‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
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Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#2> After the terrorist’s death was announced, the entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted that Kaczynski “might not be wrong” in his diagnosis that technology had been a disaster for humanity, one of a list of Silicon Valley figures who have praised the clarity of the bomber’s reasoning (while condemning his violent acts).
I play both sides, so I always come out on top!
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#3I never found his argument convincing.
The main tension in his manifesto is motivated by an underlying assumption that isn’t accurate. He sees technology as being a distinct force in opposition to humanity rather than an extension of humanity and that is the source of his fears. There are a lot of reasons to believe that technology is not an opposing force, like the idea of embedded cognition and embedded action.
I think technology is better understand as something connected to human intention and we can evaluate technology by how well it maps on to our unique quirks and needs. So for example when you look at a bee hive do you see it as a diabolical prison made by bees for bees or a complicated construction connected to a set of intentions that fulfill the needs of bees?
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#4I feel very sympathetic to his complaints about society. But he offers no solutions that would not embarrass a 4 year old. He wanted people, all people everywhere to give up tech. And he never bothered to address either of the obvious issues with this: (a) that whoever didn't would have a huge military advantage over those that did and would soon be in charge and (b) that we can only stay alive in the numbers we currently have because of modern agriculture so we'd need to starve a lot of people to death.
It's sad that he could so well summarise the problem AND offer no, even remotely workable, solution.
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#5Getting a faculty job at 25 is extremely impressive, the mistake he made was using violence to spread his message - in his manifesto he even states that he uses it to make sure message heard - but if he had just held on, resisted the urge and played the long game he could have had a much bigger voice in the world - even if he never became an academic, outside of the system as a pundit, youtuber, hacker, etc. The world was gotten more technologically authoritarian but the tools and means to live outside or even in opposition to it also has vastly increased.
The point being, if you want to fight and be a rebel, it's better to do it from a position of liberty..
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#6I would need to read his second book and is elucidated on his thoughts more, but I think a theme that he made without trying was on centralized technologies. It has been a bit, but there was a part regarding power plants where he points out the centralized nature of it. Further, technology is good and an extension of ourselves, but when we go from a nice tool to have to mandatory, I think we should be cautious.
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#7I never found his argument convincing. The main tension in his manifesto is motivated by an underlying assumption that isn’t accurate. He sees technology as being a distinct force in opposition to humanity rather than an extension of humanity and that is the source of his fears. There are a lot of reasons to believe that technology is not an opposing force, like the idea of embedded cognition and embedded action. I t…
Tech can start out as an extension, but what people fail to understand is that it can become slowly become autonomous over time, kinda like how a party gets out of control and people start putting holes in walls.
I think technologists rarely, if ever, talk about this because a lot of what enables our blind pursuit of technology is to say that technology must be an extension of humans and so it can never become autonomous. When ppl talk about AGI and paperclip maximizers, I think it's a way of pushing the problem far into the horizon and ignoring that the boundary is fluid and pushing.
Imagine if all the people at Google and Facebook stopped thinking that they're making the world a better place?
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#8Kaczynski was a loser. He couldn't manage to turn a Harvard degree into a productive role in society so he waged a cowardly war on people who did nothing to harm him.
The detailed list of specific injuries to victims here is sad... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#9Getting a faculty job at 25 is extremely impressive, the mistake he made was using violence to spread his message - in his manifesto he even states that he uses it to make sure message heard - but if he had just held on, resisted the urge and played the long game he could have had a much bigger voice in the world - even if he never became an academic, outside of the system as a pundit, youtuber, hacker, etc. The worl…
He lacked any normal social skills. If you work in the tech industry it's easy to forget how important those are to influence anyone who doesn't spend all their lives in front of a screen.
Re: ‘His ideas resonate’: how the Unabomber’s dangerous anti-tech manifesto lives on
#10> After the terrorist’s death was announced, the entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted that Kaczynski “might not be wrong” in his diagnosis that technology had been a disaster for humanity, one of a list of Silicon Valley figures who have praised the clarity of the bomber’s reasoning (while condemning his violent acts). I play both sides, so I always come out on top!
> I play both sides, so I always come out on top!
How anyone thinks this guy has the time to be chief engineer at SpaceX when all he does is shitpost on twitter all day is the real grift.
I'm a big proponent of Musk corps, solely because of the team within them and entirely despite of Elon (though he did serve a purpose); but the former channer in me also likes seeing how sage level trolling has not only made him immensely wealthy but also functions as a sort of psyop to gauge to how effective social media really is/remains in the collective psyche.
It's like the more advanced version of, 'stick your smartphone in the microwave for full charge' kind of thing: perverse and diabolical in a way but also necessary to put a finger on the pulse of the collective IQ of the modern internet sort of thing.