
“Anarchist Cookbook” author William Powell has died - miobrien
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/30/anarchist-cookbook-author-william-powell-dies-aged-66
======
Pica_soO
Papa state said it first- those are dangerous thoughts, better not thought.
Read something valuable, like Jules Verne, who would never educate you too
make Nitro Glycerin. Or read a good comp-science book, instead of learning how
to craft a virus. S/he who can engineer a building, can tear it down- deal
with it. And by virtue of reading, anyone can do that- and this is only going
to get worser. Any teenager tomorrow will be able to crisper up a plastic
eating bacteria, turning any journalists notebook to black goo under there
fingertips. If only those teenagers had some perspective, something to loose,
some dream to be held hostage- you could actually prevent this. But doctoring
at the symptoms- its so much easier. The other thing- that is almost work. To
teach everyone how to craft a china masterpiece of art- that is a nightmare,
to declare playing soccer illegal, that is doable. I wish there was a refund
on wasted time on propaganda.

~~~
toomuchtodo
This is a far more profound comment than I expected to find. Teaching
knowledge is important, but teaching ethics and morals is even more so.

~~~
psykotic
I read the Jolly Roger's Cookbook (and many other BBS text files) as a
teenager and used it to make thermite with my chemistry teacher in the 10th
grade. And reading Phrack and old virus magazines like 40HEX did more to
engender intellectual curiosity than any of my teachers and provided a solid
foundation of low-level programming skills. I'm not sure how you'd weigh the
net impact on the world of this kind of information being available, but my
hunch is that it's overwhelmingly positive. I'm automatically suspicious of
this deeply cynical view of human nature where everyone is so easily tempted
to evil deeds if presented with forbidden knowledge and the merest
opportunity.

~~~
im3w1l
It's a numbers game. Let's say 99.9% are good people who would only use the
knowledge for wholesome purposes. That still leaves 0.1% to do bad stuff. So
if all kids knew how to make viruses, 0.1% of all of those kids would be a lot
of virus writers.

I'm not saying we should lock the knowledge up. More that your anecdote
doesn't really change things.

~~~
sillysaurus3
But you made those numbers up.

~~~
im3w1l
It doesn't really matter. The important point is that there is _a_ percentage,
not the exact value of it.

------
ninjakeyboard
Just to be clear, this was in July.

"The writer suffered a fatal heart attack while on holiday with his family in
Nova Scotia on 11 July, at the age of 66."

------
ue_
I wonder if this book gave people a skewed view of what anarchism is, or if it
stemmed from the colloquial usage of 'anarchy', i.e mindless violence and
chaotic lawlessness.

Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin and Bookchin have nicer books on anarchism in my
opinion.

~~~
ferongr
That's what anarchy really devolves into.

~~~
krapp
I would argue that it likely devolves into statism, if "devolve" is the
correct term.

Not even most anarchists want "mindless violence and chaotic lawlessness,"
rather they simply want to opt out of certain laws and legal responsibilities.

~~~
ue_
I don't think that's true; social anarchists generally regard hierarchy and
unjust authority as inherently something to oppose. It is the abolishment of
law and legal responsibilities, not just opting out. It's rejecting the entire
concept of them.

------
neverminder
I am surprised nobody has mentioned roguesci.org - the site from the days when
the internet was relatively Wild West. That place was like Anarchist Cookbook
x 100 - extensive detailed discussions, explanations, tutorials. People
running the site got into some serious trouble, it was shut down in 2009,
rumor has it by DOD. Some static mirrors still exist like
[https://parazite.nn.fi/roguesci](https://parazite.nn.fi/roguesci) although
authenticity is unclear.

------
Animats
Kepler's Books in Menlo Park CA used to have a sign that they'd order any book
you wanted, except one, "The Anarchists' Cookbook". On the other hand, I've
seen copies of the book in the '60s nostalgia section of a bookstore near
Ghirardelli Square.

If you want that kind of info today, right-wing "prepper" and gun nut sites
will have it. Amazon sells The U.S. Army Improvised Munitions Handbook, TM
31-210. It's not like this info is hard to get any more.

~~~
ChefDenominator
I don't really understand the usage of the term "prepper" in relation to
_Anarchist Cookbook_. I think of prepper as someone with an underground bunker
with a large cache of vacuum-sealed stew and pickled eggs. If anything related
to weapons, it's just the inventory and tools necessary to make reloads.

Similar with "gun nut" sites - these usually have content covering the latest
innovation in trigger mechanisms, what the right carbon content of the steel
is, etc.

Caricaturing people in the wrong way cannot serve any useful purpose.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Preppers do a lot more than just store pickled eggs. The kind of person who
tends to be a prepper also tends to distrust the federal government, be
paranoid of centralized power, and is often prepping for civil war, or at very
least civil unrest. It wouldn't surprise me if most people in militias are
also preppers of some sort.

~~~
ChefDenominator
Even if they are doing all of those things, it does not mean that their actual
activities are anything other than I stated (which, by the way included
activities beyond pickling eggs, you cherry-picker).

You seem to be claiming that if someone is a prepper, then they are also
planning to blow up buildings, poison populations, etc. Seems a bit of a
stretch.

If some militia members are also computer programmers, can I go off and make a
bunch of assumptions about computer programmers based solely on this?

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
No, I said there's a tendency for the two to occur in the same kinds of
people. There's a big difference there.

And yeah, I cherry-picked the pickled eggs line. You've gotta admit it was a
good one. Neither of the main points of our posts were altered by me saying
that, it was just for flavoring.

