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Ted Kaczynski has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#611

Post by nine_k »

pixl97 wrote: post #582
nine_k wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you; this elucidates a lot. So it boils down to a question: would you exchange the life of a lone top predator (in a forest with a firearm) to any other kind of life? For some people the answer would be in favor of the top predator life. To choose the life of a tiger, one just should stop loving anyone. After this, killing becomes mere killing (predators do not "murder"), and the whole idea of destroying everyo…

I expect we'll see more people take up TK's manifesto if generational AI starts taking over jobs and causing displacement in the next few years. Technology won't even give other people the power to become the enemy, it will be the direct enemy.

I'd take a Butlerian Jihad over Unabomber's activity any day.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#612

Post by resolutebat »

bbor wrote: post #575
resolutebat wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His argument is basically that industrial society increases net suffering from violence and disease, because large populations are unsustainable and rely on the exploitation of the third world's poor. So instead of having one person die from a curable infection because nobody has antibiotics, you have five dying of infections because the population has exploded and antibiotics exist but they can't afford them.

The proof for that being vibes? Your specific example is quite obviously false in my eyes, but maybe I’m missing something obvious. How is some antibiotics worse than no antibiotics? I mean unless his stance was that a higher population is inherently bad because there’s more people to experience suffering? But surely all these people in this thread don’t support something THAT dumb. I’m so lost and his wiki page isn’…

As far as I can tell, yes, that is exactly his stance: each suffering person is a net negative, regardless of others who are not. So five people suffering is always worse than one person suffering.

And please don't mistake people explaining his theories with supporting them.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#613

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

msla wrote: post #441
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Lewis Mumford [1], Günther Anders [2], or if you want to go truly underground, Gilbert Simondon [3] [4] or Friedrich Kittler [5]. If there are thinkers who have been in the conceptual space of the 23rd century and beyond, Simondon was surely one. Also radically of the future and forgotten is FM-2030 [6] [7]. All in all, blowing up people is easy, blowing up antiquated concepts, grasping for the grounds of a new…

> If there are thinkers who have been in the conceptual space of the 23rd century and beyond, Simondon was surely one. The 23rd Century shouldn't belong to ecofascists.

None of those mentioned are ecofascists, especially not Simondon [1], that was the point: the true radicals destroy the future worlds, not directly the present one. Alan Turing destroyed all the multiverse branches [2] in which we don't use computation. Norman Borlaug [3] destroyed all the multiverse branches in which we don't have high-yield wheat.

Perhaps an even better parallel would have been Alexander Grothendieck [3], the mathematician of the 20th century (maybe even of the 21st century if concepts as the topos [4] are made into usable tools for deep neural networks [5]), but also a person who was teaching mathematics in Vietnam [6] while hiding from bombs. When the world burns, all that remains is the Glasperlenspiel [7].

[1] 2022, Governing progress: From cybernetic homeostasis to Simondon’s politics of metastability, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380261221084...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topos

[5] 2021, Topos and Stacks of Deep Neural Networks, https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.14587

[6] 2013, Grothendieck’s 1967 Lectures in the Forest in Vietnam, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00283-013-9368-6

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#614

Post by bbor »

resolutebat wrote: post #612
bbor wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proof for that being vibes? Your specific example is quite obviously false in my eyes, but maybe I’m missing something obvious. How is some antibiotics worse than no antibiotics? I mean unless his stance was that a higher population is inherently bad because there’s more people to experience suffering? But surely all these people in this thread don’t support something THAT dumb. I’m so lost and his wiki page isn’…

As far as I can tell, yes, that is exactly his stance: each suffering person is a net negative, regardless of others who are not. So five people suffering is always worse than one person suffering. And please don't mistake people explaining his theories with supporting them.

Ah wow ok. Was not getting that from the wiki and didn't want to read 35K words just to figure out why people think he "has some interesting ideas".

Thanks for the explanation, I really appreciate you taking the time!

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#615

Post by maratbn »

According to the US law enforcement system, in the context of TK, a long slow torturous death is more moral and humane than a quick execution.

Another aspect to TK's story is that prior to becoming a murderer he was involved as a subject in the "MK Ultra" human experimentation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

There is a public perception that the effect of this dirty experimentation (that also involved help from good ol' dirty German Nazis, which BTW could not have been any less evil or murderous than TK, but were spared the kind of prison term that he got) was not sufficiently considered during TK's trial and sentencing.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#616

Post by glimshe »

bbor wrote: post #586
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, Kaczynski did make some good points. Maybe if he had learned to channel that energy better.

What points resonate with you? With as much sincerity as I can express, I’ve gotta ask: why aren’t you living in the woods if you think the guy who said that industrial society was a mistake “had some good points”?

If you think that Buddhist monks have some good points, do you need to go live in a remote monastery? Kaczynski's critique can make us think about the extremes of modern life; it can encourage us to step back a little and live in more harmony with nature and less so in the grind of industrial society.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#617

Post by IceHegel »

krapp wrote: post #326
IceHegel wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obesity rate.

Obesity in a world where you could diet and exercise is still preferable to starvation in a world without easy access to food. At one time it was a sign of wealth and privilege to be able to afford enough calories to put on any weight at all, and enough leisure time to not have to work it all off through brutal, constant labor.

You say it is preferable today. In a way we all must agree it’s preferable. Unlike the state’s “social contract” which you cannot exit, any of us could - for the price of a bus ticket - find ourselves back in the wild. None of us go.

But just because humans have a revealed preference doesn’t mean that’s the way we should live.

In all honesty, I don’t think abundant food itself is a problem, but I do think the ethos of democracy basically allows everyone to ignore should questions and an addicted and obese population is the result.

Imagine showing our world to an 19th century English laborer. They would be awe of our technological achievements, but I think they’d find our social structures extremely distressing.

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#618

Post by [deleted] »

maratbn wrote: post #615

According to the US law enforcement system, in the context of TK, a long slow torturous death is more moral and humane than a quick execution. Another aspect to TK's story is that prior to becoming a murderer he was involved as a subject in the "MK Ultra" human experimentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra There is a public perception that the effect of this dirty experimentation (that also involved help fro…

[deleted]

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#619

Post by natmaka »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #429
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…

thanks for posting and sorry for your loss. I've heard the name TK first when reading Bill Joy's "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us". 15 years later I was burnt out and increasingly aware that Tech was not a force of good. I went on a 3 year journey trying to understand what made TK chose violence. It can't just be the struggle of a Pollak getting people to pronounce his name correctly, however hard that is. I started b…

Too much or too few of anything isn't (by definition) adequate.

By craving for material comfort we want: to possess more => better yield => economies of scale.

This leads us to live in conditions which aren't appropriate to our current 'nature': large urban areas (where we often interact with people we don't know: this is stress-inducing esp. for males), specialization (we aren't ants), centralization and bureaucracy (we aren't cogs)...

Pertinent views: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kohr#The_Breakdown_of_...

Re: Ted Kaczynski has died

#620

Post by forgetfreeman »

emodendroket wrote: post #564
lm28469 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People might know or not know each opinion he expressed, and might reasonably agree or disagree with each one Isn't that the definition of agreeing (or not) with someone ? > but that's not the same thing. How so ?

He forced his way into the conversation through terrorism. It seems reasonable enough to reject his ideas out of hand rather than give them respectful hearing.

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.
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