Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ted Kaczynski has died

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 823 posts

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#431

Post by lm28469 »

rough-sea wrote: post #117
murderberry wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Technology bad." It's really that. He falls for the same trap many modern critics of progress do: the nostalgia for a world that never existed, when men lived meaningful lives in peaceful harmony with nature... juxtaposed with all the purported moral, societal, and environmental decay of today. Many people find it alluring today, but the themes are evergreen. They crop up in ancient Greece, in the Middle Ages, and t…

Thank you. It’s depressing to find so many people on HN expressing sympathy for the nonsense written in the manifesto. People should read “Beginning of Infinity” for a strong counter argument.

[dead]

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#432

Post by salawat »

williamcotton wrote: post #424
4gotunameagain wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Hey, what about all of the people driving cars that buy the products from those oil giants? Why not just go open season on all of humanity?

There is a consolidation of culpability in the industrial of corporate actor because it is they and they alone who make the decisions they do.

People will buy whatever is made. "The customers made me do it" has always been a misdirection, and arguably a straight up fallacy.

Executives lay the road for what gets made. Not once has the public said "Hey, poison our air/water/lungs".

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#433

Post by ch4s3 »

adamrezich wrote: post #330
ch4s3 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

right, and then the guy who wrote the report later "killed himself" with two gunshots to the head.

His ex-wife and the LA county corner were pretty convinced that he did it himself. Why would the CIA kill him if he wasn’t point the finger at them?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#434

Post by wahnfrieden »

JamesLeonis wrote: post #294
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…

> Attacks the ideas, not the man. It's unfortunate that people stop at the Manifesto, as Kaczynski has other critiques, but also admits to limitations or failures in his thinking. In one correspondence he admits he has no criteria to decide if a given technology is benign (small scale) or harmful (organization-dependent), a critical distinction! He tries to shore it up with analyzing a primitive Steam Engine, but I w…

Thank you for the anarchist references, with how conservative his ideas were and not only against "leftists" / libs I was looking for this perspective here (given anarchism gets unfairly lumped in with leftism or authoritarian communisms even as post-left anarchism is a thing)

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#435

Post by isityouyesitsme »

watwut wrote: post #341
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…

> 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 I assure you a lot of incredibly smart writing doing absolutely accurate predictions is ignored by schools and clubs. Literally only thing that sets Kaczynsky apart are the bombs. > , I quite enjoyed his critique of the modern Leftist ideals and why they would create the factionalism…

"Right" or "left" wing is entirely meant as a sweeping generalized insult these days. The words are otherwise meaningless.

Or more, they only mean whatever the person speaking them means to say.

Example: Some of the most infamous acts of violence of the 20th century were sanctioned by a left-wing radical. Or a right-wing radical. It simply depends on which specific ideals you want to vilify when you by associating them with Hitler.

Were the 2020 US riots were ultra surprising to you because they mostly left wingers burning cities and violently declaring demilitarized zones, or were they "meh" because right wingers are the only violent ones?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#436

Post by paulryanrogers »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #394
searealist wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 3 victims to narrow down. edit: Only one of 3 victims was killed in his home: > In 1994, Burson-Marsteller executive Thomas J. Mosser was killed after opening a mail bomb sent to his home in New Jersey. In a letter to The New York Times, Kaczynski wrote he had sent the bomb because of Mosser's work repairing the public image of Exxon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

[flagged]

Vigilantism isn't justice. There was no trial or finding of guilt or responsibility before the 'accused' were attacked. While I'd like executives to be more personally liable, the answer to stopping the corruption is judicial, legislative, and/or executive reform.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#437

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

jstarfish wrote: post #299
bm3719 wrote: post #42

Certain points in Kaczynski's manifesto greatly influenced how I view the world, and I feel they have positively influenced my life in many ways (e.g., trying to live life less wastefully, using nature to ground oneself in reality, evaluating the true total cost of ownership of products of industry). RIP.

The person who erected the Georgia Guidestones had a similar philosophy, and engraved his own manifesto for peaceful and sustainable living on slabs of granite as a monument for all to enjoy. It was recently bombed into rubble.

Nice profile you have. Some wisdom there.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#438

Post by scaredginger »

znpy wrote: post #64
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"

To be fair, infighting is extremely common in left-wing circles

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#439

Post by msla »

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]
Post reply on HN