I agree with what he had to say about numbers divided by their digit reversal.
I agree with this guy every time I run into bad UI design.
Or just Windows in its holistic UI.
ITT people who apparently don’t understand what a shit post is.
A broken clock is right twice a day
A broken clock can be used for parts to make a time bomb
A clock that only needs to be right once.
Fun fact: was right only once to me today
Gotta hit more amps to catch it twice
From what I understand, he was broken by what he was right about.
Has good points… decides the best way to bring those points to the world is planting bombs.
Adam Lanza had some good points about autism (remember when he called into that radio show?). His subsequent expression of his feelings about the world was less than optimal. There’s no need to give the cunt kudos for his insights.
This is some “say what you like about Hitler, but at least he made the trains run on time!” level of vacuous.
Don’t forget about the highways!!
I mean, you’re not entirely wrong, but TK killed 3 and injured less than 30. Harry Truman killed vastly more people than TK and he’s essentially lauded, as most ex presidents are.
And say what you want about Hitler, but he did kill Hitler
Only positive thing he ever contributed to the world.
Its a shame more of the people today that emulate him don’t commit fully and do the same thing, and just spare us all the bullshit suffering, before it inevitably finds itself there anyway, which it will…it always does eventually. Their way is not sustainable.
They’re like the randoms I get playing chess online that refuse to lay down their fucking King when a mate is inevitable. They’ll even say as much in the game chat. Like for fucks sake, can we not?
Didn’t he also wait for the basically final moment?
Getting flagged is the new holocaust??
I’m not saying that bombs were a good or acceptable idea, but I am saying that if it weren’t for the bombs, none of us would have read that manifesto to consider this post.
As time goes on I realise that terrorists do in fact win a lot of the time and sustained campaigns of violence do in fact achieve their goals in a lot of cases. Which is fucking depressing.
Which is fucking depressing.
You could also take that thought as an inspiration
Thanos has good points. How he dealt with the problem is the issue.
He was “The Mad Titan”, not “The Reasonable Titan”.
Should have doubled the resources!
Or wish for a post-scarcity universe with limitless resources and no environmental degradation caused by sentiment species.
Or for a way to easily reverse entropy.
Jesus I never considered that alternative
Wasn’t that Mussolini?
(Source: xkcd282)
yeah, no matter their points, they still killed people. Fuck 'em.
To all the people in the comments being like “Ted had some good points.” Judi Bari, Peter Kropotkin, and Murray Bookchin are all people who have written about environmentalism and the problems of technology, industrialization, and such and better than the reactionary psychopath did. Fascists love the unabomber and use him to normalize eco-fascism. Stop fucking saying he had good points cause there are better authors who have made those same points without all the fucking reactionary and eco-fascism tied to it.
In case anyone is interested, I made some videos to help explain both Kropotkin and Bookchin:
To be clear, he was not an eco fascist, he stood against fascism. But he was en eco terrorist.
Not really enjoying this trend of everything being labelled as “fascism” these days.
For real. It waters down the meaning of the word “fascist,” and now when I talk about actual fascism (with a well-informed take because I only use that word when I’m applying it correctly), people don’t take me seriously because they think I’m just “labeling everyone you disagree with as a fascist.”
I’m not. I disagree with everyone I label as a fascist, yes. Because I disagree with fascism and I only label fascists fascists. But I’m perfectly capable of disagreeing with someone without labeling them a fascist, if they’re not a fascist. I do it all the time!
Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, its a duck. I don’t really care if the duck says its not a duck and that it is against ducks, its still a duck. When you go about blaming the lefties (of which he labelled fascists as leftists) and the gays, and envisioning a society that would functionally genocide a bunch of people I am gonna call you a fascist. Cause if we just got rid of technology and returned to primitive living, a lot of people would die. Namely disabled people and people with chronic illnesses. It is indirect eugenics. Its exactly why most anarchists nowadays do not associate with anarcho-primitivists, and call them eco-fascists as well.
The reason why people like Bookchin and Bari are better is because they critique industrialization while putting forward solutions that don’t kill a bunch of people.
And lets not pretend like fascism is this coherent or cohesive ideology. Its an ideology of opportunism. Mussolini and Hitler were vastly different, and even just comparing Mussolini’s writing to his actions there’s a lot of differences. For example Mussolini’s writings were anti-monarchist, yet the monarchy remained in fascist Italy because it gave him an opportunity.
Ted might not have been a fascist directly, but his ideology is not incompatible with fascism. And the consequences of his ideology is still genocide, even if indirectly.
You sound like a fascist to me and the electronic equipment you used to post this comment makes you a willing coconspirator to human slavery and unnecessary suffering. Especially my suffering to have read it and lost brain cells.
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Uhhhhh
Stop fucking saying he had good points cause there are better authors who have made those same points
Doesn’t this inherently imply he does in fact have good points if they’re making the same points… you also make a good point that there’s better sources that don’t come with a ton of ideology baggage but what your saying here is yes he does have good points but read someone else saying his points instead
Yes that is what I am saying. But just because someone made some good points doesn’t mean we should keep using them as the defacto idealogue. Imagine if we kept saying “Hitler had some good points” when talking about animal rights or Osama Bin Laden for anti-imperialism. If you want an edgy thing to make a meme like this out of, use the ELF or ALF. Two groups that are controversial but lack the eco-fascism narrative of the unabomber.
Those other authors need better marketing.
Glitter bomb videos were trendy for a bit. Perhaps worth a try?
Ted was apparently on the right track for his mailing campaign.
He would’ve run a killer gender reveal party.
🤣 if it weren’t for the microplastics, yes
there are better authors who have made those same points without all the fucking reactionary and eco-fascism tied to it.
Seems like a great reason to discuss Ted’s viewpoints. We should definitely discuss the ineffectual extremists. Compare and contrast. Weigh and measure. That’s what truth-seekers do. Telling people not to read a particular author borders on censorship.
But asking people to expand their reading list and providing actual recommendations - that is wonderful and commendable. Thank you for that!
I never said don’t read it, but comparing and contrasting is not what is happening. Its like when Osama Bin Laden’s manifesto or whatever was making the rounds and everyone was like “ya know he makes some good points.” Everyone just keeps parroting the points of far-right extremists cause they pointed out a pretty universal issue like imperialism, consumerism, environmental destruction, etc. If the only perspective that gets spread is that of a far-right nutjob, then it normalizes the problematic parts of their perspective. Its always just begins and ends with “the unabomber made some good points.” Not “the unabomber made some good points, but Bookchin is more practical and not a eco-fascist.”
Was the unabomber far-right? He seemed to hate industry with a passion. That doesn’t sound very far-right…
I’m not saying he’s a role model that we should emulate, and I disagree with his methods. But that doesn’t mean we should reject his ideas. Stalin was a terrible statesman and a brutal dictator, but philosophically he had some points worth discussing.
Lumping people into this category of being “untouchable” is not only an ad-hominem, but it’s also damaging, because it prevents people from engaging with the material critically and in environments where there’s a diversity of perspectives. Now the only people who read Stalin are the radical edgelords who are disillusioned with western society and so take everything he says uncritically at face value. It wouldn’t have the same allure if we didn’t make it something in the “restricted section.”
It’s perfectly valid to say “Ted’s actions were wrong, but some of his ideas are worth considering.”
It’s probably better to read the philosophers Uncle Ted was pulling from (and ultimately failed to understand).
Ellul especially.
Might be a matter of taste, but ISAIF is worth a read on the basis of its wild mix of sociological brilliance and unhingedness IMO. That’s not to say I endorse blowing people up in the slightest, but the work stands taller than the sum of its influences.
E.g. I think he synthesized and added to quite a few different authors in presenting his concept of oversocialization. (Please do correct me if I’m off-base — I love philosophy but it’s not my main wheelhouse).
ISAIF?
It’s Slways Aunny in Filadelphia
Industrialized Society and Its Future (name of the manifesto)
You enjoy doing extra work? Why not explain the gibberish acronym in the first comment?
Oh! I’m soooo sorry! I thought everyone wrote their dissertation on Ted “My First Love” Kaczynski?
Listen to yourself, you sound ridiculous.
Yikes.
It’s just off-the-cuff writing without copyediting. Tad sloppy, but weird hate, homie.
E: To squarely address my view of Teddy K, he’s in the same bucket as Karl Marx, Otto Von Bismarck, Rasputin, etc. Not someone whose core values I share, or think is a good person — but a historically interesting character who has cultural symbolic importance for the role they played in their respective time and place.
It was pretty clear from context.
As a person of average intelligence, I knew exactly what the acronym was. Not sure the issue here.
Very true, knowing random trivia is a sign of intelligence and definitely not a side product of you being terminally online.
It takes 2 seconds to put ISAIF in your search engine.
I follow the philosophy of Father Ted.
“I hear you’re an anarcho-syndicalist now, Father Ted!”
Which philosophers?
Ted misses a lot in Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society, which is where I’d start off f your looking for philosophers critical of modern technology.
If you’re curious on that particular subject, I’d also recommend Lewis Mumford’s Myth of the Machine or The City in History.
Or, for something that’s less of a tome (both Ellul and Mumford can be overly wordy), Ivan Illich’s Tools for Conviviality is incredibly critical of the modern world, but also offers hope that isn’t based on mailing bombs to universities.
Ellul is a wonderful author, very inspiring. As someone inspired both by Christianity and anarchism, he’s one of the authors in my personal pantheon.
Just don’t read his texts about Israel.
Huh. I picked that up from a used book stand on a whim just based on the tile and skimming it, like ten years ago. I should probably read it.
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*its
The fuck does the rest of it mean tho?
Shut up ugly ass
Shut up, comma, ugly ass.
Punctuation joke is on you. I can’t even read
I’m not even typing this, I’m a chatbot running on a Commodore 128
The hair change makes him look like Dr. Tenma from Astro Boy.
The longer I work in tech, the more I want to move to a farm 50km from neighbours with just me, my partner, a couple dogs, chickens, and cows.
The longer I
work in techexist, the more I want to move to a farm 50km from neighbours with just me, my partner, a couple dogs, chickens, and cows.It’s a common escapist fantasy but are you equipped to handle the needs of chickens and cows?
I have friends that have chickens. I will never do that
It’s a common criticism but do you think a reasonably smart person couldn’t struggle through it? I reckon they’d be especially likely to succeed if they were equipped with a good book and some humility. Humility can’t be given but pieces of advice can. Do you have any good ones?
Well there’s that word, “struggle”, do you think the average city dweller raised on video games and car trips to Walmart really understands where food comes from, or how?
I think if you gave them a year or two of runway with wikipedia and some YouTube tutorials they could figure it out. It’s not black magic
And in this scenario, they still have access to normal levels of food and energy during that year?
Then, what, pray tell, is their impetus?
You don’t have to walk out of your job immediately and never come back to fulfill the escapist fantasy. Full homesteading and flying a plane are both pretty lofty goals but people don’t hop in an aircraft without hours of practice and planning.
“The more I work in tech, the more I wish I was independently wealthy.”
I love how people use the word “just” when making statements about the simple life.
Simple ain’t always cheap…
Simple ain’t easy either. Fix yer plumbing, fix yer roof, fix yer fence, feed yer chickens (yes, every day!), clean their poop, etc. etc. etc.
Homesteading is a lot of work, and you can’t just go away for a weekend to visit a friend or explore a new city. It needs constant attention, and the more “independent/self-reliant/off-the-grid” you want to be, the more you need to do everything yourself.
And even then you need to buy supplies and materials. You’re not going to grow a year’s-worth of food in your backyard vegetable patch, and you’re not gonna make your own lumber, pvc, copper wire, etc.
There’s a lot you can do to achieve a greater degree of independence, but ultimately it’s still dependencies all the way down.
Even the Buddha recognized the interconnectedness of everything in the world; he wasn’t just some detached stoic with a community of self-sustaining monks. They depended on the generosity of their surrounding communities, and to this day Buddhist monks still do.
A lot depends on how many luxuries you can go without. Tiny house means less work; no modern plumbing means no maintenence; ditch big hvac systems and only worry about heating/cooling a room or two; no indoor wiring needed if you only have a couple solar lamps. Yeah you’ll still have some reliance on getting stuff you can’t fabricate but it will be much less stuff
Livestock complicates things a bunch but it can be easier if you’re OK living off a simpler vegetarian diet and putting in the upfront legwork for more durable/low maintenance food sources (native food forest).
Your life might be dark and shitty but it will definitely be simpler and easier. But if you want to optimize for a higher QoL you’ll probably have to join a cultist farm commune.
Not every commune is a cult, and we should really break that stigma…
Not necessarily, but one focused on an extreme primitivist lifestyle probably are. People generally don’t coordinate maximum isolation from society without some ulterior motives.
And why not? Society has lots of problems. If people want to live their lives in some alternative way, why shouldn’t they be able to? Why shouldn’t those people be able to gather in one place and form communities, as long as those communities don’t become abusive?
Abusive power dynamics exist in society writ large. Why do we single out communes and say they’re bad, while we ignore how coercive and manipulative the average corporation is?
This whole idea that “communes are bad because they remove people from society” is based on the capitalist lie that people need to work and produce value for the owner-caste, and that any other lifestyle is a wasted life.
Why can’t people who want to be isolated from society be isolated from society?
The problem isn’t living lives in an alternative way, it’s that a full rejection of society requires an insular and opaque lifestyle. You don’t get qualified inspectors telling you your house is a fire hazard, you don’t have access to medical professionals or diagnostic equipment, any education/information/opinions become warped/inbred/outdated over time, lack of suitable elder care or child care (depending on demographics), etc…
“As long as they don’t become abusive” is doing a ton of heavy lifting in your argument. Who’s getting let in to check for abuse? What recourse do people have to get help when they may not have transportation or phones? Are they really isolated from society if they must submit to our judgement? What measures could exist to correct abusive dynamics without external coercion?
A corporation can be bad (and they might not be punished) but at least that’s in the light of day. Regardless of how shitty things seem, I’d take a public discourse about our social ills over hushed whispers between abused wives and children. We can openly debate about the pros and cons of leaving society but such seditious talk could cost you your livelihood if the leaders of a commune think you’re not all in.
Depends how you live, but yeah. It can be expensive.
I’m in tech and live off grid, best of both worlds
Goals.
you should look at open land out in deep rural areas.
you’re more likely to kill yourself than get a farm these days.
not since the corporations bought up all the farm land.
Around COVID times, I had a coworker who bought a 100+ year old farmhouse out in Minnesota and we could see over time how he was fixing it up. Then he quit and started his homestead. Enviable man.
but yeah, I’ve heard of a lot of people in tech quitting at 20 years, which seems high? but at around 13+ years, I get it. I just don’t really know what I’d go to
I work in tech, but not “retire at 45” tech. I’ll be working till I’m 70.
I was in tech for more than a decade. I will NEVER go back to it. It’s life sucking shit piled on more shit.
Wait, are you sure youre not talking about an actual journalist with actual ethics stuck working in modern-day “journalism”?
I feel that right there
are you sure you don’t want spyware in your house? Are you sure you don’t want new shinies?! daddy oligarchs told me that was the most important thing in life.
Did you know that Northrup Grumman developed the standard USPS mail truck? They also developed the B2 stealth bomber. Northrup never intended for their truck to also be a stealth bomber, but Ted said “I’m about to do what’s called a ‘pro gamer’ move.”
Did you know that Northrup Grumman developed the standard USPS mail truck?
This was before the merger. It was just Grumman. They also built the Lunar Module for the Apollo program.
This is fact. Source.
Technology is cool
Ted had some good ideas, it’s just how we went about doing what he did I take issue with.
Great taste but awful execution.
but if he was just a peaceful crank on the street corner holding a sign people would have ignored him. Nobody listened till the bombs went off. And when he was caught all they did was make fun of his cabin. Personally I thought it was a nice cabin in a nice location.
This reminds me of that pic of the cabin being held in an underground parking garage like some sort of SCP object.
That is exactly the picture I flashed on when I wrote the comment. I’ve always wondered why they took the cabin prisoner. Probably because they didn’t want it to become an object of hero worship.
Or it Is an scp, and anyone who lives there becomes the Unabomber. Secure, Contain and protect.
Haven’t read unobomber’s manifesto and probably never will because fuck anyone who seeks attention this way.
people also talk about it as if everyone knows what its about
haven’t seen a tldr so far
Damn you’re so brave for condemning the unybomber.
Given the 2:1 ratio on that comment it seems like it actually is a contentious opinion. Maybe the backlash is all due to it being interpreted as virtue signaling, but… there’s so many comments in here unironically praising Ted for his ideas and refraining from commenting on his later actions (or actively justifying them as ex: a way to be taken seriously).
I think the contentious part is you acting sanctimonious about it. I know it rubbed me the wrong way, hence, my sarcasm.
I’m not sure it’s unwarranted to explicitly condemn the unabomber here, though. People are unironically praising him in these comments - if condemnation was as obvious as you implied you would have much stronger grounds on which to call me sanctimonious, but right now there’s plenty of people arguing the effectiveness of what he did in distributing his message and nobody that’s yet pointed out that he was a literal terrorist.
And you’re so brave for condemning terrorism.
It’s rather depressing that that’s what you consider brave, but I’ll take the compliment.
You’re being sanctimonious again.
There are the people who agree that terrorism is bad, but want to discuss the things he had to say anyway. For them, you’re just ignoring the premise of the thread with your oh so brave condemnation of terrorism. It’s not that they disagree with your condemnation, but rather, they want to discuss him and the things they agree with despite it.
Unebomber had some valid complaints
They have been made by much better people who weren’t also eco-fascists.
Eco terrorist, actually.
Yes, but few people talk about them.
Thats the problem. So maybe rather than giving the eco-fascist more coverage, we should highlight people who deserve it
Unebombers actions were bad indeed.
I don’t approve of his methods, either.
Then again, I don’t approve of the Church’s methods, but there’s some pretty good stuff buried in the Christian bible, too.
Reading something doesn’t mean you need to agree with the author. It’s not like people are financially supporting the Unibomber, or excusing his actions, when they read his manifesto. They’re just studying history.
The comment was half just an excuse to mispell the name after OP set it up like that.
But from what I’ve heard, I’m not missing much of value, so I’d only be reading ramblings of a madman.
“We give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to conform to society’s standards. That, and we’re too plugged in. We’re letting technology take over our lives, willingly.”
Absolute insanity. Obviously a madman.
Well I didn’t need Ted to figure that out. How does the rest hold up?
It’s been 30 years and people are still talking about it. He’d probably consider that a win.
He predicted that technological advances would lead to extensive and ultimately oppressive forms of human control, including genetic engineering, and that human beings would be adjusted to meet the needs of social systems rather than vice versa.
Kaczynski stated that technological progress can be stopped, in contrast to the viewpoint of people who he said understand technology’s negative effects yet passively accept technology as inevitable. He called for a revolution to force the collapse of the worldwide technological system, and held a life close to nature, in particular primitivist lifestyles, as an ultimate ideal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
He hated leftist views, he hated fascism. He seemed to advocate a technological level somewhere between Native American and Amish. Call him an isolationist libertarian, I suppose. His solution to the problem is like something out of Fight Club - a one man “Project Mayhem.”
tl;dr: His methodology was pointlessly cruel and ineffective. But his assessment of the human condition wasn’t too far off the mark.
Just gonna rip from Wikipedia
With its initial publication in 1995, the manifesto was received as intellectually deep and sane. Writers described the manifesto’s sentiment as familiar. To Kirkpatrick Sale, the Unabomber was “a rational man” with reasonable beliefs about technology. He recommended the manifesto’s opening sentence for the forefront of American politics. Cynthia Ozick likened the work to an American Raskolnikov (of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment), as a “philosophical criminal of exceptional intelligence and humanitarian purpose … driven to commit murder out of an uncompromising idealism”.
UNObomber? Is that the Mexican knockoff version?
No his letter just got returned to sender
spoiler
i will use that term whenever someone hits me with a few +4 in a game
Yeah, damn that unåbomber guy
Dead people can’t do much with attention
Onionbomber always brings a tear to the eye.
unobomber was crazy but have you seen the duobomber?
Not dos?
Unabomer is how the news wrote it.
Ted died in 2023 after spending 27 years in isolation in ADX Florence. Not sure if he considered that a win or not.
