Ted Kaczynski has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#311

Post by brvsft » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:37 PM UTC

Mechanical9 wrote: post #196

brvsft wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CIA FUD I can't tell if you're being serious.

I am being serious. I have a very low tolerance for conspiracy theories touted as facts.

Okay, let me point out the funny part to you.

The CIA is still a piece of shit organization that has performed disgusting acts all over the world, and we don't even know about all of them (but, to be fair, the ones we don't know about shouldn't count in our opinion of the org). To talk about how Ted K. being a target of the CIA's MKUltra program as a "conspiracy theory" and "CIA FUD" seems laughably absurd, not because you may be correct that Kaczynski was never experimented on by the CIA, but rather because we know for a fact that MKUltra happened.

So on the one hand, we have an organization that drugged and tortured people as part of an experiment, and on the other, we have a potential lie that Ted Kaczynski was one of the people on whom they experimented. You're getting upset about the latter in order to defend the organization doing the former from "FUD."

You've literally chosen to stand up against "CIA FUD" to assert that even though the CIA performed these psychological torture experiments on people, Ted Kaczynski was not one of them! Or perhaps you don't believe MKUltra ever happened, I don't know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CIA_controversies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

> Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra)[a] was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken people and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.[1][2][3][4] It began in 1953 and was halted in 1973.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#312

Post by cscurmudgeon » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:39 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #84

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

unless you can show with substantive research that there are some ideas that cannot be held by violent terrorists I don't see why that would color these particular ideas.

The other angle is future deterrence. If a society collectively shuns ideals from violent terrorists, they will have less incentive to be violent.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#313

Post by Slava_Propanei » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:40 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #209

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…

You know how sometimes you'll see someone [dead] on here making salient points, then wonder why they're dead? Then you check them out, and every so often they go off on incoherent tirades. That's Ted Kaczynski. He may have had two good ideas for every bad one, but he was still a piece of shit who deserved to be isolated from society where he couldn't hurt anyone, and there are better advocates for whatever good came…

[dead]

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#314

Post by dbspin » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:41 PM UTC

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #308

dbspin wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an ideological position, termed Capitalist Realism [1]. Given the failing of social reproduction, environmental protection, long term planning against existential and systemic risk, the mental health crisis and the collapse of civil and political life, under entrenched and victorious capitalism - an increasingly absurd one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism

All of those happen in non-capitalist societies too and some times to a more larger extent.

Both of us seem to agree that there is such a thing called capitalism.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#315

Post by rs_rs_rs_rs_rs » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:42 PM UTC

IceHegel wrote: post #283

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern man is the best man that has ever been. Ted was just a nutcase.

On what measure? Certainly he is quite healthy and even considered sick.

On every measure, there was never a better time in the history of civilization to live.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#316

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:46 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #237

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

not sure why people are so surprised he got some things right or was at least able to create compelling arguments for this ideas, the guy was a legit genius. Got into Harvard at 16, youngest math professor ever at Cal Berkley at the time he was hired

[deleted]

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#317

Post by cscurmudgeon » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

dbspin wrote: post #314

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those happen in non-capitalist societies too and some times to a more larger extent.

Both of us seem to agree that there is such a thing called capitalism.

Yes, and I can even bet that unless a species is a hive mind, any intelligent species will have something like capitalism. The inverse is that to enforce a non-capitalist system, you have to brutally shape a society into something that is like a hive mind.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#318

Post by elliekelly » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #81

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.

You'd have a point if other subjects of MK-Ultra allowed a similar trajectory as Kaczynski. Were there other cases of self-destruction? I don't even know how many people were subjected to these experiments.

Why? Different people react differently to things. Especially psychologically. What might be merely uncomfortable for one person could push another person over the edge.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#319

Post by GnarfGnarf » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

We cannot escape that "all our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end" (Thoreau).

The perversion of knowledge is a paradox that was known to the writers of Genesis: it's the Tree of Knowledge that gets the first humans in trouble.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#320

Post by ch4s3 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

adamrezich wrote: post #199

next_xibalba wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This has been pretty thoroughly refuted.

who refuted it? other federal agencies? the crack just materialized on its own?

There was never any evidence to begin with. The author of the often cited investigative report even refutes the assertion that the CIA was involved. It’s pure fantasy.