411–420 of 823 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> real terrorists Did the CIA fabricate and mail the bombs?
did the CIA put crack in the hood?
Make up your mind on this.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just wonder how many people who could have done better were blocked by the actions of all these artists people want to make excuses for. How many great works were we denied because someone insisted on making space for someone who repelled (or worse) better people?
The zero-sum command-economy view of free speech: we have to exercise prior restraint on what people can say to ensure that there’s room for the people we approve of to speak.
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.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that "manifestos" are inherently elitist. I'm only aware of manifestos coming from people who speak with an air of self-importance. Kaczynski seems no different.
Same with writing books, asking people to subscribe to your blog newsletter, shouting on a street corner or asking people to vote for you.
That said, who says having some self-importance is inherently bad? Trying to be humble is a cultural and religious virtue, not an absolute truth.
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.
Would his methods be credible if he was doing it in the 40s and they were directed against nazi intelligentsia for example?
Morality doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's not objective, it's collectively determined by society.
As a society we have decided en masse that blowing up randomly selected people to draw attention to one's political views is not acceptable.
As a society we also have decided that violent actions taken against the German government in the early 1940s were acceptable.
This isn't a contradiction, nor hypocrisy, simply the ability to have nuanced opinions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The zero-sum command-economy view of free speech: we have to exercise prior restraint on what people can say to ensure that there’s room for the people we approve of to speak.
This seems pretty un-generous. The parent is citing a real, straight-forward cause-and-effect which does not necessitate or even imply a zero-sum game, nor does it imply the extremist solution you're accusing them of supporting.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
My post was a call for being smarter about who we invest in. I always wonder about people who call for separating art and artist over such mediocre artistry.
One of my good friend’s dad was brutally murdered by Kaczynski when she was a young teenager. A small bomb in a package that used razor blazes, nails, and other bits of metal to nearly tear his head off while his young family was in the house with him. And it turns out the victim was the “wrong” man, as he didn’t even work on the project Kaczynski wanted to bring “retribution” for. Kaczynski May have said some intere…
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…
People don't disagree with him because he was a convicted terrorist, they disagree with him because of the specific things he did to be convicted of terrorism. That's reasonable (correct, even). People might know or not know each opinion he expressed, and might reasonably agree or disagree with each one, but that's not the same thing.
Isn't that the definition of agreeing (or not) with someone ?
> but that's not the same thing.
How so ?
Best manifesto of the 20th century imo. Modern man is an animal in a cage. He behaves increasingly abnormally because his environment is unfamiliar and out of his direct control.
I don’t think that‘s modern, it was the same in the centuries and millenias before. Unless you were born into the 1% upper class, you were ruled by them with random degrees of benevolence. I would argue that although you could say that this hasn’t changed much, everyday life for most of us ruled subjects is equal or better in almost every respect, for example being able to write this comment to you, my fellow underli…
One of my good friend’s dad was brutally murdered by Kaczynski when she was a young teenager. A small bomb in a package that used razor blazes, nails, and other bits of metal to nearly tear his head off while his young family was in the house with him. And it turns out the victim was the “wrong” man, as he didn’t even work on the project Kaczynski wanted to bring “retribution” for. Kaczynski May have said some intere…
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