Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts!
> Did the Unabomer have any ideas you couldn't read elsewhere?
> I imagine there are tons of philosophers who have said similar things.
I would imagine the Unabomber isn't the first or only, but it is the first place where I encountered many of the ideas/analysis. It absolutely felt like it went very much against the grain of acceptable writing of the day. It amounted to outright heresy in some cases, which I find fascinating and engaging. People who challenge the status quo are the ones who IMHO change the world the most. I'm by no means equating Kaczynski with many of the greats of the past, but they all had that same trait in common: challenging the assumptions and status quo of the day with at times heretical ideas.
In particular, his observation/separation of the three different power levels in which humans can operate deeply spoke to me and resonated with me. His identification of how operating in power levels 1 and 3 can be so profoundly different than how our brains evolved to be and therefore unfulfilling and unsatisfying struck me with the same sort of intellectual force that Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative did the first time I understood it. Then he builds logically on that to identify/describe how with technology we are essentially being pushed entirely out of power-level 2 and into levels 1 and 3, and it becomes very easy and simple to understand why he believes technology to be so disastrous for humanity.
> But we probably don't remember or cite them because their manifestos weren't published on the front page of newspapers.
> That was due to the serial violence of the author, and it was subsequently talked about for decades.
> That is, the notoriety of his crimes could be the reason that you read and recommend his work, rather than somebody else's work -- as opposed to it being a coincidence
Absolutely, I very much agree. Although if none of those other works ever made it to my attention, then they don't have the opportunity to influence me or give me the feeling of intellectual nourishment that I got from Kaczynski's manifesto.
This strikes me as a very similar problem to the medical knowledge gained by Nazi scientist from doing horrifying experiments on Jewish prisoners. Do we disregard the knowledge gained because it was gained in such a disagreeable and reprehensible way? Logically, disregarding it makes no sense, only providing emotional satisfaction. Using it can benefit our future, but not using it does nothing to change the past. We could say "incentives" but that has to be addressed through punishments/repercussions to the people who did the experiments.
But regardless, those other sources have reached me now, thank you! I'll be reading them :-)