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.
You can find the same logic among a lot of extremists. My take is that they start with an outcome they're excited about and reason toward it, choosing facts to fit. For those who have dealt with narcissists and abusers, it's common there, too.
The gist is that plenty of kids with narcissistic or abusive parents grow up and eventually cut off contact with their parents. For some, I'm sure, this forces a reckoning: they really look at what they've done and try to get better. But many do what they've done their whole lives: find ways to explain why they are still right.
Dashiell Hammett in The Thin Man gives a good description of what it's like dealing with people like this: "Most people [...] get discouraged after you’ve caught them in the third or fourth straight lie and fall back on either truth or silence, but not Mimi. She keeps trying and you’ve got to be careful or you’ll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you’re tired of disbelieving her." A description more familiar to people these days, I'm sure.
if you study him you'll find he makes many references to Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society (La Technique). It's a very deep read. If you follow what he read it all makes a lot more sense. Ted radicalized himself in isolation as he tried to escape modern society, and was unable to get away (they built a highway through where he lived which he viewed as destruction of the habitat. he ended up having to avoid hikers and tourists).
Another great book that also touch on that is James C Scott The Art of Not Being Governed[2]
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.
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.
He was a subject of unethical human experiments while at Harvard for one. That may have influenced his opinion. His crusade against academic scientists may have been more personal than even he consciously realized.
I can’t imagine being dosed with that much LSD while people are yelling at you and trying to scare you (this went on for years?) Doesn’t surprise me that that could break a person.
I would say that perhaps writing the paper itself was the spark that he needed to begin bombing people. From the fourth paragraph in the paper: "We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence;"
hmm i am not sure that is the case, (though i only watched the netflix series, and read the manifesto, so i am not very familiar with his life), but i thought it is more a gesture of helplessness.
There is a saying in my country, that is hard to translate in English, but it goes something like: powerlessness births violence.
