“Industrial Society and its Future”: the writings of the Unabomber • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by LatteLazy » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 12:48 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #139

LatteLazy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the social experiment is to throw away all the guns, close the military, dismantle the economy and all go live in the forest, how will the US STILL be the most powerful nation?

Well that’s quite the hypothetical. Why would they do that? I think even with a tiny army it will enjoy security. That’s what it had prior to WW2. But the US still controls about 50 percent of the global corporate wealth. That’s an enormous amount of control. It’s got full control of both oceans which surround it, it’s not really vulnerable to any land based attack either.

>Why would they do that?

That is what the manifesto calls for. That is the inevitable result of abandoning technology and going back to villages of 50 people.

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

#142

Post by ethanwillis » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #137

ethanwillis wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the same interview I linked in my parent comment. He was killing in the name of protecting tranquility itself. Why is it that shrinking tranquility is seen as politically legitimate but protecting it is not? "I decided to relate to him the story of how one of my graduate advisors, Dr. Resnick, also a Harvard alumni, once posed the following question in a seminar on political legitimacy: Say a group of scientists…

> Why is it that shrinking tranquility is seen as politically legitimate but protecting it is not? 'Protecting tranquility' is perfectly politically acceptable: environmental and NIMBY lobbying organizations are often widely admired and achieve significantly more success than the Unabomber could ever have hoped to achieve. He is not criticised for seeking to 'protect tranquility' but for a campaign to murder people c…

I think you're confusing my arguments with my personal belief on whether or not murder is acceptable. I'll just say fullstop it's not.

Now, as to your current argument that these organizations have been more successful than Ted ever could have been. I want to believe they have been, yet reality does not reflect this.

At best they have only slowed the destruction of the environment. At worst they enable a technological society to carry on with their destruction with a clear conscience. If you look at the world today and in 10 years will these organizations have ceded ground or will the machine continue on?

That is, do these organizations make further environmental destruction net 0 (or in a good case reverse said damage?). I would say no. Even from Ted's time to today the environment is worse and shrinking day by day.

The reason Ted felt that "violent rebellion" was necessary is because these organizations can't possibly stop the inevitable results of what technological society does. They're only a stymie, a stopgap, not a long term solution.

The more INTERESTING argument is, is technological society acceptable?

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

#143

Post by zozbot234 » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #136

cm2187 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISIS has something important to say that I should read? My lifestyle isn't conform enough to the standards of Wahhabism?

You have to use your judgement. For example the 9/11 hijackers were angry that the USA was occupying Saudi Arabia militarily and that the Israel/Palestinian issue hadn’t been resolved. I think those are legitimate demands.

If you listen to what these militant Islamists say in Arabic (as translated by reliable third-parties such as MEMRI) you get a very different picture. The asserted motivations are entirely or almost-entirely religious and linked to militant Islam itself; there is no reference to reciprocity of any kind with the Western world.

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

#144

Post by arez » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #117

arez wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can buy "Mein Kampf" anytime if you want, I doubt you get anything useful out of it or become a mass murderer if you read it. If you ban books or thoughts or manifestos you end up being totalitarian you becoming the very thing you try to fight against

Hitler didn't kill 6 millions jews so people would read Mein Kampf.

no, but he wrote down his ideologie

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

#145

Post by orisho » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #71

orisho wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not though. It had the intended effect on me. I don't believe what he has to say is so revolutionary that I'm missing much by not reading it, and I agree with the sentiment that I'm respecting the Unabomber's goals by reading it - so I just wont. Good ideas are a dime a dozen, the tricky part is execution. Fortunately, murder is usually an ineffective way to affect public policies.

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

#146

Post by dangerface » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 1:13 PM UTC

ethanwillis wrote: post #78

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.

> 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.

He killed 3 people on his belief now he is trying to come up with reason to justify it.

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

#147

Post by lucideer » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #92

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.…

"Those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles" To me this reads like a decent description of groups like SJWs and anti-fa, which resort to violence and at time suppressing the rights of others to match the model of the world they have. "The conservatives a…

This comment is a really good demonstration of what I'm talking about. I really thought from his portrayal in "Manhunt" that Kaczinky would be slightly more nuanced than someone who thinks things like "antifa" are real and uses pejoratives such as "SJW". I was wrong.

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

#148

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

ethanwillis wrote: post #142

notahacker wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it that shrinking tranquility is seen as politically legitimate but protecting it is not? 'Protecting tranquility' is perfectly politically acceptable: environmental and NIMBY lobbying organizations are often widely admired and achieve significantly more success than the Unabomber could ever have hoped to achieve. He is not criticised for seeking to 'protect tranquility' but for a campaign to murder people c…

I think you're confusing my arguments with my personal belief on whether or not murder is acceptable. I'll just say fullstop it's not. Now, as to your current argument that these organizations have been more successful than Ted ever could have been. I want to believe they have been, yet reality does not reflect this. At best they have only slowed the destruction of the environment. At worst they enable a technologica…

> Now, as to your current argument that these organizations have been more successful than Ted ever could have been. I want to believe they have been, yet reality does not reflect this.

They demonstrably have been. Organized NIMBY campaigns, including campaigns containing a part of illegal land occupation but no part of mailing package bombs to individuals, have shut down all manner of development, including both nuclear power plants and oil pipelines.

All the Unabomber accomplished was a lifelong stay in prison, the death of three people, and the injury of dozens more. By your strong metric, neither approach is successful. By a weaker metric, an organized campaign that doesn't include bombing people is partially successful.

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

#149

Post by bm3719 » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

“The honest truth is that I am not really politically oriented. I would have really rather just be living out in the woods. If nobody had started cutting roads through there and cutting the trees down and come buzzing around in helicopters and snowmobiles I would still just be living there and the rest of the world could just take care of itself. I got involved in political issues because I was driven to it, so to speak. I’m not really inclined in that direction.”

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/theresa-kintz-interv...

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

#150

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

ethanwillis wrote: post #134

shadowgovt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tranquility he's describing would, I imagine, guide one to understand that you can't control other people's actions. And even if the wilderness around him was shrinking, he still had plenty of it. A tranquility that kills people that harshes its buzz isn't tranquility.

The separate argument buried in here is that you can in fact control other people's actions by restricting their possible options. Which is what the technological system attempts to do by subjugating the natural world and moving people into urban areas.

You are correct, I retract the argument that you cannot influence other people's actions.

The method of mailing bombs to strangers is demonstrably ineffective. Society interprets eco-terrorism as damage and routes around it. If anything, if society accepted it, it would accelerate the anthropoforming of the planet; if violence against the politically opposed is acceptable, who wins an open violent conflict? Those hoping to preserve nature as it stands or the "technologists" with the benefits of industry, modern organizational systems, and automation at their command?