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He gave the Unabomber’s manifesto four stars on Goodreads, and described Unabomber as a "political revolutionary". Excerpts from his review: "It’s easy to qui
by breadwinner 2y ago
He gave the Unabomber’s manifesto four stars on Goodreads, and described Unabomber as a "political revolutionary".
Excerpts from his review:
"It’s easy to quickly and thoughtless write this off as the manifesto of a lunatic, in order to avoid facing some of the uncomfortable problems it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out."
"He was a violent individual - rightfully imprisoned - who maimed innocent people. While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/luigi-mangione-brian-thompson-killing-b2661480.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/luigi-mang...
- vouaobrasil 2y agoI don't see the point. The Unabomber manifesto had nothing to do with bombs. It is a commentary on the state of technology in society and a commentary on leftism.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoYou can't say it had nothing to do with them. At a minimum, the manifesto directly motivated them. Im not a Kaczynski scholar, so maybe it is possible to embrace the philosophy and come to sperate conclusions, but that is rarely the case for manifestos. They usually make strong positive claims about the necessity and justification of the author's actions.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoThe objective of the killings was to get the manifesto published in mainstream media. If you actually read it, which I'm guessing you didn't, then you'd see that Ted K did not really advocate random killings. He was concerned about taking down industrial civlization entirely.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago1) I dont think you are engaging in good faith. Good faith discussions dont include cynical asides, but I will give it one last chance. 2) There is a contraction in saying the manifesto has nothing to do with the killings, while its pulication is the primary motivation for the killings. 3) Kaczynski started bombing in 78 and mailed the manifesto to the news in 95. Kaczynski has similar essays before bombing, but at no time between 78 and 95 tried to leverage killings for exposure.
- margalabargala 2y agoI'm not the person you originally replied to, but I tend to agree with them in the sense of the writings not having much to do with the bombings. There can exist a corpus of ideas, and there can be actions people take due to their beliefs in those ideas, but if those actions don't particularly have much to do with the actual ideas, we can say one doesn't have much to do with the other. I'd give the New Testament as another example where the idea corpus and actions taken in its name tend to diverge.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoThe philosophy could be separated in concept. My point was that, in reality, it absolutely was not. The claim "The Unabomber manifesto had nothing to do with bombs" is one of fact and easily refuted by history. In a parallel universe, someone else could have penned similar ideas and not conducted the bombings. In this universe, the bombings were entirely motivated by the ideas stated in the manifesto.
- margalabargala 2y agoOkay, that's a reasonable distinction. I agree with you. I think the reason this discussion is frequently had, is that people will read the manifesto, recognize that it discusses some interesting issues in a self-consistent way, and want to discuss those ideas without simultaneously heading off semi-veiled accusations of "are you going to blow stuff up now too?". In fact, I would argue that considering that the Unabomber manifesto has been inspiration to at least two very intelligent people as they commit targeted murder against strangers, there is something interesting and unusual about that corpus of ideas compared to other writings by other figures. I'm unaware of any highly educated people who have become similarly radicalized after reading Mein Kampf. Something is uniquely appealing about Kaczynski's writings.
- shepherdjerred 2y agoWhat’s your point? I haven’t read the manifesto, but I have read that many consider it uncomfortably correct
- sdwr 2y agoThe Unabomber's MO was politically-motivated terror attacks aimed at high-rank targets. That's exactly what the NYC killing was, so it supports the claim that this guy did it.
- autoexec 2y agoThe Unabomber killed innocent people. That's a very different MO from this guy.
- cruffle_duffle 2y agoDid I miss something? Under which court of law was the person this dude murdered found guilty of something?
- hughesjj 2y agoInnocence and morality isn't restricted to the determinations or domain of the legal system.
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago[flagged]
- autoexec 2y agoThe killer didn't have the right or the authority to kill the CEO, and he'll likely spend a very very long time in prison because of that, but that doesn't make the CEO innocent.
- 2y ago
- HDThoreaun 2y agoThe unabomber made some good points though. First quote is solid analysis of him
- s1artibartfast 2y agoIndeed. I wish he found a productive way to get some real traction on his ideas. I think it has been long enough to say that the bombings were not productive.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoActually, his bombings got his manifesto published and the manifesto did get some traction in places.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoI think you are confusing exposure with productivity.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoSince the manifesto advocated taking down industrial society and that hasn't been done, it's hard to judge the productivity of the thing while the outcome isn't known I guess.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoLike I said: >I think it has been long enough to say that the bombings were not productive. We can revisit this conversation in another 30 years if you wish.
- goatlover 2y ago[flagged]
- tern 2y ago
- draw_down 2y ago[dead]
- mcshaner1 2y agoFor anyone reading stuff like this, read Ellul’s Technological Society instead. Optionally followed by “The Meaning of the City.” I haven’t read the manifesto and don’t plan to; it apparently cited Ellul a fair amount and Ellul seems like a saner guide.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoActually, David Skrbina's "The Metaphysics of Technology" is the most easily readable, comprehensive cover of critical philosophical views towards technology from the ancient greeks until modern time. Ted K made virtually no reference to Ellul in his manifesto either. In either case, both were quite sane. Ted's manifesto is not a philosophical analysis of technology like Ellul or Skrbina. Ted's manifesto is a practical treatise agains technology and its primary thesis is that technological society must be destroyed.
- anigbrowl 2y agoWhy not both? Ted Kaczynski was an important thinker whether or not you agree with his thesis and methods. ISAIF was published in newspapers and the sky didn't fall.
- keiferski 2y ago“Important thinker” is a stretch. Most actual philosophers of technology are far more coherent and knowledgeable.
- anigbrowl 2y agoI think his ideas come across more clearly and coherently in his later work than in his manifesto, but that's often the case. I don't regard him as a philosopher but rather an agitator, not unlike Thomas Paine or (insert your preferred historical figure here). This largely because his writing is not in a spirit of inquiry over where technology might go, rather it is conclusory - industrialism is path-dependent and net negative, with the only open questions being how to undermine it effectively.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoGood-looking Unabomber with terrible opsec is pretty spot on for this guy.
- tern 2y agoMy takeaway from this is that what would have saved this man is a proper liberal arts degree. I can't deny that there are reasons for engineering degrees being as focused as they are, but he clearly didn't get the chance to work out his philosophical ideas in an appropriately challenging environment.
- ladyanita22 2y agoMy takeaway is that an engineering degree doesn't have anything to do with a guy that, from that message, looks to me as an arrogant narcissist (by how smart he tries to be) who likely doesn't have trained too well his acceptance for frustration and who seems to give in his impulses disregarding anything else. And your takeaway is, for me, infantile, naive and dangerous. This guys is not a victim of a system, this guy is a killer, whether we like that CEO or not.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoVery contrarian take I think. Most people see that the CEO isn't just unliked, he's actively responsible for the deaths of many. So, for many, his death is justified. As the legal system would never find him guilty for something all knew he was guilty of.
- wordpad25 2y ago[flagged]
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago> So, for many, his death is justified. For the majority? Come on, if you guys don't like private healthcare (and why would you?) then there's a democratic process you can follow to change it. Encouraging executions on the streets might feel good, but it's not going to achieve anything, even if you think it's justified.
- krainboltgreene 2y ago
- agilob 2y agoWhat you're missing here (and all the media copy-pasting the review) is that the review is a quote from reddit.com/r/climate https://old.reddit.com/r/climate/comments/10j1le5/has_anyone_at_rclimate_read_ted_kaczynski_what/ https://old.reddit.com/r/climate/comments/10j1le5/has_anyone...
- mock-possum 2y agoI still don’t get how people miss this - he explicitly states it’s a quote, he even puts it in quotation marks. People see what they want to I suppose.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoI think at least part of the problem was that the quotation contained quotes itself—we could probably turn this into a discussion about nested quote marks, unicode quotes vs. ascii, and character escaping if we really wanted it to be relevant to HN's core domain...
- SifJar 2y agoThe excerpts from the review posted here were _not_ from the section that was quoting the reddit post
- torginus 2y ago[flagged]