiment done on a Harvard campus cannot compare.

hjrtl 3y ago
I don't see how events like the Holocaust and a mind control experiment are related. The first one is a universally acknowledged shared experience, i.e. no substitution of reality takes place. The latter is literally designed to make the victims doubt their own sanity.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Being kept as a prisoner in a mass murder factory for years, IMHO, is a much stronger negative influence than undergoing whatever psychological experiment for two hours a week. While I agree that the experiments run by Murray were nasty, the students were volunteers and spent vast majority of their personal time on their own activities, not in any kind of closed brainwashing facility where you just can't escape.
  - 11235813213455 3y ago

blumomo 3y ago

People have been called out and framed „Conspiracy Theorists“ (CT) for saying, years ago, that those government programs are one of the causes of amok runs in the US, repeatedly killing innocent people, i.e. in schools. Is it now allowed to talk openly about MKUltra, CIA involvement and amok runs? Or do CTs still need to hide, even after media outlets like Washing Post write about that, conforming its existence?

jon-wood 3y ago
It may have been a factor in a few cases, but I think people are being called out there for blaming a CIA program for school shootings rather than the woeful lack of mental health care and easy access to guns.
- detrites 3y ago
  > It may have been a factor in a few cases This is not something to casually dismiss.
- logicchains 3y ago
  >rather than the woeful lack of mental health care and easy access to guns Easy access to guns and lack of mental health care has been a thing in the US for over a century, but curiously mass shootings only started happening a few decades ago, so maybe something else is the cause? Interestingly mass shootings started happening around the time that certain psychiatric medications came into widespread usage, medications for which homicidal ideation is a know but very rare side effect. It makes sense that even if a side effect is super rare, when millions of people start taking the drug you'd expect the rare effect to happen on a regular basis.
  - _kbh_ 3y ago
    > Easy access to guns and lack of mental health care has been a thing in the US for over a century, but curiously mass shootings only started happening a few decades ago, so maybe something else is the cause? Interestingly mass shootings started happening around the time that certain psychiatric medications came into widespread usage, medications for which homicidal ideation is a know but very rare side effect. It makes sense that even if a side effect is super rare, when millions of people start taking the drug you'd expect the rare effect to happen on a regular basis. Except that these drugs are likely used in lots of places in the world, and that large school shootings often is a uniquely American concept.

tupolef 3y ago

I was glad to see a topic in which most HN contributors seem freely critical of US actions, which is not the case with more recent events. Talking of MK programs, I wanted to emphasize how far these agencies could go awry, see the alleged LSD poisoning of an entire French village in 1951 [1]. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-10996838 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-10996838

amanaplanacanal 3y ago
Plenty of more recent events which are pretty universally despised, like the invasion of Iraq, and the prison at Guantanamo, for instance.
- ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
  Although one must be critical of these events, please be aware that soviet undermining is active in pushing these subjects. Just don't give up all hope and throw any babies out with the bathwater i guess.
  - shakow 3y ago
    Soviet undermining for things that happened... after the fall of the USSR? What?
  - black_puppydog 3y ago
    Lol, nice illustration of GP's point, thanks.
  - tehwebguy 3y ago
    “Although you make a good point, a ‘bad person’ made it too” Incredibly embarrassing post
  - nasmorn 3y ago
    I thought the invasion of Iraq and use that f Guantanamo are universally accepted to have been pretty idiotic even by super power standards. The USA gained no security and lost inordinate amounts of money, blood and good will.

WiSaGaN 3y ago

The United States had been interested in unconventional warfare before the CIA was established in 1947. The Japanese Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. While Unit 731 researchers arrested by Soviet forces were tried at the December 1949 Khabarovsk war crime trials, those captured by the United States were secretly given immunity in exchange for the data gathered during their human experiments. The United States covered up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. The Americans co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own biological warfare program, much like what had been done with Nazi German researchers in Operation Paperclip. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
Whenever this subject comes up, I struggle internally a little. On the one hand, the sacrifice made to obtain this knowledge was already high in terms of human life; not taking that knowledge is saying all that pain was for nothing. On the other, taking and absorbing that knowledge almost invariably means that it is acceptable, which means it will be done again and as humans we have an incentive to make it undesirable.
- WiSaGaN 3y ago
  This struggle is entirely reasonable. I think it comes down to how we, as world citizens, should regulate this technology, including research, dissemination, and use (if it should be used at all). What I find abhorrent is the immunity given to those Japanese war criminals who conducted those experiments on Chinese civilians (and ultimately killed them) by the United States at the time.
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    Yeah, if the deal would be along: we dont execute you if you cooperate, but your crimes are too horrible to ignore, so we will give you humane decent prison time for X decades/life while you cooperate. But if they were actually pardoned, then it means human suffering and killings were reduced to just numbers on spreadsheet by somebody very high in decision chain. Which means same people without morals get to decide on hundreds if not thousands other situations, without any morality. Maybe the correct conclusion is that morality is very thin and disposable for those 3 letter agencies, so one should never ever trust just their words, since they mean less than fart in the wind. Also expect bad things happening by default. Nah, I am sure those on HN who posted previously about their 3-letter employer how they pick only very moral, driven and hardworking individuals and how absolutely great it all is were for sure telling truth and onpy truth.

jacquesm 3y ago

I know some other people that have been radicalized and they too actually claim that they were mind control test subjects and that the CIA is conducting such experiments. They also are 911 truthers and see bogeymen behind every bush. There isn't a conspiracy theory that they aren't promoters of and believer in. Before jumping to conclusions here it would be prudent to assume that the link here is tenuous at best given the evidence available. Besides the title the article then goes out of its way to downplay the effect this may have had, noteworthy passages: > questions remain over whether — or to what extent — he was affected by the experiment > There has not been evidence to suggest LSD or similar substances were used at Harvard on Kaczynski. > the “effect of Murray’s dubious, unethical experiment on Kaczynski is unknown.” At best this is informed speculation, at worst the strong suggestion that Kaczynski was 'made by the CIA' has no support. My own reading of this is that there are individuals who are prone to flipping out, even though they may well be very intelligent. In fact, intelligence may well be a net negative: you're going to see a lot of stuff in society that is extremely frustrating and you probably can't do a thing about it. Blessed are those that do not know. Putting a lot of pressure on such an individual is definitely not going to help, but to make a 1:1 isn't helping either: chances are that your average individual exposed to these techniques isn't going to turn into the Unabomber, and that Kaczynski would have gone down that route anyway sooner or later. Just like my friends, who definitely were not part of a CIA mind control program. Fortunately they are not yet radicalized to take action beyond 'prepping' and moving away from society into a little hut in the bush but that may only be a matter of time. As long as the internet is feeding their beliefs I'm not very hopeful they will get better.

mdp2021 3y ago
> even though they may well be very intelligent. In fact, intelligence may well be a net negative: you're going to see a lot of stuff in society that is extremely frustrating Further than frustration: the rational individual will be overburdened in the attempt of digesting the unbelievable load of "irrational" that this world presents - personalities leaning on rationality will "desperately" try and make the instances of the irrational fit into some organic framework which would make them manageable. The intelligent will be under a staggering amount of internal fatigue, if somehow incapable of "leaving puzzling absurdities aside". (Edited to better explain what is meant with "digestion".)

ivxvm 3y ago

I'll just save some quotes here since I really like them: > Kaczynski likened science to a “surrogate activity” that is “directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward” or some sense of fulfillment. > “Scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself,” he wrote. “… Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research.”

dennis_jeeves1 3y ago
Reminds me of people here who will passionately argue which some js framework is next best thing after sliced bread.
elif 3y ago
It is kind of true that the neoliberal lense through which science and academics are directed and funded is a form of ideology which is not always parallel with the improvement of the human condition, and I would argue at times it is even contrary to improvement of the human condition.. But there is no replacement ideology which can guide science uniformly toward an objectively better human condition. That is because any such ideology is as beholden to capitalism as neoliberalism. Science cannot escape the overarching power of capital while still depending upon it's forces to propel it. Thus I agree it is an artificial goal, but more than a lie told by controlling beurocrats, it a lie told even to its adherents, as is inherent in ideology. Further, it is an inescapable lie produced by the organization of means. The answer to this ideological trap we find science caught in is succinctly responded to by Star Trek. Post-capitalist post-materialism is what liberates science from these constraints, not some "opening of minds" accomplished through terrorism.
- ivxvm 3y ago
  I think you get the wrong idea. What he basically says is that scientists mostly do science because they enjoy doing it, and everything else he says is a consequence of that. People in general tend to gravitate to activities which they enjoy in terms of process, and science is no exception. Usefulness of their work would be a nice side effect, but people rarely do things purely for result, especially when it's something that requires a lot of time and efforts. Basically we are inherently hedonistic creatures and there's no way changing that.

hash872 3y ago

So was Whitey Bulger! He went through the actual MK Ultra program when he was in prison, which sounds quite a bit rougher. (Oddly this is no longer in his Wiki page, it used to be) https://apnews.com/article/us-news-ap-top-news-whitey-bulger-crime-weekend-reads-8dff185e1324cb7079b8a86c48c2ec56 https://apnews.com/article/us-news-ap-top-news-whitey-bulger...

swayvil 3y ago
It there was a vast and organized attempt to eradicate all public knowledge on this subject, what would it look like? EDIT I really am asking a question here. No premise implied.
- sbarre 3y ago
  It probably wouldn't look like editing the most popular public wiki in the world that records and reviews historical edits and changes?
  - swayvil 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - sbarre 3y ago
      Geez, calm down with the insults. I have no positive proposal because I think the underlying premise is ridiculous. That is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it. I respect yours even if I don't agree with it, give me the same courtesy?
    - gregjw 3y ago
      Put the tinfoil hat away. They publically display anonymous edits.
    - dang 3y ago
      You can't post like this to HN and we ban accounts that do. No more of this, please. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

some_random 3y ago

I'm honestly not convinced that this was part of MK-ULTRA, there's no hard evidence and what I think people don't really appreciate is that Psychologists (especially around this time) were performing "studies" where they basically just tortured people. For example, the Stanford Prison "Experiment"

aaomidi 3y ago
How many more Mk-ultras were there that we just never found out about?
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  "Anyone who is a conspiracy theorist has clearly never been a project manager. It's impossible to get a dozen people to do the right thing, much less keep it a secret." If the CIAs most secret illicit experiment came to light, what makes you think they are meaningfully hiding more?
  - __ryan__ 3y ago
    If I know that an entity goes to great lengths to conceal secrets, why would I ever believe I know of their most secret secret?
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    I disagree. Let's say I work on a project where we keep Elvis alive in a super secret bunker in antarctica. What can I do? Call the cnn and tell them? Make a post on 4chan? Make such a claim here? Look, I'm leaking top secret info, and nothing will happen. Until CIA officially admits keeping Elvis there, noone will believe me... (except a few conspiracy theorists, branded as nutjobs by the general public).
    - roge7331 3y ago
      Let's just say... You are not that far off. 36 272
  - 3y ago

daedlanth 3y ago

[dead]

dangitnotagain 3y ago

[flagged]

schnuri 3y ago
Have you considered consulting a psychiatrist?
- dangitnotagain 3y ago
  So these can “help? This secret was revealed to me later in life, after living a full life, so my mind was already well developed before this infestation set upon me. Have none of you heard of creeper culture? Where people report being “gang stalked?” Where mysterious mobs of apparently random strangers appear to stalk and harass individuals? These are signs of controls messing with you. of course anything that can be said has a perfectly easy to blow off response, that does not make it untrue.
danparsonson 3y ago
What you're describing sounds more like schizophrenia and I would encourage you to speak to a doctor about it.
- dangitnotagain 3y ago
  Dude, of course it’s explained away. People who have chemical imbalances are more sensitive, and obviously crazy enough to talk about it. We are not alone in our own minds.
  - danparsonson 3y ago
    Diagnosis of a mental illness would be an explanation, not explaining it away. You have used your brain to form the hypothesis that you are experiencing mind control by the government; but if that brain has a chemical imbalance (or some other difficulty), then all your thoughts are affected by it, including your self assessment. It's a bit like using a broken computer to diagnose itself - if the computer has a problem then you can't be sure that it's diagnosis is correct because the problem might prevent an accurate diagnosis. How about this - you could have a chat with a doctor anyway, and maybe they can help you. If they can't, well, then you're no worse off than you were before.

layer8 3y ago

https://archive.ph/ksVuF/ https://archive.ph/ksVuF/

ErikAugust 3y ago

No ads: https://trimread.org/articles/38917 https://trimread.org/articles/38917

User23 3y ago

He was also an autogynephile[1], something today’s prestige media won’t touch with a ten foot pole, but that was well documented at the time. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/09/12/gender-confusion-sex-change-idea-fueled-kaczynskis-rage-report-says/eb33b946-8595-427d-af4c-9ccaada45935/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/09/12/g...

jrflowers 3y ago
I haven’t heard that term in a long time! It’s a shame that prestige media no longer discusses his unbalanced humors or shallow brainpan. Perhaps his vapors brought about by poor constitution could have been alleviated with some trepanning.

wslh 3y ago

Isn'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 puzzle.

Aerbil313 3y ago
He did. I read his works/letters extensively in the past, IIRC he said he wasn’t affected/traumatized by the experiment. Yet my memory is foggy on that, I give it %85 chance that I remember correctly.
- wslh 3y ago
  Could you please locate that and give here the URL? It would be insightful for this thread.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    I tried but couldn’t.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kahirsch 3y ago

Here's what Ted Kaczynski wrote in February 2018 about the experiments in a letter[1] to journalist Andrew Kaczynski (no relation): > ... media reports about me have generally been loaded with bull manure. In particular, reports about the Murray study have been wildly, wildly exaggerated. People write to tell me how sorry for me they feel because I was "tortured" again and again by the Murray group as part of an "MK Ultra experiment allegedly carried out by the CIA. Actually, there was only one unpleasant experience in the Murray study; it lasted about half an hour and could not reasonably have been described as "traumatic." Mostly the study consisted of interviews and filling out pencil-and-paper personality tests. The CIA was not involved. > About 15 or 20 years ago a TV journalist named Chris Vlasto (if I remember the name correctly) looked up some of the other participants in the study and found that nothing had happened that was worth reporting in the media. My brief correspondence with Vlasto should be available in the University of Michigan's Special Collections library at Ann Arbor. You can actually hear one minute of the recording of that half hour session with Ted Kaczynski on a series "A History of Persuasion" produced by WNYC, that was on their podcasts On the Media and The Stakes. It starts about 9:50 into the episode 2[2]. > AMANDA: But I wanted to find out what actually happened that day in that room. And I managed to track down a recording of this actual interview with Kaczysnki. > MALE VOICE: This is Monday evening, March 14th, 1960. Dyad #12 is about to begin between Mr Sh- and Mr Kaczynski. K-A-C…. > AMANDA: ... Only a handful of people have ever heard this before. This is the law student: > INTERROGATOR: I ought to warn you before I start this, I do not have a very favorable impression of you as a result of reading your philosophy but let me just tick off a few preliminaries and then we will get to what I really didn’t like. First... > AMANDA: And this... is Kaczynski > TED KACZYNSKI: Yeah well all through this thing, uh, you’ve been saying well this and that, but you haven’t given me any arguments or reasons, you say that… > INTERROGATOR: Well, Mr Kaczynski I have just formed an opinion of you and it’s not particularly favorable... > AMANDA: You can hear, Kaczynski sounds annoyed. > KACZYNSKI: I think the reason, one of the reasons you attack my philosophy so vigorously is because you don’t want to believe it. > INTERROGATOR: (laughs) > KACZYNSKI: And, in your, you uh… I think the way you laugh is an indication of that too. > INTERROGATOR: Do you really? > KACZYNSKI 1960: Yeah I do. But of course I’m no psychologist. > INTERROGATOR: I’m trying to keep this -- hold on, I’m no psychologist Mr Kaczynski … > AMANDA: To me, it sounds like a very uncomfortable college debate class. > KAI: Right, I mean it’s hard to imagine that would break somebody. > AMANDA: Right. I also managed to find someone who was there. Another undergrad who took part in the experiment at Harvard. Philip Bradley says yes, this was a pretty uncomfortable. But the idea it was damaging...? > PHILIP BRADLEY: Bullshit. Or I should say, that's ridiculous. > AMANDA: And you're sure because... you were, you were there, it sounds like.... > BRADLEY: Yeah. I mean how, how could you think that something like that would be permanently psychologically damaging to someone that would push somebody into becoming a psychopath. I mean I just... that idea is just to me so far fetched and I don't know how it's become part of popular lore. > AMANDA: It’s clear that this theory just isn’t true. This is not what broke Ted Kaczysnki. It’s not the reason he tried to kill James McConnell. And yet it’s totally taken off. It’s been in all of these books, there’s these articles, it was in the TV show “Manhunt,” about the Unabomber. [1] https://i.imgur.com/VP4Qpag.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VP4Qpag.jpg [2] https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/on-the-media-history-persuasion-part-2 https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/on-the-media-history-persu...

dukeofdoom 3y ago

One criticism I read of meditation, and mindfulness is that it can make you more passive and accepting of your circumstances. Kind of like people taming with age. Which is not always desirable.

kornhole 3y ago

I have heard that the LSD experiments were stopped when they realized that it did not work well for mind control. Contrary to the propaganda that LSD makes you hallucinate, it actually breaks down the hallucinations and see some things clearly. I suspect Ted saw the reality before he then opened page 20 of this magazine and knew what he needed to do. https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/key_docs/rcc_00098010-5_redacted_0.pdf https://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/ke...

Blackstrat 3y ago

We're living in the midst of one of the greatest mind control experiments in history. Why would we think these agencies have cleaned up their act? What do you think all the BS of the last several years have been about? The corruption of the FBI, CIA, and DOJ are visible daily. The sad thing is how well it's working.