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Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

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Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#51

Post by jonahx »

pizza wrote: post #49
jonahx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are the ones doing the bad things. Technology is just a force or thought multiplier. He explained it so well. It sort of clicked into my brain Except, this isn't empirically true. It's the same argument made by the NRA ("guns don't kill people, people kill people"). To be clear, I'm not weighing in on the gun debate here, only pointing out that if people have easy access to guns, you will have more deaths by…

If we establish these ground-rules: 1. [proof of concept] the inventor is responsible for the invention's (initial) appearance, but not for any other person's epiphanies regarding possible use-cases {in HN speak: execution(opportunity) >= execution(invention) >> imagination(invention) > imagination(execution(opportunity)) } 2. [proof that one can rely upon proof of concept] the user is responsible for the opportunity…

I probably shouldn't have mentioned responsibility -- it wasn't the main point I was trying to make. My point is something like "people living in a world with X" are different from "people living in a world without X" in profound ways, and it's not under anyone's control.

I'm not really interested in how we distribute blame -- only in pointing out that you can't release new technology, shrug your shoulders, and say, "Well, if it's misused, not on us." A far more accurate metaphor would be to consider us like animals in captivity.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#52

Post by dmix »

freeflight wrote: post #43

A really interesting read and imho it's quite relevant to our current times. This is the current political climate in a nutshell: > Dualists in a relativistic environment tend to see themselves as surrounded; they become increasingly lonely and alienated. This attitude “requires an equally absolutistic rejection of any ‘establishment’” and “can call forth in its defense hate, projection, and denial of all distinction…

Do you have a links to alt right writings and thought leaders that push forward this view?

I hear endlessly about this alt right ideology from the left but I can't seem to find a single person other than a few clearly fringe white nationalists who use this label.

I try to follow both left and right, anarchist and libertarian groups, on Twitter and elsewhere quite closely and I've been struggling to connect the breathless warnings of the rise of these groups with any actual data/numbers or any prominent leaders to measure the tangible growth and efficacy of their messaging.

In terms of rejection of establishment this can equally be found on the fringes of the left as well. Not to mention 'paranoia' and 'feelings of being surrounded' when I frequently read about the rise of 'Nazis' and fascism which again seems to be limited to a fringe at most, unless one takes seriously the extremely broad group of people who are now given these labels.

If anything this election has merely amplified political tribalism fuelled by fantasical images of armies of caricatures of their opponents. The reality seems much more boring and less scary. Especially when one tangibly measures how ineffective any of Trumps more extreme policies have been at becoming reality.

Even though Trump won he was still fringe and ridiculed within his own party endlessly, which they were quick to forget out of political expediency. The fact these same people chose him over Hillary in some key rust belt states also doesn't lead me to believe his more extreme views are as popular and widespread as we're lead to believe. If anything it seems like his primary offering was emotional gratification about 'winning' over the other tribe.

Therefore I'm extremely wary to buy into these narratives generalizing the 'other' tribes views.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#53

Post by johnvonneumann »

WillyOnWheels wrote: post #5

Not sure what the point of all this is. Thousands of very smart, accomplished men and women have gone through GenEd at Harvard without murdering multiple people. Personally I think Kaczynski was influenced more by his inability to get a date in his entire life.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

You went full ad hominem. Never go full ad hominem.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#54

Post by pizza »

I am in a double-bind. On the one hand, I agree with some of his ideas about society's unspoken capacity for alienation.

On the other hand, were his actions + manifesto not the pinnacle of cultural junk food? Practically designed for mass-consumption, and hence complicit in consumption's deleterious effect upon humanity itself - - because of how he knew it would receive attention? He deliberately chose to express himself in a way so as to attract the attention of the various distant story-tellers (essayists and journalists and news anchors, etc..) he knew would be drawn to his story like moths to flames. How is it more prophetic than O.J. Simpson's highway chase in The White Bronco, even if academia's chorus say "This is a message that actually is addressed to us!", and even if O.J.'s event was spontaneous, but the Unabomber's was premeditated..?

To be honest, mine isn't a totally original idea. I got it from watching a tiny video yesterday about Adorno, on pop music -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7Fhaji8ow

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#55

Post by tray5 »

pvg wrote: post #14
tray5 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally I think Kaczynski was influenced more by his inability to get a date in his entire life. You should read his manifesto, the dude had some funky ideas about society and there's no excuse for murdering innocent poeple, but he does defend what he believes in very vigorously. He wasn't a man without an ideological backing.

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.

Not what I'm saying, I'm saying it is well thought out and has reasoned arguments. Not just that he believes in it a lot.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#56

Post by Steko »

cabinguy wrote: post #33
Steko wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The FBI made the call to publish the manifesto, hoping for this exact outcome.

I stand half corrected, they did encourage publishing along with DoJ and it was the papers which ultimately made the call.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#57

Post by setr »

CalChris wrote: post #48
setr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you go out of your way to read his inspiration but not bother to read his actual writings And then come to the conclusion that this was sufficient to judge his writings, and his existence

I think I explained why I thought he wasn't worth reading. If you think he is then you should explain that . As I said, I read a biographical piece in the NYTimes that mentioned his favorite book. Conrad is a great writer and that had me intrigued. But then after reading it, it didn't raise my opinion of him. As for his existence, the guy sent bombs in the mail to innocent people. Fuck him.

>I think I explained why I thought he wasn't worth reading

Well no, you said why he wasn't worth reading, and then made claims about him and his work ("There was nothing to the man...")

My question is why you went out of your way to ignore the available first-hand sources, and preferred second-hand, and indirect, sources to judge his writing.

Why would you read the book he likes, but not what he actually wrote, before making claims about the value of his writing? And more importantly, why would you go out of your way to handle it this way? It seems to me you had interest in the ideas he might have (due to the bibliography) but went on a roundabout way to view them for no particular reason.

See, I'd understand if you, say, already knew the book, and considered it trash, and thus decided he probably doesn't know what he's talking about; but you apparently chose to put in the work to read the book over reading his actual writings, when the latter was probably more available and accessible. You specifically chose the indirect route over the direct one, and came to a very direct conclusion, and this decision confounds me.

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#58

Post by fusiongyro »

dmix wrote: post #52
freeflight wrote: post #43

A really interesting read and imho it's quite relevant to our current times. This is the current political climate in a nutshell: > Dualists in a relativistic environment tend to see themselves as surrounded; they become increasingly lonely and alienated. This attitude “requires an equally absolutistic rejection of any ‘establishment’” and “can call forth in its defense hate, projection, and denial of all distinction…

Do you have a links to alt right writings and thought leaders that push forward this view? I hear endlessly about this alt right ideology from the left but I can't seem to find a single person other than a few clearly fringe white nationalists who use this label. I try to follow both left and right, anarchist and libertarian groups, on Twitter and elsewhere quite closely and I've been struggling to connect the breath…

It doesn't seem to you like the right is increasingly reliant on shadowy conspiracies to explain events? I haven't heard the phrase "false flag operation" come up except from my infowars friends. A Republican chairman from my state said the violence in Charlottesville was caused by "evil Soros money," which seems to imply a conspiracy to me. Doesn't the whole "fake news" thing strike you as an attempt on the part of the right to brand the entire media a conspiracy, if not journalism itself?

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#59

Post by pizza »

jonahx wrote: post #51
pizza wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we establish these ground-rules: 1. [proof of concept] the inventor is responsible for the invention's (initial) appearance, but not for any other person's epiphanies regarding possible use-cases {in HN speak: execution(opportunity) >= execution(invention) >> imagination(invention) > imagination(execution(opportunity)) } 2. [proof that one can rely upon proof of concept] the user is responsible for the opportunity…

I probably shouldn't have mentioned responsibility -- it wasn't the main point I was trying to make. My point is something like "people living in a world with X" are different from "people living in a world without X" in profound ways, and it's not under anyone's control. I'm not really interested in how we distribute blame -- only in pointing out that you can't release new technology, shrug your shoulders, and say,…

OK. I admit that the preexisting presence of an object influences the decision to use it or not far more than most would probably care to admit. But I think one of the problems is when people start to sum history to explain something new's causality. It's like saying you should trust a prior probability to predict an event's occurrence more than the posterior probability after it happens - a new piece of evidence is categorically different than a historical tendency.. if that makes sense?

Re: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000)

#60

Post by asveikau »

pizza wrote: post #42
asveikau wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take any technology, and you'll see it has been used for doing "good" things as well as "evil" things, Isn't this true of every human endeavor? It's not really that remarkable that any given action has positive outcomes X, negative outcomes Y -- this in itself is not a reason to do something nor a deterrent. Seems like you can argue for or against anything on this basis. Hard to see it as anything other than a bunc…

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's The Dialectic of Enlightenment (written in 1947 - when Nazism, Stalinism, Fat Boy & Little Man, and the advent of popular culture were still in short-term memory) devotes a good amount of analysis to how - in spite of society's tendency to espouse 'progress eliminates regression' - society is not monotonically increasing. > "The self, entirely encompassed by civilization, is dissol…

As I re-read the article and comments, I have an overwhelming feeling of "so what? what's the alternative?" People and societies are imperfect, film at 11, no sense isolating yourself or mailing bombs about it. In other news we try our best.
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