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Is the unabomber right?
11-16-2017, 03:05 PM
Kenny,
Are you able to to take any idea that conflicts with what you believe and suss out merits in it, despite disagreeing with the overall concept?
G
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11-16-2017, 11:05 PM
This back and forth seems to me to be the classic debate over what to do with knowledge. The truth is always good. What we do with it, at times, isn't.
The people here who appreciate TK appreciate his clear thoughts on particular issues. This does not mean that they endorse "the man" entirely, whatever that means.
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11-19-2017, 11:46 AM
Yeah I'd hope I am able to do that. I even think I demonstrated that by saying that no one is questioning his ability to diagnose society's tech problems. As a matter of fact, the Unabomber is hardly the only figure making such observations so he is not exactly unique in his correctness. His terrorist actions are unique though, so I think he is better classified by those as opposed to the nearly mainstream platitude that growing technological presence in our day to day lives will have negative consequences, so when answering the question "is the Unabomber right?" It seems that no is the best answer.
Walking around with computers in our pockets is quite handy too so how anti tech is it really reasonable to be?
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11-20-2017, 04:36 PM
His main thesis that tech gradually removes your freedom is correct, among other interesting things he pointed out in his essay. Have most of you read it?
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11-23-2017, 12:54 PM
He makes very good points about some of the negatives of modern industrial civilization on the psyche of man. For instance, the need for a feeling of autonomy and power over one's own life is absolutely true. Though I don't think that surrogate activities are necessarily less satisfying than survival activities. Still, he makes an excellent point by pointing them out. Modern people essentially do have to invent things to care about. The only base need we can't get easily thanks to civilization is love. Since that's the only thing industrialization can't solve. Yes, you can get prostitutes if make lots of money, but an actual loving connection cannot be bought. So we all at least have one non-surrogate activity. The frustration of which is often the catalyst to huge amounts of fulfillment through the personal growth and achievement required to get it. Funny how that works.
Then there is his SOLUTION, anarcho-primitivism. No thank you. We can find better solutions. In fact, it seems that the downsides may just be a transition period. As technology gets better, more and more people are finding ways to make income on their own terms.
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11-23-2017, 05:43 PM
Quote: (11-23-2017 12:54 PM)Paeter Wrote:
He makes very good points about some of the negatives of modern industrial civilization on the psyche of man. For instance, the need for a feeling of autonomy and power over one's own life is absolutely true. Though I don't think that surrogate activities are necessarily less satisfying than survival activities. Still, he makes an excellent point by pointing them out. Modern people essentially do have to invent things to care about. The only base need we can't get easily thanks to civilization is love. Since that's the only thing industrialization can't solve. Yes, you can get prostitutes if make lots of money, but an actual loving connection cannot be bought. So we all at least have one non-surrogate activity. The frustration of which is often the catalyst to huge amounts of fulfillment through the personal growth and achievement required to get it. Funny how that works.
Then there is his SOLUTION, anarcho-primitivism. No thank you. We can find better solutions. In fact, it seems that the downsides may just be a transition period. As technology gets better, more and more people are finding ways to make income on their own terms.
Anarcho-primitivism is one of the two societal norms in Huxley's Brave New World. You have that norm with a very primitive people living in the Savage Reservation, without any formal political structure, and the other norm being a tightly-controlled, hierarchized techno-state test-tube family-less modern urban dystopia.
Getting people to relinquish technology and deindustrialize is a good way to control them. That's where global warming comes in as a tool for social control.
“Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is.”
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11-23-2017, 11:59 PM
There is a very good movie/documentary called "The Net; The Unabomber, Lsd and the internet" that puts it all that into perspective.
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07-09-2018, 04:45 PM
His going astray in mainly due to the fact that he failed to understand that peace is in God alone and that everything in the material world will be subject to potentially fallenness and madness, if not now, eventually. He has the mind to understand a great deal about physical reality, but needs to develop the spiritual side which will assist in a greater acceptance and harmony even in bad times, amidst the struggles.
My hope is that Ted understands this one day.
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07-10-2018, 03:29 PM
so relevant now at my first reading... he was ahead of his time, definitely. crazy dude, however, i guess it comes with having a 99.99% IQ.. unfortunately he could not communicate and reason his ideas in a more acceptable manner, we might be at a different cultural/technological juncture at this point in time
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07-11-2018, 01:13 AM
You can write him a letter-
Theodore John Kaczynski
Reg: 04475-046
US Penitentiary Max
PO Box 8500
Florence, CO 81226-8500
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07-11-2018, 06:42 PM
I read his book as well and agreed with 99% of his points. Same goes for nearly all the fascist warlords that were supposedly evil. Either they were right or my soul have been overtaken by the dark side...both options are possible.
"Action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect." - Thucydides (from History of the Peloponnesian War)
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07-11-2018, 07:23 PM
How did he go from having a fair bit of insight into society, to mailing bombs that will blow the fingers off or kill people? I must have missed something.
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07-11-2018, 10:06 PM
Quote: (07-11-2018 07:23 PM)RawGod Wrote:
How did he go from having a fair bit of insight into society, to mailing bombs that will blow the fingers off or kill people? I must have missed something.
I recall a line from the book where he says, "We need to take matters into our own hands," or something to that effect. It was only noteworthy since we know how the story ends. Otherwise, it would juts have been some flippant comment made by an based individual. He never actually mentions sending bombs in the mail, though.
I guess lots of people have a tipping point that goes unnoticed by the general public. They just snap one day and, most likely, we'll never know the true reasons behind the decline.
"Action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect." - Thucydides (from History of the Peloponnesian War)
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07-16-2018, 12:39 PM
On an impulse many years ago, I picked up a bargain book simply because I recognized the author's name from another book (
1939 The Lost World of the Fair).
The book was
Drawing Life - Surviving the Unabomber (1997), by David Gelernter, the victim of one of the Unabomber's acts while a professor of Computer Science at Yale.
The flysheet of the book states, "ironically, the perpetrator... managed to punish one of the very few people who are deeply skeptical about computers and openly critical of technology." One is left with the impression that Kaczynski randomly opened the Yale directory under 'Comp Sci Dept' and landed his finger on a random name.
Gelernter is an interesting character.
From
Wikipedia:
Quote:Quote:
In the 1980s, he made seminal contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model, as embodied by the Linda programming system (named for Linda Lovelace, an actress in the porn movie Deep Throat, mocking Ada's tribute to Ada Lovelace).[4] Bill Joy cites Linda as the inspiration for many elements of JavaSpaces and Jini.[5]
Quote:Quote:
Gelernter is known for his critiques of cultural illiteracy on U.S. college campuses. In 2015, he commented, "They [students] know nothing about art. They know nothing about history. They know nothing about philosophy. And because they have been raised as not even atheists, they don’t rise to the level of atheists, insofar as they’ve never thought about the existence or nonexistence of God. It has never occurred to them. They know nothing about the Bible." [10] Time Magazine profiled Gelernter in 2016, describing him as a "stubbornly independent thinker. A conservative among mostly liberal Ivy League professors, a religious believer among the often disbelieving ranks of computer scientists."[11] In October 2016, he wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal endorsing Donald Trump for President, calling Hillary Clinton "as phony as a three-dollar bill," and saying that Barack Obama "has governed like a third-rate tyrant." [12] The Washington Post, profiling him in early 2017 as a potential science advisor to Donald Trump, called him "a vehement critic of modern academia" who has "condemned 'belligerent leftists' and blamed intellectualism for the disintegration of patriotism and traditional family values."[13] David Gelernter does not believe in anthropogenic climate change.[14]
"Intellectuals are naturally attracted by the idea of a planned society, in the belief that they will be in charge of it" -Roger Scruton
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01-09-2019, 02:43 PM
Bruising cervix since 96
#TeamBeard
"I just want to live out my days drinking virgin margaritas and banging virgin señoritas" - Uncle Cr33pin
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Is the unabomber right?
01-09-2019, 03:20 PM
https://youtu.be/wr5M6oEx2j4
Great documentary about his intersection with silicone valley and the fathers of the internet. Little slow but very insightful.