
Ted Kaczynski's Manifesto [pdf] - danielovichdk
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Unabomber-Manifesto-1-Industrial-Society-and-Kaczynski/1ac5ae3a279a5833cf83fb320cd77e9010769c63
======
mullingitover
I remember reading this as a young person and being impressed by how
intellectual it sounded. Reading it as an adult, it now sounds like a dressed-
up rant from your uncle who spends far too much time watching a certain cable
news network.

~~~
kneel
Ted Kaczynski offered a critique of 'leftism' that still seems to be accurate.
The 'Bay Area Liberal' stereotype that prioritizes defense of victims over all
other matters.. well we've definitely seen explosions in that arena.

The larger picture of technology taking over society seems to be accurate as
well. It was only 13 years ago when we got the iphone, it's bizarre to think
that people didn't stare at their phones constantly only 15 years ago.

~~~
gridlockd
> Ted Kaczynski offered a critique of 'leftism' that still seems to be
> accurate.

I highly doubt that's his own analysis, rather it's Nietzsche's "Genealogy of
Morality" dressed up in a more modern vernacular.

~~~
salty_biscuits
And just like how I interpret Nietzsche in the context of him being the third
wheel in an open relationship, this feels like someone who is reacting because
they feel let down by the promises of "leftism" or society in general. It says
more about the psychic state of the author than about the truth of the world.

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anonymousiam
I always appreciated Ted's insight into the bad things about technology. His
manifesto is well written and makes a strong case. However, I could never
understand how he gets from pointing out that technology has some harmful
side-effects, to believing that his conclusion is a justifiable rationale for
murdering people.

~~~
hokumguru
The guy was a terrorist and serial killer. Though very intelligent, you can
hardly expect his conclusions to be rational ones - he clearly fell off a
cliff mentally and never recovered.

~~~
wpietri
I think you're mixing up a few things here: ability to reason, empathy for
other people, and a well-balanced mind. There are plenty of terrible people
who are perfectly rational. They come to conclusions the rest of us find
obscene not because they're bad at reasoning, but because they have different
values and priorities.

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woopwoop
I was 6 years old when this document was released to the public. It was
written by a man who mailed bombs to people, killing several. He mailed this
document to many large newspapers, demanding they publish it under the threat
of further acts of terrorism. Eventually, law enforcement pushed for
publication by the New York Times and the Washington Post, hoping that a
member of the public could help identify the author. In 1996, about half a
year after its publication, Kaczynsky was arrested.

It seems to me that, given all of this, we have something of a moral
obligation to ignore this document. The ideas it contains are quite
widespread; you can read them elsewhere. Of course you must listen to your own
conscience, but how is publicizing this not giving a murderous terrorist
exactly what he wanted?

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dilap
I remember reading this when it was first published, in the newspapers.

It was an eye-opening experience -- previous reports had all described the
manifesto as rambling, incoherent, crazy, etc. It turned out to not be like
that at all.

It was the first time I really had my eyes opened to how deceptive the media
can be.

~~~
pinkfoot
His manifesto is remarkably close to the blue smurfs’ position in the movie
Avatar.

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DonHopkins
It's Battle of the Manifestos day on HN! Compare and contrast this with "Lisp:
Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big (1991)":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22585733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22585733)

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gentleman11
Curious why this was flagged. I read the posting guidelines and didn’t find
anything it clearly violates

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wespiser_2018
To summarize, Ted's main point is that man has been alienated from our "true
nature" as a result of industrialization, and this is making us sad. He argues
that we should leave the harmful industrialized world, and return to nature,
which is exactly what he did in a cabin in Montana.

This specific style of anti-modernity (industrialization leads to alienation)
is at least as old as Rilke[1], who wrote about it extensively in his 1910
book, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge[2], and I get a chuckle thinking
to myself that this is the most viable path to a truly "post-modern" world
devoid of modernity.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke)
[2]
[https://archive.org/stream/TheNotebooksOfMalteLauridsBrigge/...](https://archive.org/stream/TheNotebooksOfMalteLauridsBrigge/TheNotebooksOfMalteLauridsBrigge_djvu.txt)

~~~
cbfrench
I’d say you can go back to Blake’s “dark satanic mills” for some of those
critiques. The anti-industrialist strain of Romanticism is almost as old as
industrialism itself.

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wolfgke
It is quite plausible that cruel psychological experiments, that were carried
out on Ted Kaczynski, turned him into a terrorist:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-
and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/)

~~~
celias
Alston Chase, the author of the Atlantic article, appears in this radiolab
episode
[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91721...](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91721-oops)

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Simulacra
Need some help. A friend of mine who is blind studies society and technology.
He has wanted to read this for some time, but we've not been able to find an
audiobook version. Does anyone know if there is an audio reading of this?

~~~
glerk
A quick search on YouTube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5ITyifcYy8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5ITyifcYy8)

~~~
Simulacra
Omg. Never thought to check you too. Thank you!

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earthtourist
He was smart (if unstable) but overall a huge pessimist.

Technology has reduced suffering to an incredible degree. It's created some of
its own suffering, sure, but overall I'd much rather live today than any time
in the past.

And 100 years from now we'll have created a world with incredibly low amount
of suffering. It's inevitable if we don't suffer a major setback like nuclear
war.

He seemed depressed and pessimistic. Not a good state of mind for evaluating
the world objectively.

~~~
saiya-jin
I agree he was a chronic pessimist, world is overall a better place than it
used to be.I hope the trend will keep on, especially for the weakest and
poorest.op

Just one point with suffering - too little makes us 'weak' when we inevitably
have to face it at some point, in some amount. I still prefer it this way, but
as with everything, there are some drawbacks.

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create
weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

Soon mankind will be tested due to covid pretty harshly I believe.

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Svoka
My God. I couldn’t make past paragraph. Person claims that industrial
revolution was a disaster? This is so far from truth. Over last hundred years
world hunger was basically eliminated. Ye. May be “third world countries” are
not as amazing as whatever author thinks, but people are not dying from hunger
anymore.

We live in era of unprecedented prosperity. Author has too much time and
ignorance on his hands.

------
zulgan
a bit off topic, but if you enjoy questioning the value of technology and the
impact on our society, check out Neil Postman's "The Surrender of Culture to
Technology"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlrv7DIHllE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlrv7DIHllE)

