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

> 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?

It's specifically his idea of tranquility and his idea of protecting it, not the majority as you already established earlier.

> 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.

I want to keep it from his vantage point of his tranquility being shrunk vs the majority who started showing up with the road and which are generally given political legitimacy.

My answer is that the majority just don't give a fuck about the minority, never have never will, they wanted to look at the nice water fall and didn't give a fuck about his opinion of it. Violence is the ultimate authority and the mob has ultimate control over it.

You'r quote comes to a similar conclusion but with a conspiracy twist.

> The scientists explain that the benefits of the technology are indisputable

Soap is indisputable along with vaccines because even tho thousands of people every year die from vaccines and soap millions of lives are saved from them. The benefits these technologies bring to the majority of peoples life expectancy and quality of life are indisputable in comparison to a world without these things.

> Everyone can see the existing technological society is violent, oppressive and destructive, but what can we do?

Here technology is used like some sort of magic, a scapegoat for the violent, oppressive and destructive nature of society and the natural world that we live in. We eat or get eaten this is not a result of society or technology but the natural world.

> The more INTERESTING argument is, is technological society acceptable?

There are issues with how people use technology, individuals often use technology to do unacceptable things like mail bomb people but that does not negate the good technology has done for society.

We don't make soap and build roads to piss of waterfall zen masters but to protect the majority from the destructive, oppressive, violence of the natural world and natural selection. Life expectancy has been increasing around the world the more technology we get and the majority are very accepting of this.

https://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables....

Climate change is a problem that technology contributes to and the majority of people have changed their goals to technologies that do significantly less damage to the environment, we have made significant progress in this regard.

Our energy consumption for technology is only one part of our climate change problem there is also our food production and other areas, and here technology is being used to create new ways of getting this resource without putting the same strain on the environment. Instead of deforesting the amazon for cattle ranches maybe we could use technology to 3d print beef burgers?

He argued for a complete reversal of technology to undo everything the bad and the good. He presents a world view where nature cares for all if only we could learn to live under it, and the idea that its technology that creates the conflict in the world. The fact that conflict existed before technology and out side of humans is never considered. The fact that the majority of people use technology for the greater good while only a minority of people choose to use technology to mail bomb is never considered.

His arguments about technology and society don't make much sense until you recognise how he is using technology as a scapegoat and then it becomes clear his problem is not with technology at all. It's about the problem he has with society which manifests itself in is life specifically through technology, the road.

Technology just does what people want and what the majority of people want is often violent, destructive and oppressive, I think the more interesting question is

Is society acceptable?

When considering his manifesto against technological society it's important to remember how he acted out his manifesto, he did not target power plants, bridges, infrastructure, he didn't go after tech giants like IBM he blew up relatively small time people.

His actions show the true intention of his words.

To answer my own question no I don't think society is acceptable and when it treads on me I stand up for myself, but I'm not going start a fight with a stranger just because I can and others would. When I do start a fight I own it and the reason for it I don't blame technology or society for my actions. The unabombers actions ultimately show his words where meaningless to him.

"...whether or not murder is acceptable..."

Here you're begging the question. Murder is unjustified killing, and by calling something murder before you've even fully determined the truth of the justification, your premises irrationally assume the truth of the matter.

By definition murder is not acceptable. The question is, were Kaczynski's actions "murder," and how well does this argument stand the test of reason.

This is extremely difficult, because morality is in large part determined by education and propaganda. For example, if you took someone from our time and raised him in the civil war south U.S., under that system of education and propaganda, would they see a black man's killing of his slave master because he thought it was the only way to escape as unjustified and therefore murder? This is not to say that the morality of all killing is relative! It is merely to point out that the society in which you live has a great role in determining moral justification. Was Kaczynski justified in his actions? Were the people he killed only moral from the perspective of an evil society that is destroying the earth and enslaving humanity? The answer to these questions lies in the truth value of Kaczynski's reasoning. And in this area there is very very little open and honest debate... precisely because, I think, the ideas are far too dangerous and uncomfortable.

"The tranquility he's describing would, I imagine, guide one to understand that you can't control other people's actions."

This makes no sense.

He's in jail, and the course of history has basically gone unchanged. Development, both in the town he was living in and nationwide, has gone on.

Now, when looking at the short-term (historically speaking), Kaczynski's actions have been a resounding success. The manifesto and his other works are read by millions--far far more than if they were published traditionally where they would have been buried or left obscure. You may disagree with this point given the new media technologies and their leverage. But even in that case this overlooks a far more important aspect relating to revolutionary dynamics: Kaczynski's works have established themselves as the most radical and oppositional ideas in our world today by virtue of their violent context. This has the (necessary) effect of preventing the ideas from being co-opted and keeping away mild, reformist types who are offended by the actions (which is exactly what you WANT to do in the formation of any revolutionary movement).