Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

ive read a little about this before so i havent bothered to read the article. but as i understand it, ted was cross-examined by someone at harvard as a part of the mk ultra program. and as i understand it, this cross examination was not aided with any kind of drug -- it was a simple verbal exchange. i think a lot of people assume that ted was already crazy, and that is unfortunate because that point of view overlooks the fascinating observation that a persons mind can be broken with nothing but words. i really do find it fascinating. if you pay attention, you will notice that there are many clues floating around. high intelligence has an anecdotal connection with being sensitive or prickly. the flight or fight response is activated when presented with ideas that counter yours, politically. and, there are other events that cause similar symptoms to ted, like a bad breakup. overall, everything points to this vague concept of "identity crisis." i think we have all experienced that feeling at least once. but what is an identity crisis really? it seems to be triggered when our core concepts and ideas about who we are contradict each other. and when its triggered, it can have very serious consequences. so does this mean that someone is justified in keeping their core ideas and principles private? does it mean those things shouldnt be discussed? it is interesting to note that ted could have gone through the examination without any ill effect by simply refusing to disclose things too close to his "core." and there is another interesting concept: the idea of purposefully restructuring ones framework of the mind in order to prevent an identity crisis and similar things. for example, instead of trying to create a logical reason for doing certain things, either during rumination or during cross examination, one could simply say that "i did it because i felt like it." or "because i wanted to." this avoids a cross examiner from pointing out two actions one has taken whose proclaimed motivations contradict each other. "because i felt like it" cannot be contradicted. i think that there are probably a lot of things one might do like this to "harden" ones mind.

i think that intelligent people are often more vulnerable to cross examination because they ruminate more often and deeply than other people, and during their ruminations they give structure and motivation to their actions and ideas. once that structure is proven wrong or that multiple parts contradict each other, an intelligent person is unable to ignore it. this causes the brains machinery to grind and in some way stop working correctly. that is what really fascinates me, that an identity crisis is not a conscious thing but the literal gears of the mind grinding against each other. an identity crisis is a manifestation of something low level going wrong in the brain, in my opinion. i wonder if there are drugs or therapies that might stop the gears from grinding.

That's pretty much "Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." Lots of mentally ill people defend what they believe in very vigorously.

> The "Bad" Parts of Technology Cannot Be Separated from the "Good" Parts. [1]

I thought this was one of the most prophetic statement from his Technology Manifesto. Written in 1995, still true today. Take any technology, and you'll see it has been used for doing "good" things as well as "evil" things, and it's impossible for anyone to separate the two and enforce usage of only the "good" parts. Example: Drones. Used in many countries now to send recon to remote areas for rescue missions [2], drop food or medicinal supplies in conflict zones. Same drones also used by the same countries to remotely kill "suspected terrorists" and by ISIS Jihadis (in Iraq) to drop bombs on Iraqi soldiers [3].

You cannot invent drones and tell people it should only be used for good things, not bad things. Same with Facebook. Used to organize events, connect with family, find missing people, start revolutions and protests. Same Facebook also used to spread fake news, lure unsuspecting victims for robbery and even murder, recruit Jihadis.

Every time a new technology is invented, human find a way to use it in a bad, destructive way.

Too bad blogging and Podcasting or youtube weren't around when Ted Kaczynski's wrote his technology manifesto, cos maybe then he may have resorted to online medium to spread his message, instead of killing people to get attention for his manifesto.

[1] Source: The Unabomber Trial: The Manifesto => http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabo...

[2] Source: Drones Help Rescue Missing Hikers => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1VPZ5jt5Xw

[3] Source: Footage of ISIS drone dropping grenade bombs on Iraqi soldiers => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uw0KWhYAoY

As an immigrant (from a non-Western society) who also spent youth steeped in Western literature, arts, and music, every development after WWI just seems so sad.

There's the moral self-loathing (veering towards self-flagellation) of the 'social justice' class, the academic anti-truth of the relativists and the post-modernists, the equally poisonous know-nothingism of parts of the right.

Western civilization still lives in the long shadow cast by Europe tearing itself apart not just once, but twice in the span of a generation.

The profiling is interesting but in this case, the FBI was irrelevant to 'solving the case', Kaczynski's brother and sister-in-law saw the manifesto in the NYT and turned him in.