Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

roelpeters.be

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 197 posts

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

#181

Post by shadowgovt »

qpooqpoo wrote: post #179
qpooqpoo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only makes sense if you place a limited and arbitrary timeframe on when "success" must be achieved, and what the "success" should be. Remember, the communist manifesto was published in 1848, and by your standard of "success" things more or less remained unchanged until the ideas in that manifesto culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1917--nearly 70 years later. Kaczynski understands this lag, and is quite sob…

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 a…

Mein Kampf has also been read by millions, but nobody claims Hitler's work was a resounding success. Is your criteria for success simply "Someone reads your manifesto?"

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

#182

Post by shadowgovt »

qpooqpoo wrote: post #173
ethanwillis wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"...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. Th…

The man mailed bombs to people who had never even met him. In a civil (intra-state) context, that's murder. By US law, I'm pretty sure there is no context in which it isn't murder (the weapon of choice precludes self-defense, since it's an unreliable delivery mechanism for targeted lethal force; there were thankfully no deaths in American Airlines Flight 444, but it indicates why a "justified killing" defense is nonsense in this context). He's not a nation-state so it's not an act of war. If he acted to change a nation's policy by his own volition via violence perpetrated on the unsuspecting, it's terrorism.

It's also an ineffective way to change policy. If my actions can cause random strangers to mail bombs to me? Well, hell, that's in the same risk radius as "I could walk out my front door and get hit by a truck." I can influence strangers, but I ultimately can't control the actions of strangers. And a stable society can't condone lone-wolf assassination or mass killing of unrelated individuals, so it will always interpret the Unabomber's strategy as antisocial and route around it.

Hypothetically, enough people using the same strategy could destabilize the society to the point it cannot defend its people and it loses legitimacy and cohesion. But that's just a "might makes right" argument, and is philosophically uninteresting (and, worth noting, could be used by the "technologists" against people like the Unabomber, so it sheds no light on moral correctness whatsoever).

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

#183

Post by theelous3 »

dangerface wrote: post #162
theelous3 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't a point it's a statement You can apply this logic to everything that's ever been said or written. It's a nonsense thing to say.

Questions aren't statements, you can write lots of things that aren't statements. What are you on about?

I mean, questions are often statements, but way to try and find a semantic exit from the conversation.

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

#184

Post by qpooqpoo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #180
qpooqpoo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only makes sense if you place a limited and arbitrary timeframe on when "success" must be achieved, and what the "success" should be. Remember, the communist manifesto was published in 1848, and by your standard of "success" things more or less remained unchanged until the ideas in that manifesto culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1917--nearly 70 years later. Kaczynski understands this lag, and is quite sob…

You appear to be assuming the communist manifesto was a success due to the Russian Revolution. The Soviet empire lasted about as much time as the time between the writing of the manifesto and its implementation by the revolutionaries (possibly less, depending on how you define the USSR's lifetime). We'll have to see how China's experiment goes (China appears to be succeeding through a combination of a culture with ma…

"You appear to be assuming the communist manifesto was a success due to the Russian Revolution."

You've missed the point. The point is not that the communist manifesto was ultimately successful or not judging by how its ideas were implemented successfully or not. It is merely to point out that there is an expected lag between when political ideas are produced and when they have an impact and it is irrational to imply that a political idea is a failure or wrong simply because you haven't observed their implementation or impact in your lifetime. Communism ultimately failed because of the fundamental failure of the ideas in the communist manifesto. But it does not follow that therefore Kaczynski's ideas, once implemented, will also ultimately fail. They are fundamentally different sets of ideas with different potential material outcomes.

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

#185

Post by qpooqpoo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #181
qpooqpoo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Mein Kampf has also been read by millions, but nobody claims Hitler's work was a resounding success. Is your criteria for success simply "Someone reads your manifesto?"

On this point you would do well to read the third chapter of "Anti-Tech Revolution." In it, Kaczynski argues for why an anti-tech revolution as he lays out would succeed and why its success would be more or less permanent while all other social revolutions and goals have failed and were fundamentally doomed to fail.

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

#186

Post by [deleted] »

qpooqpoo wrote: post #185
shadowgovt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Kampf has also been read by millions, but nobody claims Hitler's work was a resounding success. Is your criteria for success simply "Someone reads your manifesto?"

On this point you would do well to read the third chapter of "Anti-Tech Revolution." In it, Kaczynski argues for why an anti-tech revolution as he lays out would succeed and why its success would be more or less permanent while all other social revolutions and goals have failed and were fundamentally doomed to fail.

[deleted]

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

#187

Post by qpooqpoo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #181
qpooqpoo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Mein Kampf has also been read by millions, but nobody claims Hitler's work was a resounding success. Is your criteria for success simply "Someone reads your manifesto?"

"..the Unabomber gets remembered as this struggle's John Brown, not this struggle's Abraham Lincoln."

You could be right about this. But then you could be wrong. Ideas still matter, and their particular expression still can have material impacts. Time will tell. Will Kaczynski's work inspire the sort of material, decisive impact that Martin Luther's works inspired during the Reformation's wars?? or Will Kaczynski as you say be more like John brown, while the real decisive impact will be made by those that actually organize and lead. (Just staying with your analogy). Only time will tell.

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

#188

Post by qpooqpoo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #181
qpooqpoo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Mein Kampf has also been read by millions, but nobody claims Hitler's work was a resounding success. Is your criteria for success simply "Someone reads your manifesto?"

You're still conflating the success of a tactic in furtherance of a goal with the success of a goal.

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

#189

Post by shadowgovt »

qpooqpoo wrote: post #185
shadowgovt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Kampf has also been read by millions, but nobody claims Hitler's work was a resounding success. Is your criteria for success simply "Someone reads your manifesto?"

On this point you would do well to read the third chapter of "Anti-Tech Revolution." In it, Kaczynski argues for why an anti-tech revolution as he lays out would succeed and why its success would be more or less permanent while all other social revolutions and goals have failed and were fundamentally doomed to fail.

I've read him. I find his philosophy to be two things:

1) self-consistent

2) deeply misanthropic

As with so many seductive political philosophers (Rand and Hitler spring immediately to mind), he creates a framework that checks out against its own internal logic and that would work great if (a) humans behaved the way he needs them to behave for his system to work and (b) you ignore all the death and suffering his solution demands.

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

#190

Post by shadowgovt »

qpooqpoo wrote: post #188
shadowgovt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Kampf has also been read by millions, but nobody claims Hitler's work was a resounding success. Is your criteria for success simply "Someone reads your manifesto?"

You're still conflating the success of a tactic in furtherance of a goal with the success of a goal.

This entire subthread has been about tactics in furtherance of an ultimate goal. From a few posts above: > 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.

Maybe the Unabomber's ultimate goals will bear out (I sincerely doubt it for reasons I have expounded upon elsewhere in these comments), but even if they do, he didn't pull it off.

If, 300 years from now, history remembers this era as a dark time of bad technology that humanity grew out of, the Unabomber gets remembered as this struggle's John Brown, not this struggle's Abraham Lincoln.

Post reply on HN