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Ted Kaczynski has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#731

Post by goldenkey »

bbor wrote: post #656
forgetfreeman wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect this is not correct. What you are describing is Ad Hominem driven by some kind of moralist knee-jerk reaction. The absurd extreme of this line of reasoning would be to refuse to acknowledge the existence of snow because Hitler mentioned in passing in a letter or a speech at some point.

A) the hitler metaphor isn’t quite right - the parent isn’t saying that all of his ideas are inherently 100% false, but rather that reading his work is wasteful and disrespectful and dangerous. (Ok well some of that’s me but I’m guessing they’d agree) In my eyes, a better metaphor would be “refuse to read mein kampf even though it has some true paragraphs about the harms of monetary inflation”. Which, by god, I hope…

You can't read someone's book without being brainwashed by them? Sad state of affairs.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#732

Post by 11235813213455 »

tptacek wrote: post #442
bkohlmann wrote: post #352

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…

When threads about Kaczynski come up, I try to remind people that the guy attempted to take down an American Airlines jetliner. He got a bomb on board in the cargo bay designed to explode at altitude --- and it did indeed explode, caused the plane to lose pressure, and filled the cabin with smoke. There were 78 people on board that flight, and but for the skill of the pilots, Kaczynski would have murdered all of them…

[flagged]

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#733

Post by 11235813213455 »

Roark66 wrote: post #653
fsckboy wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about someone who suffered from very serious mental illness. And we're talking about stochastic processes. We can agree that killing people or trying to kill people is terrible, but I'd stress the mental illness part so perhaps society will get serious about treating mental illness with seriousness. Our cities are full of mentally ill people living on the streets. Are they a ticking time bomb? was Kaczy…

Seriously, why do we so often see mental illness as an excuse for simple evil? As far as I know in most non-authoritarian countries if a mentally ill person commits a crime the factor that decides if they get punishment, treatment, or both is not if they are mentally ill, but if they knew what they were doing at the time was wrong. The burden of proving that is on the defense and it's not easy to do so as it should b…

Aren't many aspect of this society, like overconsumerism, overpollution, waste, disrespect for the environement, air flights and other kind of avoidable impactful leisures pure evil too?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#734

Post by 11235813213455 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #709
fsckboy wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about someone who suffered from very serious mental illness. And we're talking about stochastic processes. We can agree that killing people or trying to kill people is terrible, but I'd stress the mental illness part so perhaps society will get serious about treating mental illness with seriousness. Our cities are full of mentally ill people living on the streets. Are they a ticking time bomb? was Kaczy…

Many, many people have severe mental illnesses and don't murder others. Mental illness is not an excuse. Most folks with mental illness simply suffer. This is the real reason we should "get serious" about treating mental illness.

and treating the whole society and its extreme impact on environment. Someone who's overpolluting looks absolutely crazy and irresponsible to me

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#735

Post by 11235813213455 »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #714
dudeinjapan wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely Ted believed what he was doing was a great good, a service to rouse the masses to revolt against modern society (or something like that.)

Surely Ted believed what he was doing was a great good Hardly. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65867291 In his own journals he wrote that he didn't claim to be "altruist or to be acting for the 'good' (whatever that is) of the human race", instead insisting that he acted "merely from a desire for revenge".

When you target a plane, it's quite symbolic for the pollution and destruction of the environment

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#736

Post by bbor »

goldenkey wrote: post #731
bbor wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) the hitler metaphor isn’t quite right - the parent isn’t saying that all of his ideas are inherently 100% false, but rather that reading his work is wasteful and disrespectful and dangerous. (Ok well some of that’s me but I’m guessing they’d agree) In my eyes, a better metaphor would be “refuse to read mein kampf even though it has some true paragraphs about the harms of monetary inflation”. Which, by god, I hope…

You can't read someone's book without being brainwashed by them? Sad state of affairs.

I disagree with this characterization. It’s not that reading Mein Kampf would brainwash you, it’s that reading it for it’s “nuggets of wisdom” is an insane, dangerous thing to do. I sorta thought that part would be uncontroversial but who knows

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#737

Post by catchnear4321 »

11235813213455 wrote: post #732
tptacek wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When threads about Kaczynski come up, I try to remind people that the guy attempted to take down an American Airlines jetliner. He got a bomb on board in the cargo bay designed to explode at altitude --- and it did indeed explode, caused the plane to lose pressure, and filled the cabin with smoke. There were 78 people on board that flight, and but for the skill of the pilots, Kaczynski would have murdered all of them…

[flagged]

> Violence is certainly not the best way

“Not the best” is minimizing in a way that suggests that it is merely less acceptable.

unless of course you are in fact saying that violence, though not necessarily the preferred solution, is acceptable.

are you?

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#738

Post by LouisSayers »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #704
asveikau wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kaczynski May have said some interesting things That take is strange to me. He reminds me a lot of people I've been close to who suffered mental illness. He didn't want to be considered mentally ill, and his apologists don't like it either, and further, many who focus on his victims and crimes don't like it. But for me, that's the major story about him. It was clear to me the first time i tried to read the manifest…

I'm sure someone else has posted this but... rather than a mentally ill screed I'd say it's a pretty lucid diagnosis of the last 30 years: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-ship-o...

I never read anything he wrote and just started reading his manifesto https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab...

It's actually a pretty interesting read so far. His thoughts on "leftism" and general society conformance seem to me to be quite well thought out.

I guess mental illness, and logical, rational thoughts aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#739

Post by williamcotton »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #699
williamcotton wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ted K murdered a PR executive. That was psychopathic. He could easily have deemed a person who drives a car as worthy of death based on the same flimsy reasoning. It doesn’t matter if we took a poll to see who a large sample of the population thought was a better person, the PR executive or a random person driving a gas guzzler, because cold blooded murder is an absolute evil. An attempt to understand his actions bas…

> He could easily have deemed a person who drives a car as worthy of death based on the same flimsy reasoning. > I am engaging in moral absolutes. You and the person I originally responded to are engaging in moral relativism. I'm not trying to engage in moral relativism. How do I word this... When we want to judge how evil his actions are, that's a moral question. When we want to consider who he would have targeted ,…

When we want to consider who he would have targeted, that's not a moral question.

What you’re missing here is empathy.

When he considered his targets for murder that is indeed a moral question for him.

He could have considered anyone driving an automobile. Why do I say this? Because for me the relationship between someone who buys gasoline and someone who sells gasoline is mutual and a PR executive is even farther removed. Perhaps it isn’t for you. Perhaps someone else would consider all people of a certain ethnicity a target for murder and based on statistical evidence.

The point is that when you allow for individuals to come up with their own personal reasons for murdering a member of a certain group that you allow for an infinity of reasons and targets.

At least a few people picked up on this thread based on my original pithy comment.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#740

Post by bbor »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #679
bbor wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Africa and LA seem like strong contenders. Most non-rich nations, really. One could say “but I want somewhere safer” but obviously that would be a little bit self-defeating, ideology-wise. “For free” is also pretty much impossible, especially if you factor in travel, but my intuition tells me that a very modest American or European savings could buy access to land somewhere . Especially if you sold all your p…

I mean, humans are a social species, and tribal societies that live off the land have a chain of countless generations passing down wisdom and customs to train their people on how to effectively survive in their respective environments, and still they rely on their community to effectively do so. To take a single (or even a couple) of fully formed adults without any of that lifelong education and training, who are ac…

I agree, well put! Overall I’m arguing against primitivism but Ted’d particular brand of it (schizophrenic complete isolation) is even easier to find problems with as a political or social message.

The man needed health care, not a shack in the woods…

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