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Ted Kaczynski has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#171

Post by krapp »

anigbrowl wrote: post #138
krapp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His "criticisms" of the left read like something a denizen of /pol/ or Reddit would come up with. It's entirely possible to see the merits of his arguments against technology while dismissing his deranged hatred of leftists, feminists, etc.

That's overly reductive. Kaczynski's political views continued to evolve while in prison; his later writings are notably different in tone.

Industrial Society and its Future is the only work anyone ever mentions, especially where Kaczynsci's anti-leftist politics are concerned.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#172

Post by dbcooper »

theodric wrote: post #155

Ted is, for better or worse, one of my heroes. Not for his entirely ineffective, pointless, counter-productive explosives work, but because reading his work, Thoreau's, and others, helped pull me out of a serious funk at the bottom of my burnout curve and find a new direction for my life after tech. It inspired me to spend €200k of the tech cash I'd hoarded on a farmstead and land in the Irish countryside, and try to…

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#173

Post by fwungy »

K. made the rational observation that no one would pay attention to him unless he did something drastic to force it. He'd just be a forgotten loner who scribbled in notebooks.

A politician might kill or harm many more people in the course of pursuing their objectives but they'll always have the story on their side provided they win.

K. had to understand that the achievement of his objective, publishing the manifesto, would likely lead to his capture, but he did it anyway. He sacrificed himself in the end.

If you believed you had information that would save the planet but you had to kill some innocent people to make it known? Utilitarians would say yes because saving billions of innocent lives is more important.

K. probably saw himself as someone taking revenge on an evil system that had harmed him. He's one of the more fascinating characters of modern history in that he was so effective in attaining his goals with violence.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#177

Post by adamrezich »

next_xibalba wrote: post #63
local_crmdgeon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

did the CIA put crack in the hood?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#178

Post by arp242 »

siftrics wrote: post #157
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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It's not really about intellectual honesty or validity, but about morality.

The only reason any of us are discussing Kaczynski now is because he sent those bombs; he would almost certainly be an unknown if he had not. This gives us an moral quandary, because do we really want to make murderers famous, even when they have something interesting to say? Won't this incentivise future acts of murder and terrorism?

And for what it's worth, I read his book and I thought it raised interesting points, but I am somewhat troubled by this, and I can 100% understand if someone would choose different, even more so if they personally know one of his victims.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#179

Post by Convolutional »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #69
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…

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#180

Post by sph »

timeon wrote: post #109
sph wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I truly believe it would be recommended reading in schools and philosophy clubs Andreas Breivik copied large part of it in his manifesto, but then again he is murderer too.

Both are murderers, that doesn't mean they have the same ideas or ideals.

Breivik is a right-wing fascist obsessed with racial and religious purity, Kaczynski's manifesto is critique of the Industrial Age not very distant from any 19th century anarchist essay. I'm not sure if he got more politicised in his later work, I'm only talking about that document.

The point I'm trying to make is that people are more nuanced than your observation is trying to imply.

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