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Ted Kaczynski has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#541

Post by mistermann »

spurgu wrote: post #474
basisword wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting. Far too much support and excusing of a deranged murderer in these comments.

The positive comments are mostly in response to his view/ideas/philosophy, as in Industrial Society and Its Future and his subsequent books - I don't think there's a single person here condoning the bombings. If you were to read his works you might find that he wasn't so deranged after all, quite the opposite. Edit: In terms of the philosophy/view I mean. The bombings were made out of bitterness and anger and are ine…

Considering the context (planet Earth) and the history of "righteous" actions of the department of "defense" of the nation he hails from, I believe it to be at least debatable.

Now, one can say "No, that's wrong!", but that doesn't make it wrong, though it can certainly cause it to appear that way.

If Ted is bad for his body count of innocent people, then what of us?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#542

Post by not2b »

In the early 90s I was a grad student and research assistant with a desk in Cory Hall at UC Berkeley, where I spent a lot of time for 3.5 years. That building has the distinction of being the only place that Kaczynski (we didn't know his name then) bombed twice. He maimed a professor with his first bomb and a grad student with his second. He wasn't caught until after I left, and I made sure never to deal with mail at the office. Good riddance.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#543

Post by [deleted] »

dendriti wrote: post #476
spurgu wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The positive comments are mostly in response to his view/ideas/philosophy, as in Industrial Society and Its Future and his subsequent books - I don't think there's a single person here condoning the bombings. If you were to read his works you might find that he wasn't so deranged after all, quite the opposite. Edit: In terms of the philosophy/view I mean. The bombings were made out of bitterness and anger and are ine…

There are PLENTY, certainly thousands and probably tens of thousands, of works which represent this monster's "view/ideas/philosphy" and weren't written by a deranged murderer. So you can understand the concern.

[deleted]

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#544

Post by kajaktum »

Not enough scrutiny/blame have been given to the US government. TK is not entirely to blame for his crimes. This is why we should make away with libertarian concept of free-will. If a cow had been poisoned to murder people, no one would necessarily blame the cow or think that it "deserves" some kind of punishment. After killing the cow to simply stop its spree, we would focus our attention to the actual perpetrators. In this case its the US government. However, all I see in this thread, most of it anyways, is directed directly towards TK. He was undeniably a genius with so much ahead of him, but all of that went to waste.

To some people, it is not enough that he is murdered/punished, he needs to be made "rightly" suffered through similar pains. Why? If there is a cure to mental illness, why would we not administer this drug and let the man free? Without free will, this concept of "punishment" would simply wither away.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#545

Post by edgyquant »

bsdetector wrote: post #501
brezelgoring wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A guy with a history of bombing buildings has more bombs at his house and you say it's not demonstrative of future bombings? I don't see it, man, I think you just want to go against the grain, here. Explain yourself.

I suppose it would be like how the U.S has a history of using nuclear bombs, has a bunch more assembled and ready to be used, but claims to have no plans to actually use them.

Except they do plan have specific plans to use them and what criteria would entail doing so

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#546

Post by siftrics »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #531
siftrics wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. It's a technical term which means that the person is knowingly making an argument that is not valid. See the definition of validity [0] in logic. When I say they are "intellectually dishonest" I mean they are attempting to persuade others with an appeal to emotion in a subtly-crafted paragraph that looks like a rational argument, but technically is not a rational argument --- because it is invalid --- an…

"Knowingly making". You don't know . And, in fact, I wrote the comment that you were replying to, and I was absolutely not knowingly making an argument that is not valid, and I still disagree with your argument where you claim that it is invalid. You're not psychic; you're not omniscient. You're wrong sometimes. And you're wrong here in your judging of my honesty. And when you act like you can judge what you can't, a…

I'm sorry, I'm still not trying to personally attack anyone. I didn't even realize my comment would be interpreted as offensive rather than a statement of fact.

This is the definition of intellectual dishonesty according to Wikipedia:

"Intentionally committed fallacies in debates and reasoning are called intellectual dishonesty."

I read your argument as "this man emotionally affected me via a personal connection I have, therefore his argument is invalid" and interpreted it as a logical fallacy. I assumed you made this knowingly because that is like a super basic logic 101 fallacy. I wasn't trying to personally attack you or say anything about your character or intellect. I was just trying to point out that you had committed a logical fallacy and that I assumed you already knew this.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#547

Post by edgyquant »

sph wrote: post #67
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

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…

> and I found more level-headed and thought-provoking than I would have imagined from someone able to commit such evil acts.

No one thinks themselves evil. Every evil act, or most of them, was conducted by a person who thought they were doing what’s best.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#548

Post by FrustratedMonky »

msla wrote: post #443
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

Don't make this political.

Don't make it political?

>"He sounds like an ecofascist to me, someone willing to use violence in pursuit of a "green" ideology."

The use of "green" ideology is pretty sarcastic remark from the political right, or climate deniers.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#549

Post by Dylan16807 »

siftrics wrote: post #540
Dylan16807 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never said anything about moral judgement. I was never talking about moral judgement. "Just because he bombed people previously doesn't mean he intended to do it again. You have to have stronger evidence, like writings or postage stamps, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that these two bombs were going to be planted." "He is doing moral judgement and that one requires only reasonable probability." "Yeah but I only…

Okay, this is a miscommunication. I should have made it more clear that "Yeah but I only have to come up with..." meant "With respect to what I claimed..." Sorry, I really am trying to be as charitable as possible with my interpretations of these comments. I just hate to see people conflate emotion with logical soundness and validity. Appeals to emotion are human and valid and expose interesting points, but I can't s…

> I should have made it more clear that "Yeah but I only have to come up with..." meant "With respect to what I claimed..."

That's fine with respect to your claims, but it means your claims can't be used as-is to counter other claims that aren't on the same framework. Those people aren't trying to convict him.

> I just hate to see people conflate emotion with logical soundness and validity. Appeals to emotion are human and valid and expose interesting points, but I can't stand to see them used to tear down the intellectual value (whether or not something is logically true) of ideas.

I don't think anyone is doing that in this thread? "he stopped because he was arrested" isn't an invalid takedown of his ideas. There was a mention of ideas further upstream, but from that comment on they don't come up.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#550

Post by MarkMarine »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #298
MarkMarine wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry, is your point that MKUltra experimentation on people isn’t proven to be bad for them? Unexpected high doses of LSD, attempts at programming, manipulation and what can only honestly be described as torture… the CIA destroyed all the records of this and because we don’t have complete records we just have to make a big shrug and say “ah well JKCalhoun isn’t convinced, guess it’s not bad for you.” What would i…

> is your point that MKUltra experimentation on people isn’t proven to be bad for them? Not at all. Rather, drawing a line backward from Kaczynski's bombing spree to experiments done on him as a part of MK-Ultra I think is questionable "science".

I don’t think it’s science, but if you read about what was done to him, it puts a big asterisk by the discussion about how he could do such evil things.
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