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Ted Kaczynski has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#61

Post by JKCalhoun »

drones wrote: post #43
mihaic wrote: post #25

The one thing I still wonder about Ted is actually how many more actually good and thought provoking "manifestos" like his are out there, only for nobody to push them to in the public's eye. After all, almost all smart people that identify uncomfortable truths won't go to extremes to convince strangers of actually giving their non-mainstream ideas a chance.

There are way more Ted K's running around today - it's just that you don't need to kill people to get heard anymore. Nowadays the spectacle of ruining your own life is enough to get noticed. Anyone with an internet connection today has access to world stage provided they are interesting enough. Back then you'd need to catch the eye of a producer for a mainstream news broadcast to get any coverage. Now you can just fi…

You seem to suggest that Kaczynski murdered as a kind of marketing strategy for his ideas. I highly doubt that.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#63

Post by next_xibalba »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #47
bheadmaster wrote: post #35

Ted Kaczynski was a genius, a mathematical child prodigy, became a professor at Berkeley at 25 and had a bright future. I completely blame CIA experiments for his downfall into radicalism and extremism. His ideas were very valid, but his mind was too tortured to deal with them in a healthy manner. Rest in peace.

The media will report on this as the death of a terrorist. None of the real terrorists will be brought to justice - the CIA has done so many abhorrent things here and abroad. We act like the KGB/FSB is this unfathomable, foreign evil. We have the bigger, scarier thing that killed it in our backyard.

> real terrorists

Did the CIA fabricate and mail the bombs?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#64

Post by znpy »

hnuser847 wrote: post #52

It’s fun to drop verbatim quotes from his manifesto into random internet discussions without attribution. A lot of people agree with his ideas without realizing it.

one of the funniest things for me is the fact that many left-wing people add Kaczynski quotes without realizing that left-wing people are basically the first people to be criticized and almost mocked in Ted's main piece, "Industrial society and its future"

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#66

Post by miramba »

bheadmaster wrote: post #35

Ted Kaczynski was a genius, a mathematical child prodigy, became a professor at Berkeley at 25 and had a bright future. I completely blame CIA experiments for his downfall into radicalism and extremism. His ideas were very valid, but his mind was too tortured to deal with them in a healthy manner. Rest in peace.

What did the CIA do? I checked his Wikipedia page, not mentioned there.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#67

Post by sph »

crhulls wrote: post #31

His manifesto is worth reading. Although he was obviously a twisted man many of his predictions for the future were eerily prescient. http://editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf

Yes. Someone linked the manifesto in an HN thread ages ago, and I found more level-headed and thought-provoking than I would have imagined from someone able to commit such evil acts.

I do not agree with everything he wrote in the manifesto, and certainly not with his violent methods, but it's stuck with me in this era of naive techno-optimism which I find myself more disillusioned with by the day.

If the name on the front page was not of a murderer, I truly believe it would be recommended reading in schools and philosophy clubs.

As a very progressive person, I quite enjoyed his critique of the modern Leftist ideals and why they would create the factionalism and alienation we see today; he's not arguing as a 21st century conservative, but as a third position that is not represented by any mainstream camp. I had to read the manifesto of a killer to remind myself that there is more social critique to explore than the binary Liberal vs Conservative that's all the rage in our politicised world.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#68

Post by api »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #11

No mention of MKUltra, it doesn’t excuse his behavior but does explain why he may have been pushed over the edge.

A big chunk of his manifesto reads like very personal grievances because it probably is. He’s doing the usual defensive thing of globalizing and generalizing something that is actually profoundly personal. Kaczynski was a victim of unethical human experimentation.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#69

Post by AnimalMuppet »

californiadreem wrote: post #32

Anyone who disagrees with Kaczynski's ideas because they came from a convicted terrorist should read the works of Jacques Ellul instead, of which Kaczynski's was largely a popular reduction. The Technological Society is the clearest influence on Kaczynski's manifesto, but Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes is possibly more pertinent in this day and age. Ellul was a professor, a pacifist, and a Christian ana…

[flagged]

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#70

Post by sameolddiffterm »

somenameforme wrote: post #23
reaperman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don’t think it excuses it at all but I wonder at what point it would? If MKUltra had removed 70% of his brain, would that excuse his actions?

It's not about forgiveness, it's about the story. MKUltra is a critical factor in this tale. And from a journalistic and social point of view, society would be a far better place if more people knew about MKUltra [1] than do. Beyond that it's also important to ever emphasize that actions have consequences which may not always be easy to predict. One of the countless reasons Machiavellianism is absolutely idiotic. [1]…

They still do it. It's still under the cover of front organizations. It's called research. They usually target people that don't follow the grain. One group that is targeted are expats, nomads, etc... Due to the rules/laws/regulations that don't apply because their subjects are traveling and in a temporal state and are abroad they can get away with much more.
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