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“Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
11–20 of 197 posts
Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#12He murdered people to publicize his manifesto. I feel that if I were to read it, I would be encouraging others to kill to get their views known. So I won't be reading it, regardless of its merits.
Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#13I was intrigued by "Industrial Society and its Future" by Ted Kaczynski after watching the "Manhunt" series on Netflix. As a techno-optimist it helped me put my feet on the ground. If you're like me, I can recommend the book. Not a fan of books? Read my blog post.
A few things:
- You can probably just call it essay consistently instead of using "book" so many times. It's only 20 times longer than your blogpost.
- You ask for some kindness sharing your posts in your blog, so you could have started sharing a link to the manifesto itself [0].
- Not a big deal, but I find the weird use of links in your blog too weird in many cases.
- What you wrote after "Why review a book from the hand of a notorious terrorist who killed three and maimed dozens of people?" is good context, but I believe that especially while reviewing Kaczynski you should have addressed the real point first: because the guy had interesting things to say.
Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#14Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#15I did. And wrote about it[0]. And I'm not a techno-optimist but you won't find much to truly learn in the manifesto if you are one.
The manifesto is far more about 'control' than it is about technology. He spreads the blame to the Left, the Over-Socialized, the 'Elite' and technology - with thinly veiled stopover at the 'stupid' too.
And by 'control' he doesn't simply mean control through technology, it's about Kaczynski's feelings of a lack of control over his own life and he latches that onto this 'industrial society' concept.
But in the manifesto, if read carefully, it shows he really wants to be free from control of the 'elite' and to return to having power (literally the power process) over the entire abstract concept of life - by which I mean to be completely outwith the control of external actors.
That's not to say he was 'wrong', in the post I argue in some ways he was right about control and 'industrial societies' effects on the individual, just misplaced in it's singular application to technology/industrial society (control will emerge from any system) and uttely abhorrent, unforgivable and unfollowable in his actions in pursuit of 'bringing down the system'.
Some of my concluding thoughts for those who don't read long posts:
"The manifesto has left me convinced of his anger against a system that abused him, even a sense of pity and understanding that he took the actions he did. But I can in no way even begin to accept what he did was right or even remotely the correct way to achieve his aims.
If anything, he damaged his cause immeasurably.
I find much of the way he conducted himself in the face of a society he didn't like to be repellent and lazy, running away to bomb and kill those ignorantly innocent of any part in the 'great industrial-technological society' he hates so much.
It's just such an unintelligent response to the objective goals he set. Which has to lend credence to my suspicion that a lot of the content in this manifest was really about his personal issues and not an intellectuals response to an industrial-technological society.
There is nothing to be lauded in this manifesto. There are points that deserve exploration and debate, perhaps even non-violent action - even the criminal can be correct after all - but nothing more.
To me it is the malformed logic of an angry and mistreated man, an intelligent one, but not one who should be forgiven his crimes."
[0] https://www.josharcher.uk/blog/industrial-society-and-its-fu...
Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#16The guy was a fruit cake and his manifesto is nonsense scapegoating, just because technology can create some problems does not mean thats the unibombers point, he didn't have one and his manifesto shows that.
I mean, I and anyone I've ever spoken to about it, along with what I see as the the general consensus, thinks it's pretty clear that his point was "technology bad". Why do you say he in fact didn't have a point? For example, ctrl+f "technology" > The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict [...etc]
Because "technology bad" isn't a point it's a statement like 5g makes my dick bigger, there is no reason or logic behind it.
People can do bad things witch technology and we NEED to talk about it and consider the reasoning and logic of that technology as this article does, but this isn't the unibombers point of view he was just "Technology bad"
The article makes good points and talks about ideas which have been talked about by intelectuals like noam chompsky for years. The problem is it then attributes these ideas to a fruit cake whos only contribution to the world was "tecnology bad you blow up now"
Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#17The guy was a fruit cake and his manifesto is nonsense scapegoating, just because technology can create some problems does not mean thats the unibombers point, he didn't have one and his manifesto shows that.
I think it was a good idea to preface the blogpost with an explanation, but it is hard for me to continue after unsupported statements like "Theodore J. Kaczynski is an extremely intelligent yet wounded man." I guess some evidence may be included elsewhere in the post, but just dropping a sentence like that feels very similar to 4chan-like edginess.
Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#18The guy was a fruit cake and his manifesto is nonsense scapegoating, just because technology can create some problems does not mean thats the unibombers point, he didn't have one and his manifesto shows that.
that's a reductionist view one would take away when not reading his work and just watching or reading what others say about the man or from shallow good-guys-bad-guys narratives the Netflix "documentary" pushes.
Even Bill Joy thought that the dangers of Tech were real. Kaczinsky just reacted differently. In fact he didn't just "react". he "acted" - which if you have read Jacques Ellul and agree with Ellul you know there is no way out from Tech. To paraphrase Slavoj Zizek:
"it's easier imagining the end of the world then to imagine the end of capitalism" (e.g.: it's easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine a future without Technology or Systems.)
Kaczinsky was somebody with a strong desire to change things and who believes the dangers are real. He became what we call "insane" by reading Ellul and decided to live in the woods. He then became "criminally insane" after realizing Ellul was right and that there is no way of escape (and in a literal sense from other humans after they built a highway straight through the place where he sheltered and people starting to come too close).
Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#19Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber
#20He murdered people to publicize his manifesto. I feel that if I were to read it, I would be encouraging others to kill to get their views known. So I won't be reading it, regardless of its merits.
Do you think you are doing your part to discourage future murderers from publishing manifestos? It's hard for me to follow the logic of how what you describe works.