Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000) • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by dgut » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

bllguo wrote: post #134

dgut wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's narrow things down. What did Hegel produce of meaning? Can you answer that question concretely without the gaseous word bending that is typical of Hegelians?

I find it odd that you're the one making the absurd, unpopular claim, yet the onus of proof and concrete example is on others.

Besides the moribund old "Soviet Intelligentsia", nobody takes Hegel seriously today for good reasons.

Those at the philosophy department still doing the mental gymnastics required to engage in Hegelianism are evidence of the sad state of philosophy.

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

#152

Post by milcron » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 6:25 PM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #137

Some people put too much faith in reason. When I read his manifesto it felt to me like it was logically airtight. If you agree with his premises, I think it's difficult to reject his conclusions using reason. But of course we have much more than reason to rely on when making decisions, and it's easy to reject his conclusions if you use your whole mind, some might say your heart. I think it's tragic that people, both…

    G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what
    does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad … mathematicians go mad.”

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

#153

Post by sctb » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

fundabulousrIII wrote: post #148

grzm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the guidelines request, > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This is particularly important on sensitive topics, such as this one. The goal of HN is not combative arguments, but rather constructive, substantive discussion.

Get a life. Oh, excuse me, was my sarcasm too transparent?

Could you please carefully read the guidelines and stop commenting like this? This is not up to the standards of discourse of this site.

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

#154

Post by alexanderstears » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 6:51 PM UTC

justboxing wrote: post #16

> 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…

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

However, there might be some value to price discrimination. Consumer tech reaches new heights of capabilities and new lows of cost. That's great of ISIS but bad for States that fight ISIS.

It seems like we either have to make consumer tech less accessible or military technology better, but we already have fearsome military technology but we've promised not to use it (bio-, nuclear, and chemical weapons).

Asymmetric warfare, huh?

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

#155

Post by mrguyorama » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

fusiongyro wrote: post #64

dmix wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soros is merely the rights version of how the Koch brothers are behind everything to the left. Sorry I'm struggling to take this as anything new or special with the right in the Fox news/CNN world of US politics. But as I said we're in a new era of extreme political tribalism. What disappointments me is that so many smart people on the left think they are engaging in 'resistance' when they are largely just fueling fu…

That's a fair point about the Koch brothers. I can't disagree with what you're saying here.

I can. I've never seen people claim that the Koch brothers pay actors to run over counter-protestors

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

#156

Post by gwbas1c » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

armitron wrote: post #108

jmull wrote: post #105

Very interesting article. But I think it's a mistake to believe the ideas he was exposed to as an undergraduate lead to him becoming the unabomber. In his manifesto he works through a lot of these ideas and shows us the world view he's developed around them, but the impetus for it all -- it seems clear to me -- comes from his inability to come to terms with living in a society. It causes him great pain and distress a…

Rather than dismissing him in such a crude manner, why don't you take the time to read and comprehend what he has written - and, assuming you find any - try to point out the flaws in his reasoning. Kaczynski was a genius, among other things, and his views deserve better than armchair dismissal and handwaving.

> Kaczynski was a genius, among other things, and his views deserve better than armchair dismissal and handwaving.

Kaczynski is a murderer and a danger to society. That alone disqualifies his views merit.

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

#157

Post by mrguyorama » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #38

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.

The date thing is quite a novel interpretation. Also only 22 people went through long psychological experiment he did and afaik they were all older. It might be surprising, but women in fact don't have civilising effect on brutes nor cure mental disease nor change peoples with philosophies (which he possibly did not had). Plenty of violent people with girlfriend in history.

It's likely more in reference to "incels" and the manifesto of Elliot Rogers

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

#158

Post by sctb » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

anotherbrownguy wrote: post #69

The brainwashing experiment is being done at a much larger scale by the American left and the globalists (i.e. 1. anything that makes human life better in any way is doing some harm to something... it's usually environment or natural way of things or anything else they can come up with, 2. morality is relative, 3. everyone is "equal" etc.). As a result, the world is deeply divided in this regard. We are at a brink of…

Could you please resist the temptation of ideological drive-bys? That's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#159

Post by etplayer » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 7:53 PM UTC

dgut wrote: post #150

voidhorse wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what constitutes 'meaning'. If meaning has a minimal requirement of historical impact it cannot be denied that Hegel produced a tremendous amount of meaning in the world, as entire traditions of thought have developed out of his notion of dialectic. Hell, the whole idea of Communism presumably would not have developed were it not for Marx's reading of Hegel, and it's nigh impossible to deny that idea ha…

Meaningful/useful/valuable to humankind. Marxism is unscientific and led some societies close to barbarism. 225 words and you couldn't answer me. Let's practice: Donald Knuth created the KMP algorithm. Help me understand the omnipotence of Hegel. Your turn.

> Marxism is unscientific and led some societies close to barbarism.

Does Marxism claim to be scientific? If so, is that a deserved critique of it? Ice cream is also unscientific, as is capitalism. Marxism uses the dielectical method, not the scientific one.

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

#160

Post by freeflight » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 8:20 PM UTC

graphitezepp wrote: post #110

freeflight wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have a links to alt right writings and thought leaders that push forward this view? You mean like White Supremacy groups or neo-Nazi groups along the lines of Vanguard America? Have you ever read Mein Kampf? Doesn't seem like it because then you wouldn't ask such a weird question akin to "Is the sky actually blue?". You should hang around more "social media", especially YouTube and reddit has certain "circle…

Seconded in general. One of my "things" I endlessly bore friends and family over is how absurd and harmful the overwhelmingly prevalent left vs right world view is. People need to escape this line of thought, when you do its pretty easy to see that most people agree on, say 90% or so, issues. Everyone is just too busy trying to "win" for their side to even understand why they are fighting. Too bad this duality direct…

I usually try to plug the political compass [0] and hope people are curious enough to check it out and learn something new, I know I did. The site might not look like it but there's regular new content, like a chart for the upcoming German General Election, it's a great educational resource.

[0] https://www.politicalcompass.org/

Edit: Just noticed they now even have an intro video on YouTube going through the basics in under 5 minutes, good stuff: https://youtu.be/5u3UCz0TM5Q