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Ted Kaczynski has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#221

Post by surfingdino »

meepmorp wrote: post #72
wslh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there more precise and credible information about MKUltra program and Ted K.?

No. The only thing that's really documented is that he participated in a psychology experiment at Harvard. People have alleged that it was part of MKULTRA, but there's nothing to support that beyond allegations and some circumstantial things (e.g., Murray consulted for the OSS on a profile of Hitler during the war). There were also just a lot of unethical experiments done on people in the 50s and 60s.

This. The CIA story is likely based on the fact that Henry A. Murray did work for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Kaczynski may have been taking part in the experiments that led to the creation of the Thematic Apperception Test. The CIA may have been interested in the results of these experiments as all intelligence agencies are.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#222

Post by paganel »

RIP to one of the few real prophets of our time.

We’re long past gone the point where anything could have been done to avert all this current dystopic madness (two years ago, when I entered a bookshop, I had to show some QR magic code that I had gotten as a result of having a needle inject me stuff in my body), but we can’t say we hadn’t been warned.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#223

Post by sealeck »

fwungy wrote: post #173

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,…

But he attained none of his goals?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#224

Post by adamrezich »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #189
ahoy wrote: post #154

Kaczynski was essentially a blackpilled fascist. He spends the huge bulk of his manifesto ranting against leftism. I think its fine to attack the ideas as well.

None of his ideas have anything to do with fascism. Rallying against leftism does not make one a fascist. As far as I remember, in Industrial Society and its Future, Kaczynski did not propose authoritarianism or nationalism in any way or form.

it would be nice if that word wasn't overused to the point of becoming essentially meaningless in contemporary discourse—it seems like a word that should probably retain a significant amount of gravitas!

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#225

Post by AnimalMuppet »

arp242 wrote: post #178
siftrics wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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…

Yeah, "morality" is a good word.

See, Kaczynski's theory is also about morality. He's complaining about the damage that technology does. Well, why do we care that it does damage? That's a moral question, not a scientific or technical one. He's making a moral argument.

So, if he's making a moral argument and murdering people, that means that I for one am unwilling to trust his moral judgment. It means I can't trust him when he says that we would be better off without technology. I can't trust his whole argument, because it's primarily a moral one.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#226

Post by sneak »

justinator wrote: post #8

His opinions may be credible. His methods to gain attention towards them were absolutely not. A travesty how he was treated in those medical experiments. It's always tragic to find out reasons why people hurt others.

Credible? Absolutely - I wouldn't have read his manifesto had he not systematically engaged in the premeditated slaughter of human beings. That doesn't make his methods not reprehensible.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#227

Post by drexlspivey »

spurgu wrote: post #190
ehsankia wrote: post #168

Maybe a stupid question, but I'm curious what he's been up to in the decades since in prison. A brain like his doesn't stop working just because he's in jail, does it? I'm not sure what kind of terms he had, was he allowed to read? to write?

He's written a couple of books (didn't have complete freedom to do it, I remember him complaining about some hurdles) and done mail correspondence with various people.

> and done mail correspondence with various people

I hope the prison guards checked those mails thoroughly

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#229

Post by arp242 »

miramba wrote: post #66
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.

He participated in about 200 hours of experiments from the age of 16 to 19 which basically consisted of "roasting" and bullying him. The experimenters intentionally sought out the most insecure "maladjusted" students at Harvard (Kaczynski was accepted at 16) and lied about what the experiment was going to do.

The entire thing was horrible and profoundly unethical. His brother has stated it really changed Kaczynski.

Some people have claimed that it was run by the CIA as part of MKUltra. This is certainly possible but not really substantiated by clear evidence as far as I've seen, and even if the CIA has some relationship they probably didn't instigate the experiments but just asked for research notes or something relatively benign like that. We'll probably never know for sure though.

Whatever the case may be, of the group of students that were subjected to these abusive experiments only one became a terrorist, so "the CIA created the Unabomber" is rather simplistic IMO. The primary blame remains with Kaczynski, no matter what.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#230

Post by siftrics »

arp242 wrote: post #212
siftrics wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Won't this incentivise future acts of murder and terrorism? Yes, that's what he was trying to do. Ted claims we must stop technology, even with violent means, because technology causes greater suffering than the violent means to stop it. You claim "but that's violent!" That's not an argument. If you did try to make an argument (against Ted's ideas), I would agree with you. I would try to make that argument myself.…

I never intended to make an argument against Kaczynski's ideas, I'm just pointing out that people could have reasonable moral objections against distributing his work. It's "negotiating with terrorists" kind of stuff. Whether his ideas are good or bad is an entirely separate matter. > We can have an intellectual dialogue without devolving to "this made me feel bad therefore you're wrong!" The people who are dead or w…

Fair enough.

I misread your comments because I'm too triggered by people stating their emotions as if they're arguments.

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