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I watched a TV show about the Unabomber a while back that was really good. I remember one of the detectives investigating him became sympathetic after reading his manifesto. I don't think the Unabomber was as much anti-tech as he was against tech controlling our lives. A valid concern in the AI era. I'll never forget the one scene where the detective was driving an empty road late at night and came up to a red light…
> 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!
“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race."
Most likely, he was thinking of the dangers of AI (hence “might” - because we still don’t know).
[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1667627403089268739?s=46...
Kaczynski 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
Getting 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…
I don't think everyone having wireless devices that connect to a global information network in their pockets at all times is something one could've really foreseen in 1978.
and, even so, it's not as though it's really feasible to make any sort of shock-to-the-system sentiment widely and broadly heard, today, while abstaining from violence—even our modern societies are still trying to grapple with the question of, how much violence and destruction is justified in order to make a point about something, as seen in the last few years.
had Kaczynski chosen peaceful decades-later contemporary Internet discourse as his means of promoting his ideas, he'd simply be tarred and feathered as an "alt-right" nutjob, just like everyone else with views that contradict the present Western civilization status quo. The System has gotten extremely efficient in perpetuating itself, and silencing anything resembling Actual Dissent.
I watched a TV show about the Unabomber a while back that was really good. I remember one of the detectives investigating him became sympathetic after reading his manifesto. I don't think the Unabomber was as much anti-tech as he was against tech controlling our lives. A valid concern in the AI era. I'll never forget the one scene where the detective was driving an empty road late at night and came up to a red light…
I loved it too. It used to be on Netflix but they took it down.
I 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 curr…
- his ideas were interesting & worthy of consideration
- his actions were deplorable
Kaczynski 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
What? Didn’t he get an associate professorship, and at a pretty young age? That’s not productive? Not to mention the doctoral dissertation itself.
I 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 curr…
Getting 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.