Ted Kaczynski grievance thread - since Ted Kaczynski has died, this thread will serve as our grievance to him

[Tequila Jong]

Heard the news last night from a guy I work with who's actually written to him a few times. RIP.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

That's because Kaczynski was a diagnosed schizophrenic.

I could pay any number of "experts in the field" to diagnose everyone here with a pathology of one sort or another. Ted Kaczynski's personal life or deeds have no bearing on his written work and central thesis, which was prescient in correctly predicting the invasive turn digital technology took, and the horrific effects it has on our lives, to the extent a medieval peasant had more free time and meaningful human contact than any of us will ever have.

Call me silly or whatever but our overlords have convinced themselves that they need to develop and use more, not less, technology to control and manage us, for their benefit, but especially ours. It is this entitled and misguided belief that their interests are also our best interests, and if they have to drag us kicking and screaming into their beneficent brave new world of pleasure, entertainment and service to fulfill their idea of utopia, then that's what they will do. They dismiss the millennia of human behavior and events that prove their core beliefs and methodology are destined to not only fail but very likely to result in their demise and the complete collapse of society.

Kaczynski would be happy to be proven right, as such a catastrophic event would result in millions dead and the end of civilization as we know it, giving nature a chance to return and the opportunity for us to live within it, not conquer it. Perhaps he is right, since we are just a blip in the history of the world, but I really hope I do not live long enough to find out.

 

[Mister Mint]

RIP brother. I'm sure the irony of the fact that your fans are the most terminally online people in the world wouldn't have been lost on you.

 

[Jewthulhu]

I don't agree with him and he's a scumbag for killing innocents, but still, rest in peace.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

I could pay any number of "experts in the field" to diagnose everyone here with a pathology of one sort or another. Ted Kaczynski's personal life or deeds have no bearing on his written work and central thesis, which was prescient in correctly predicting the invasive turn digital technology took, and the horrific effects it has on our lives, to the extent a medieval peasant had more free time and meaningful human contact than any of us will ever have.

Call me silly or whatever but our overlords have convinced themselves that they need to develop and use more, not less, technology to control and manage us, for their benefit, but especially ours. It is this entitled and misguided belief that their interests are also our best interests, and if they have to drag us kicking and screaming into their beneficent brave new world of pleasure, entertainment and service to fulfill their idea of utopia, then that's what they will do. They dismiss the millennia of human behavior and events that prove their core beliefs and methodology are destined to not only fail but very likely to result in their demise and the complete collapse of society.

Kaczynski would be happy to be proven right, as such a catastrophic event would result in millions dead and the end of civilization as we know it, giving nature a chance to return and the opportunity for us to live within it, not conquer it. Perhaps he is right, since we are just a blip in the history of the world, but I really hope I do not live long enough to find out.

But that people who came before had more meaningful human contact could be said about every single time period. Do you think peasants, who needed to stay put and work the fields, had as much meaningful contact as the hunter gatherers out chasing down wild animals with their fellow tribesman?

The fact is that being human is to be at conflict with your own nature. By the metric used by Kaczynski, ever since man first started making pointy sticks and planting crops, they were sacrificing the "true" experience of being human.

So what is the distillation of the human experience anyway, I guess to be an animal? To thoughtlessly propagate and die generation after generation without ever changing?
Animals don't feel self-conflict, but they also don't think or self actualize. Man proverbially ate of the tree of knowledge, with that came suffering but also awareness and understanding.

Yeah, those people back in the day had more meaningful human contact, but you and I today have access to the kind of knowledge, instantly, that would put the libraries of the ancient world to shame.
The richest and highest ranking scholars of yesterday didn't have what we as random broke fuckers online, have today.

I complain about technology as much as anyone else, but it seems kind of ungracious to dismiss everything it's provided and act like it was out and out better pre-industrial revolution. That's not true, that's greener grass syndrome.

So my point overall is that while I respect Kaczynski's ideas (minus the bombing thing, that didn't accomplish anything) I'm not sure how worthwhile the thesis about technology is. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's also a very narrow viewpoint based on an arguable definition of what being human means.

 

[BirdUp]

By the metric used by Kaczynski, ever since man first started making pointy sticks and planting crops, they were sacrificing the "true" experience of being human.

no, just crops
but he never claims that people won’t stop sacrificing more danger and a varied, life-or-death lifestyle for more safety and the routine of farmers

 

[cybertoaster]

RIP brother. I'm sure the irony of the fact that your fans are the most terminally online people in the world wouldn't have been lost on you.

Probably because they've been thoroughly fucked by tech, zoomers in particular seem oddly self-aware of how screwed up they are by tech. I seen many asking what was it like before the internet and saying they rather been born back then.

Frankly I'm glad I wasn't in school when social media took off, shit was already tense back then, can't imagine what it would be like if the stuff that happened there would follow you around when you were outside, specially if you were bullied a lot. Or if all the awkward/cringe shit that happens there gets recorded and shared worldwide, staying online practically forever.

 

[.iota.]

“… suppose a forested region is occupied by a number of small, rival kingdoms. Those kingdoms that clear the most land for agricultural use can plant more crops and therefore can support a larger population than other kingdoms. This gives them a military advantage over their rivals. If any kingdom restrains itself from excessive forest-clearance out of concern for the long-term consequences, then that kingdom places itself at a military disadvantage and is eliminated by the more powerful kingdoms. Thus the region comes to be dominated by kingdoms that cut down their forests recklessly. The resulting deforestation leads eventually to ecological disaster and therefore to the collapse of all the kingdoms. Here a trait that is advantageous or even indispensable for a kingdom's short-term survival—recklessness in cutting trees—leads in the long term to the demise of the same kingdom.”

Pages 44, “Anti-Tech Revolution”

i agree.
the agricultural revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

RIP my crazy Uncle Ted. May he return to monke in the next life.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

If Ted was in the Gen Z generation, his favorite video game would be Half-Life 2 or Death Stranding.

 

[CuzinEd]

even if he was a schizo (there has been no evidence), Anti-Tech Revolution is fantastic at laying out axiomatic arguments against economic control and how economies are shortsighted

but ISAIF was completely stupid, his actions were impulsive, and he still labelled his genuinely helpful literature “anti-tech”

Yes there is evidence. He was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Even if he wasn't schizophrenic he was clearly not well mentally. But he was a paranoid schizophrenic and was diagnosed as such. Kaczynski claimed he wasn't mentally ill but most people who are mentally ill don't think they are. They think the crazy is normal. From what I understand this is common with schizophrenics. This is why many of them refuse to take their medication and it does have some side effects. Which is one of the reason why they claim that they are being poisoned. That and they think the crazy shit is normal.

Evidence

Or imagine if he had been an arab named Teddullah bin Kaczsyskaidi and wrote his works in Arabic and still mailed bombs to people like a lunatic. The exact same behavior but as a brown person. He'd be taken totally differently, especially around here.

Somewhere in the Middle East there are people still praising the actions of dune coon terrorists. Like that saying one mans trash is another mans treasure. The same goes for people. One mans terrorist is another mans hero.

What I find funny about Ted Kaczynski is that people claim he was a genius and really smart. But his first bombs were failures. Like I said in my post he built them using wooden boxes. You would think he would have been smart enough to know how to properly build a bomb or at least put a little more research into it so he could do it right. He started back in 1978 and continued on through the 80's and even 90's. The world was a lot more free back then. The 90's was the decade when the Oklahoma City bombing happened. Timothy McVeigh was able to gather enough materials to build a pretty destructive bomb. You can't do that now. Not the way he did.

I could pay any number of "experts in the field" to diagnose everyone here with a pathology of one sort or another. Ted Kaczynski's personal life or deeds have no bearing on his written work and central thesis, which was prescient in correctly predicting the invasive turn digital technology took, and the horrific effects it has on our lives, to the extent a medieval peasant had more free time and meaningful human contact than any of us will ever have.

Call me silly or whatever but our overlords have convinced themselves that they need to develop and use more, not less, technology to control and manage us, for their benefit, but especially ours. It is this entitled and misguided belief that their interests are also our best interests, and if they have to drag us kicking and screaming into their beneficent brave new world of pleasure, entertainment and service to fulfill their idea of utopia, then that's what they will do. They dismiss the millennia of human behavior and events that prove their core beliefs and methodology are destined to not only fail but very likely to result in their demise and the complete collapse of society.

Kaczynski would be happy to be proven right, as such a catastrophic event would result in millions dead and the end of civilization as we know it, giving nature a chance to return and the opportunity for us to live within it, not conquer it. Perhaps he is right, since we are just a blip in the history of the world, but I really hope I do not live long enough to find out.

Schizophrenia is a pretty well known mental illness and the symptoms are well documented. From what I understand it's one of the easier mental illnesses to diagnose. But he was a paranoid schizophrenic and posted proof of that above in a response to another poster.

Yes technology progresses and it has an impact on the world. This isn't anything new. Ted Kaczynski didn't discover this. I know, it's really shocking that the people in power are using technology to try and control things. That's never happened before either. Oh wait, it has. It's always happened and it will keep happening.

Yes, Ted Kaczynski was an unhinged mentally ill man who would be happy to know that millions of people died and it saved nature. Seeing as he was a tree hugger type he would have liked that a lot. People are going to "conquer" nature. It's what people do.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

Ted Kaczynski really shouldn't be looked up to or considered a hero. He didn't do anything to deserve it. All he did was injure and kill innocent people.

If only the people he intended to receive the bombs got them it would have been totally fine. Just some cunt programmers and CEOs. The sad part is he sucked at it and the collateral were just a bunch of wagies.

 

[Gravemind]

 

[AgendaPoster]

need to develop and use more, not less, technology

I was always a hardcore "progressive" when it came to technology, from a very young age. I could write books on how technology improved my life in hundreds of ways. My job depends on it. My health depends on it. I would be almost completely different without it.
But I also consider this species too fucking retarded to not -ack itself with the tools the smarter among us invented. Nuclear bomb, genetic manipulations, AI, various war inventions (that also drove forward medicine, engineering and so much more) - we're always playing with fire, just can't help it.
Fairly sure that without playing with fire, we would be a much more primitive species too, so there is literally no way back, just forward through the risks.
After all, if we fail, probably nobody will notice nor care, who knows how many other civilizations did before us.

 

[AnOminous]

Ted's PhD thesis is available on Wikisource. I believe that part of why he didn't become a mathematician was that although he outsmarted everybody working on the problem there by producing a perfect version (with an "if and only if" equivalence between two notions) the wider mathematical community didn't give a shit because it was both an old-fashioned area of mathematics, and one that was very hard to understand. So he expended a lot of effort to do something that almost nobody else in the world could do, but nobody appreciated it, even the people who are supposed to (academic pure mathematicians).

He did become a mathematician, he just quit.

That's because Kaczynski was a diagnosed schizophrenic.

He was only "diagnosed" schizophrenic when the government hired Dr. Sally Johnson to make that diagnosis to try to keep him from representing himself, because he was too insane to represent himself but apparently totally sane enough to stand trial and go to Supermax instead of a mental institution.

That "diagnosis" is complete bullshit.

 

[David Brown]

I know, it's really shocking that the people in power are using technology to try and control things.

That's not really what he was arguing. He was carrying on Ellul's legacy from "The Technological Society". The argument is not really that people are using technology to try and control things, but that technology is actually forcing changes onto to society. Man changes to fit technology, not the other way around. Ted argued that technology is causing radically fast changes in social structure which will result in radical changes to the human species itself. Ideals like freedom, self-sufficiency, independence, individuality, etc will be violently stamped out to make way for the new technological society and mankind will be battered into a new species that are essentially docile herd animals serving the technological system.

Think about how the interstate highway system and the automobile have completely changed the way commerce is carried out. People typically move their homes several times and live in totally different areas from their blood relations. Think about how testosterone levels have been dropping like a rock in the past hundred years. Think about how microplastics are in literally everything. Think about how endocrine disrupting drugs like birth control are pissed into the water supply and slurped back up en masse. Technology has not just created conditions which are harmful to people; after all, life expectancy is much higher than in the past. Modern medicine allows people survive much longer. Food production has increased so people in real countries don't starve any more. There are plenty of ways in which people suffer fewer harms in life now compared to in the past. What is more significant is the way that technology changes people as a whole. The new selective pressures are producing a new species of mankind which Ted found to be contemptible, and I tend to agree.

 

[BirdUp]

He was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

for four years after he was arrested, the Bureau of Prisons ordered two onsite psychiatrists to visit him almost every day (Dr. James Watterson, and Dr. Micheal Morrison): they both said repeatedly that they saw no signs of serious mental illness, and said the diagnosis of schizophrenia was “ridiculous”

Ted’s lawyers wanted him to plead insanity against his wishes, so they paid for a diagnosis that suited them

 

[WolfeTone]

I hate Industrial Society and it's Consequences

 

[CuzinEd]

He did become a mathematician, he just quit.

He was only "diagnosed" schizophrenic when the government hired Dr. Sally Johnson to make that diagnosis to try to keep him from representing himself, because he was too insane to represent himself but apparently totally sane enough to stand trial and go to Supermax instead of a mental institution.

That "diagnosis" is complete bullshit.

It doesn't really matter. He injured and killed innocent people because trees were being cut down around his cabin. He clearly had something wrong with him. He was not mentally well.

That's not really what he was arguing. He was carrying on Ellul's legacy from "The Technological Society". The argument is not really that people are using technology to try and control things, but that technology is actually forcing changes onto to society. Man changes to fit technology, not the other way around. Ted argued that technology is causing radically fast changes in social structure which will result in radical changes to the human species itself. Ideals like freedom, self-sufficiency, independence, individuality, etc will be violently stamped out to make way for the new technological society and mankind will be battered into a new species that are essentially docile herd animals serving the technological system.

Think about how the interstate highway system and the automobile have completely changed the way commerce is carried out. People typically move their homes several times and live in totally different areas from their blood relations. Think about how testosterone levels have been dropping like a rock in the past hundred years. Think about how microplastics are in literally everything. Think about how endocrine disrupting drugs like birth control are pissed into the water supply and slurped back up en masse. Technology has not just created conditions which are harmful to people; after all, life expectancy is much higher than in the past. Modern medicine allows people survive much longer. Food production has increased so people in real countries don't starve any more. There are plenty of ways in which people suffer fewer harms in life now compared to in the past. What is more significant is the way that technology changes people as a whole. The new selective pressures are producing a new species of mankind which Ted found to be contemptible, and I tend to agree.

I said that in my other post. I said technology progresses and it has an impact on the world. Either good or bad.

for four years after he was arrested, the Bureau of Prisons ordered two onsite psychiatrists to visit him almost every day (Dr. James Watterson, and Dr. Micheal Morrison): they both said repeatedly that they saw no signs of serious mental illness, and said the diagnosis of schizophrenia was “ridiculous”

Ted’s lawyers wanted him to plead insanity against his wishes, so they paid for a diagnosis that suited them

He used bombs to kill and injure innocent people because some of the trees in the forest around his cabin were being cut down. Does that sound like the behavior of a person who isn't crazy?

 

[AnOminous]

It doesn't really matter. He injured and killed innocent people because trees were being cut down around his cabin. He clearly had something wrong with him. He was not mentally well.

That's not schizophrenia. You can't just call anything schizophrenia and pretend it's a real diagnosis. They just picked that because it's the most discrediting of mental illnesses, much as the Soviet Union invented "sluggish schizophrenia" to discredit political adversaries. You'd think they could just accurately point to his actual acts and hope that would discredit him, but they didn't just have to assassinate his character, but his mental state as well.

I almost think he should have actually pled insanity to force the government to prove he wasn't crazy.