The Unabomber Manifesto
Ted Kaczynski’s IQ: 167
Harvard admission: At 16
Youngest ever math prof, UCB: At 25
Money spent by FBI to find him: $50+ mil
The manifesto attacks modern civilization like nothing else before or since
14 best insights from a Philosopher-Terrorist
1/ Kaczynski lists the 4 big problems with modern civilization:
- “Excessive density of population”
- “Isolation of man from nature”
- “Excessive rapidity of social change”
- “The breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village, the tribe”
2/ The big difference between the primitive civilization and our contemporary world is that before, individuals had a lot of autonomy while the state was largely powerless to penetrate into the everyday life of people
Kaczynski argues that modern tech suddenly flips this balance
3/ The balance of power between individuals and the larger “system” flipped when machines made much of human labor obsolete while simultaneously allowing big corp and big govt to observe, track, exclude (social media bans, stripping away bank accounts) anyone being naughty
4/ Ted Kaczynski writes:
“The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man’s environment…it is to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been.”
5/ With robots doing most work will people find work in “service industries”?
Kaczynski says no
People will reject the “pointless busywork” of “driving each other around, making handicrafts, waiting on tables” and embrace dangerous outlets: “drugs, crime, cults, hate groups”
6/ Kaczynski against Leftism:
“Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole.”
7/ Kaczynski devotes a large chunk of his manifesto attacking leftism
But in a powerful paragraph, he argues that the conservatives are fools too
Full quote:
8/ The system knowingly destroys intimate bonds between people because it wants to SOAK UP all the loyalty and energy of individuals for itself
Kaczynski writes: “The technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently.”
9/ A “democracy” with advanced tech is less free than a “dictatorship” with primitive technology
A low tech society has “no rapid long-distance communications, no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of average citizens”
Easier to “evade control"
10/ Can we go back to small-scale communities?
Kaczynski says no because we are “enmeshed with and dependent on large-scale systems like public utilities, computer networks, highway systems, the mass communications media and the modern health-care system.”
11/ How to rebel
Step 1: CHAOS
Kaczynski:
“We must work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will…be weakened sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible.”
First weaken the system you want to destroy
12/ Step 2: Let the propaganda begin
Kaczynski: “Develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial system”
This will ensure that “when industrial society breaks down,” it stays broken
Particularly important that “technical books” be burnt
13/ Step 3: RETVRN TO NATURE
Nature is Kaczynski’s “counter-ideal to technology” because it is self-contained, “beautiful,” and already has “tremendous popular appeal”
The technological civilization must expand wastefully to survive, is ugly, and is largely despised
14/ Kaczynski on the importance of aims:
“Secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic & demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one’s power.”
A profound shame that such a brilliant mind was ruined by our own government experiment using MK ULTRA and turned him into something else.
