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“Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

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Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#71

Post by daenz »

orisho wrote: post #25
daenz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While just not reading it likely has no effect, making this public post about it might dissuade others from reading and discourage manifesto publishing.

It seems like their energy is better spent educating themselves on the controversial material so that they can explain to people why they think the conclusions in it are wrong.

FWIW, I'm actually made more curious when people discourage me from reading something, so they may want to rethink the actual impact of that strategy.

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#72

Post by m12k »

The_Colonel wrote: post #40
stared wrote: post #27

I was stuck by this passage from an interview ( https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-an-int... ): > In living close to nature, one discovers that happiness does not consist in maximizing pleasure. It consists in tranquility. Once you have enjoyed tranquility long enough, you acquire actually an aversion to the thought of any very strong pleasure—excessive pleasure would disrupt your tranquility. > Fi…

It's the classical "I feel this way so everybody should feel this way". People have been seeking pleasure since they were living in a cave. Boredom thing also sounds completely baseless. I still remember when I was bored as a child - it had nothing to do with anxiety, frustration or anything like that (I didn't have any). Children (and then adults) simply have drive to do something interesting/enjoyable (for quite cl…

I don't think it's being in nature that causes you to get into the non-pleasure-seeking mindset. Rather, if you develop a non-pleasure-seeking mindset, then nature will be where you feel most at ease.

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#73

Post by Barrin92 »

daenz wrote: post #23

Some people here can't seem to separate ideas from the person who generates them, and that is sad. You can hate what a person did and still try to understand why they did it. That does not equate to support for them. It's this kind of closed-mindedness that is driving people apart all over the world.

Because it's not always appropriate to separate the ideas from the person. When reading the book it is quite evident that it's not only some sort of abstract philosophical work, but more of a personal feud between Ted Kaczynski and society, which is of course also reflected in his actions.

It's not closed-mindedness to treat the word of a terrorist critically, that is to say keep in mind what the author of the book intents to accomplish with his work, rather than just taking text off the pages at face value.

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#74

Post by ethanwillis »

shadowgovt wrote: post #46
stared wrote: post #27

I was stuck by this passage from an interview ( https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-an-int... ): > In living close to nature, one discovers that happiness does not consist in maximizing pleasure. It consists in tranquility. Once you have enjoyed tranquility long enough, you acquire actually an aversion to the thought of any very strong pleasure—excessive pleasure would disrupt your tranquility. > Fi…

It's nice words, but a man who mails bombs to other people instead of just letting them exist apart from himself clearly hasn't achieved tranquility, regardless of what he would have other people believe.

Not to argue that it's valid to mail bombs as a result of ideology but this part is disingenuous.

> instead of just letting them exist apart from himself

From his vantage point they weren't letting him exist apart from themselves.

"The best place, to me, was the largest remnant of this plateau that dates from the tertiary age. It's kind of rolling country, not flat, and when you get to the edge of it you find these ravines that cut very steeply in to cliff-like drop-offs and there was even a waterfall there. It was about a two days hike from my cabin. That was the best spot until the summer of 1983. That summer there were too many people around my cabin so I decided I needed some peace. I went back to the plateau and when I got there I found they had put a road right through the middle of it" His voice trails off; he pauses, then continues, "You just can't imagine how upset I was. It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system. Revenge. " (https://web.archive.org/web/20090318135703/http://www.insurg...)

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#75

Post by shadowgovt »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #57
shadowgovt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice words, but a man who mails bombs to other people instead of just letting them exist apart from himself clearly hasn't achieved tranquility, regardless of what he would have other people believe.

timeline matters. he wasn't born a terrorist neither did he just take a black-pill and suddenly turn violent. It was a process that lasted decades in which he drove himself to isolation, alienation, hate and finally violence.

Timeline does matter, but this interview happened after he was arrested and convicted. This is him looking back with hindsight, and it's interesting to me that he can see the virtues of an isolated lifestyle without, apparently, noticing how that isolation left plenty of room for philosophical solipsism and, eventually, the conclusion that other people's lives didn't matter.

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#76

Post by tokai »

phaus wrote: post #21
tokai wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>fruit cake That's a homophobic slur.

For about a hundred years it has also been pretty commonly used as a slur for mentally ill people.

Oh sorry, then it's a-okay I guess. /s

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#77

Post by doukdouk »

smart_jackal wrote: post #54
The_Colonel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the classical "I feel this way so everybody should feel this way". People have been seeking pleasure since they were living in a cave. Boredom thing also sounds completely baseless. I still remember when I was bored as a child - it had nothing to do with anxiety, frustration or anything like that (I didn't have any). Children (and then adults) simply have drive to do something interesting/enjoyable (for quite cl…

The caveman pleasures were limited to the culinary (having food) and the carnal (having sex). But today's human has surpassed any and every definition of greed for pleasure. Capitalists having billions in their banks and shareholding across companies still crave for more and more pleasure. I just don't understand what kind of pleasure people are after today.

Given that animal grieve and mourn their dead [0], cows have best friends [1], or many species of animals play [2], among many other things, assuming that cavemen lives is only "culinary" and "carnal" pleasure means humans not long ago ("cavemen") had internal lives far, far simpler than what many animal species experience.

[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/do-animals-exp...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/cows-b...

[2] https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/games_animals_...

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#78

Post by ethanwillis »

lucideer wrote: post #35

I have to say I had the exact opposite reaction. I was also intrigued by the depiction in the Manhunt series and read the manifesto as a result. In the TV show, Kaczinky is portrayed as a highly intellectual, informed, educated individual, mentally thwarting his interviewer in their debate on morals and politics. After building up that expectation of Kaczinky's intellect, the manifesto is an enormous disappointment.…

The manifesto is worth reading for what it was. But it should also be followed up by his further books. He would agree with you that it is not as solid as it should be and he has been writing since then to fill in the gaps and even refute some of his own arguments.

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#79

Post by totalZero »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #51
throwawaygh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly as a case study in mental illness or domestic terrorism. But not -- as the author suggests -- with the goal of understanding his politics. Kaczynski's psychopathy is -- on face and by itself -- a good reason for not spending my time on his writing. Or, at least, only spending that time in a very particular way. Kaczynski's manifesto is the rambling rationalization of a madman. Reading it as anything else is…

You just proved the comment you're replying to.

I don't see it that way.

The reply chooses to understand the writing in the context of its writer's psychology, and presents reasons for doing so.

This does not mean that the replier cannot consider the writing independently of the writer.

You can build a closet in the woods, but usually it doesn't make much sense unless it's accompanied by a house. You can interpret ideas while willfully obscuring other facts about the ideator, but usually it doesn't make much sense unless it's accompanied by the antecedents and consequences found among those obscurable facts.

Kaczynski's life demonstrates that there was something really messed up about his thinking.

Re: “Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber

#80

Post by bad-apple »

datenhorst wrote: post #8
dangerface wrote: post #5

The 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.

Something tells me, you didn't actually read it.

This manifesto is just the expression of one man's fringe political views. There is a lot of rubbish in it. For example, he spends pages insinuating that leftism is rooted in masochistic, self-hating, chauvinistic tendencies. His argumentation, in the rare cases that there is any, is rather ridiculous. See, for example:

> Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.

Of course, this manner of peaceful protest is neither masochistic nor unique to the left, so I'm not sure how he thought that this made any sense. He even acknowledges that it is often effective, and yet he still claims that it is motivated by self-hatred!

If you can highlight anything of value in his manifesto, I'd very much appreciate it.

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