 |
| Ted Kaczynski's MANIFESTO is perhaps vary compelling that out technology is getting out of Control after all. |
"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life un-fulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries."Furthermore, the technological- capitalist system with the exception of extremely marginally economic areas (such as the Sahara, the deepest Amazon, and other similar areas) permits no outlet or escape from its grasp. (6.1)>>You have no freedom to live in the wild, should you so choose, because the wild has been eliminated and developed. Thus, an individual has no freedom to escape it.Each individual technology developed, which is ostensibly "good", in summation with the technologies that came before it - limit an individual's freedom, because they have to abide by the rules of capitalism, the state, or by custom in order to use the technology. For instance, once the boombox was developed, people who chose to use boomboxes came into conflict with people who didn't like the use of boomboxes. The state (police) become the arbitrator between people who use and don't use boomboxes, and individual human freedom (to enjoy or not enjoy the use of boomboxes is regulated by another organization. While this example is relatively minor, modern man's life is more regulated than ever before.
(7)>>The Industrial Revolution was a mistake. I honestly wish the internet didn’t exist, we would be better off without it. Every modern problem we have today is practically because of the internet. Think about it. The internet has done more harm than good. Now, as I drift to sleep tonight, with my phone on charge just so I can check it in the morning, only to wake up and face the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Characterizing it as being a "slave to technology" overdramatizes the situation. Technology has been pretty good to us, it's not on a par with slavery. (8)>>This isn't The Matrix. In fact, technology is our slave, not the other way around. We are no more slaves to technology than slave owners were slaves to slavery.That being said, we are absolutely dependent on technology, and unless you are willing to let the vast majority of the human race die, we will continue to be dependent on technology in the future. We can't help it; we must embrace it and make the best of it and make sure everyone benefits from it. The alternative is simply unacceptable. (9)>>The Unabomber manifesto was really an eye opener for me. I was so confused/disappointed why Berkeley, the center of the free speech movement, became the epicenter of limiting free speech. But now I understand the psychology behind it. His only problem is that he didn’t seek to make a change, just an impact. He could’ve been key at raising such awareness on the dangers of tech, but he chose instead to let anger and frustration take the wheel. Murdering innocent people (or cogs in the machine, which I see as innocent) did nothing but put his ideology at a horrific starting position.
Ted Kaczynski and the "left".
In a 1995 letter sent to a number of prominent media outlets, Kaczynski vowed to end his campaign of terror if a major journalistic outlet would run his manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, in its entirety and unedited. He seemed to believe that the publication of this document would trigger a revolution. (10)>>Kaczynski wrote that the leftists can't truly rebel against the modern world because their urge to conform is too great: "The over-socialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. "I generally agree with the idea that leftism is the source of many of our problems. Libertarianism is based on individualism and respect for individual rights. Government coercion is used by collectivists to sacrifice individual rights, which creates many of our social and economic problems.He also said " The conservatives are fools: they whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technology and economic progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values." (Technological slavery, page 36) (11)>>While I would agree that this is where the modern left is ending up, I disagree that this phenomena is purely a problem of the left-wing nor the sole route to this end point. The modern left is essentially a reconfiguration of what the old right was back when they held the mantle of fundamentalist majoritarians -- it's literally the same shit just using different controls. I think this is less of a left vs. right issue than it is a top vs. down issue -- i.e. authoritarianism of a social dominant orientation. (12)>>After every period of swift technological advancement comes a period of societal regression where ideological blindness and zealotry leads to the how and why not getting equal scrutiny as the what. And this ultimately leads to chaos, destruction and disunity. It's the same reason the American civil war was fought. The industrial revolutions made the end of slavery in inevitability, but people didn't know how to both psychologically and politically process this and it led to a political profiteer's paradise giving way to easily avoidable carnage and misery.
Final WORD on Kaczynski.
Ted Kaczynski died in prison . News media reported it was a suicide ,we can only assume if it was true. The frightening part is that lots of his predictions have been coming true.The most disturbing thing about Ted Kaczynski isn't his crimes, but the possibility that he might be right in such predictions. The death of Earth's biosphere from human activity is not certain, but it is within the realm of possibility. It's truly terrifying to even contemplate the possibility that he is sane, and we are the crazy ones.I often hear or read people claiming him to be racist or antisemitic but nobody can ever show anything in his writings to show that. In fact I’ve only seen his writings that explicitly call white nationalists idiots. That's kinda what makes this whole thing a shame. Brilliant mind. Could've taken his vision forward in a lot of ways.Decided on killing people and alone. Nobody cared his torch when things caught up to him.He seemed (maybe?) correct about some of the uses (or mis-uses) of technology but I gotta quote Karl Marx: "The Luddite movement, whose sole purpose was the destruction of the machine, was succeeded by a more conscious struggle. The new revolutionary organisations were motivated by the determination to change the political conditions under which the workers were forced to exist."
NOTES AND COMMENTS :
(1)>>Ted Kaczynski. Mr. Kaczynski traced a singular path in American life: lonely boy genius to Harvard-trained star of pure mathematics, to rural recluse, to notorious murderer, to imprisoned extremist.This. His arguments are very solid. His books Technological Slavery and Anti-Tech Revolution are both must-reads.I've always shared his pessimistic views on what the world is becoming due to uncontrolled abuse of technology, but eventually realized that not extending this pessimism to the pre-neolithic (paleolithic) times as well is all too naive, despite the fact that many neolithic atrocities didn't exist yet. Yes, almost everyone lived and died vigorous and young, there were less people dealing with disability and birth defects, and age-specific problems hardly existed, but in a brutally literal sense as everyone was simply dying otherwise if said criteriae weren't met. Most children and teens still had to die, die, die and die by the masses just so a few more or less lucky ones could live a shorter more vivid life into young adulthood or in the exceptional cases, middle age by modern standards. So ultimately it's a vain distinction, even though he did technically state the truth on some specific modern matters, and some anti-tech revolution methods could be partially acted out to at least prevent the most disastrous future.(2)>>I've read Ted’s Manifesto and he does have some good points . I personally found the ideas to be provocative and life changing. As someone that grew up thinking technology a mostly positive force, taking the Philosophy of Tech course upended that mental paradigm.I don't think he would have helped get it published if he didn't think there wasn't something philosophically relevant and worth at least considering. AND NOT TO not condone Ted's violence. Literally the first half of it sounds like a typical Petersonian screed against "the woke snowflake libs", and it's super weird that that never comes up when people discuss the manifesto. Keep in mind the manifesto was written in the 90s during the culture wars, which, for someone ostensibly living as a recluse in the woods, Kaczynski seemed to be very clued into. I'm serious--go look up the manifesto and read it in full from the beginning. He starts off by going on and on and on about "leftists", which he defines in the following way:When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. (§7)(3)>>Technology is advancing as never before . Technological progress and social progress are not the same thing. See, for example, the rapid pace of technological development (especially in surveillance technologies) in China, which has been coupled with a rolling-back of many of the (limited) liberties Chinese people had during the economic boom years. There is no prima facie reason to be against social and political equity just because you are against technological development; anarcho-primitivists, for example, tend to be pretty left-wing people.The only point at which Kaczynski speaks ill of conservatives is in §50. There, he doesn't criticize conservative values, but rather what he sees as the myopic nature of the mainstream American conservative movement, which failed to understand that rapid changes in technology are generally met with rapid changes in the broader social order. In other words, the accusation is not that conservatives are wrong, but that they're bad conservatives insofar as they are pro-technology.(4)>>ever-accelerating flow of new technology in order to sustain our growth. Technology is not only changing and becoming more advanced but the rate of the change is also increasing. Artificial intelligence could evolve beyond our control or, less dramatically, replace countless human workers, bringing social and economic instability. Techniques of gene editing might become so easy that anyone may soon be able to hack and modify their own germline, opening huge ethical challenges. Of course, we face looming unknown risks from cybercrime and cyberwarfare.But there are drawbacks to progress. Some critics of the digital era lament the power of a few giant social media outlets to shape public opinion. Others raise serious concerns about pathologies such as cyberbullying and Internet pornography. And there are those who worry about the potential loss of privacy, and the danger to civil liberties, at a time when practically every movement, phone call, and email message leaves a digital trail that can be exploited by a nosy neighbor or an intrusive government.(5)>>LAST WEEK or SO, Apple introduced it's augmented reality headset. Whenever I heard those predictions of 2024 for Apple to release glasses, I never took it seriously. Like, Apple isn't going to release something like that with the state of the tech they'll have access to by then. Even the best cutting edge tech of 2024, something they rarely do, would not even be close to consumer ready. There is no near term display technology that's going to achieves even close to what is required for a mass consumer product like that. I've been saying for a while, the first generation of AR is going to be focused on pass through, and just get the face of it slimmer until it looks like Visor from Star Trek.Yeah, it’s worrisome, the convergence of AI and AR carries significant potential to enrich our lives, but it also presents challenges that need to be managed responsibly. The possibility of subtle influence should act as a reminder to maintain a user-centric approach that respects personal autonomy. With transparency, ethical use, and informed choice, we can ensure that these technologies are used in a way that benefits us rather than controls us.In AI and AR integration, AI learns from patterns to predict outcomes. This capability can provide personalized recommendations and choices in AR environments. For example, by analyzing your behavior and preferences, an AI-powered AR system could guide your choices, such as suggesting a book to read or a product to buy.I feel like you think AR is implanted in our eyes. We are a ways away from that and then the argument would be implants are dangerous, which not going to argue there.Subliminal messaging, brain wave entertainment, nudge theory etc all very subtle, all very easy via an AI driven VR or AR UI. Either the AI could do it "accidentally" to ensure the desired outcome of its objective, or a bad actor could explicitly aim to use it as a means of population control/marketing etc. (6)>>ARE these devices DANGEROUS ? As we navigate the increasingly intertwined worlds of the web with Ai and Augmented Reality (AR), the issue of subtle external influence, better known as 'mind control', has emerged as a critical point of concern.A needle into the nerve stem of the eye does not go into the brain directly, there is a layer of bone that would need to be broken before you actually would reach brain tissue. Additionally, physically mixing brain tissue would only destroy it, not scramble up thoughts.Also, none of this would be alien or demonic technology, it is all rather simple human science. The effects you mentioned are not exactly difficult to replicate.The problem is that it ultimately serves no purpose as you cannot "control" the human mind as impulse will overwrites external commands. Which is why the CIA dropped the MK Ultra mind control experiments. It is easier to just use psychological suggestion to get people to behave the way you want them to than it is trying to force them through some convoluted invasive external control method. (6.1)>>You have no freedom to live in the wild, should you so choose, because the wild has been eliminated and developed. There is a forceful interplay between society and its technologies. Society creates technology, but society is also created by technology. As Daniel Bell points out, Marx said in Capital that "in changing the technical world, Man changes his own nature." If human nature is partially the result of a society's technologies, it becomes crucial to examine technology both to ascertain the effects of technological history and to attempt to infer the consequences of technological decisions on the future development of society. What I mean is that before digital technology, we were already on the brink of extreme alienation. We already had an economic system that was starting to burn itself out, that was built increasingly on constant consumption and the exploitation of labor.And then digital technology came later in the century and offered an opportunity to do things in a different way. It offered the possibility of retrieving a common space and a way for people to share and connect. It was a chance to build an economy that wasn’t based purely on the extraction of resources and capital.But that’s not what happened. Instead, digital technology was used to double down on industrialism. And industrialism was always about getting the human being out of the equation. It was about assembly lines and automation and separating workers from the value they’re creating. It was about business owners paying their workers less money and gaining more control over them at the same time. AI got embedded into autonomous cars, robots started replacing our jobs, smart cities engage surveillance technologies combining big data with machine vision which can track down anyone, anywhere, in real time. These technologies have become ubiquitous, omnipresent and … omnipotent. This is the last moment for us to reflect about it and to ensure that the tech companies will not cross the line of the “don’t be evil” paradigm. Stakes are high: it is our very existence as humanity.What it may mean, is that if we want to retain freedom and humanity, we may have to resign – at least partially – from our strive for perfection, comfort and safety. Human is to err as the saying goes. But human is also to disobey, to rebel and to intentionally break the rules or even the law. They are a world away from a future of automated driving and here’s the rub. In our pursuit of better technology, we have to develop even more amazing technological systems that require less and less interaction with us. But when they fail, they can do a disproportionate amount of damage. This may involve major catastrophe. (7)>>The Industrial Revolution was a mistake.It's just a product of cause and effects.Before we pollute the atmosphere, we didn't investigate or belief that human actions can cause global catastrophe. The industrial revolution helped to lift standards of living now, that many of our middle class live more luxurious lifestyle compared to kings of the past.However, given a time machine, one should certainly try to promote clean energy in the first place and develop robots for workforce, and fix the economy to become universal basic income instead of capitalism. It's not easy to do any of it without the industrial revolution.I think the thing is that throughout history humans have been looking for ways, how to make life more comfortable and, well, better. Already starting by learning, how to make fire. This made life easier and better. And everything ever since then followed. Also in the beginning there is lack of knowledge - you find a new source of energy (i.e coal or oil), but you yet don't know the full consequences.Fast forward to today. Basically we are asking people to do something, which goes against everything humans have been doing throughout civilizations, i.e trying to make lives easier and more comfortable. We are asking people to give up on everything, basically. That's so shocking and mind-boggling that it creates a massive emotional crisis and denial in the society.Retrospectively of course. Industrial revolution sowed the seeds of where we have reached by now. Nobody thought that way back then I guess, though. At least not in the beginning. Although who knows. Smelling that toxic air from factories must have made some smarter minds think that the stuff coming out of chimney's isn't really healthy and who knows, where it might lead... but here we are. (8)>>This isn't The Matrix. In fact, technology is our slave, not the other way around. The system of life is a machine, and each item in that system is a cog in that machine. But are you asking the right questions. Because if you are in a matrix, then say story one, could it be that the thought you had of her being stabbed was not of your own choosing and was put in your head, by the system as a signal of events to come. So often we look at the world and think of it as a matrix, but forget where the matrix is located. The matrix is located in the mind, the matrix system is a connection of human minds, that projects the virtual world around the minds. Would she still have been stabbed if you had not thought about it. This brings us to the vase in the oracles room. Our first lesson in cause and effect. She knew he was going to break the vase. Leaving him with no choice in deciding wither the vase would be broken or not! Meaning you had no choice in deciding on the thought you had, it was put there by the system to create a casual set of circumstances. Because the matrix is an imitation of the real world, and the world had causation.(9)>>The Unabomber manifesto was really an eye opener for me. What is Kaczynski’s message in that manifesto? Since most people aren’t going to drop what they’re doing to read the over 25,000-word document, I’m going to explain it. Mainly, because he made some points worth our contemplation. The main point: the prevalence of technology in this world has reached a catastrophic level. Well, it seems odd to heap praise on a terrorist, but the man was certainly a visionary. Think of the smart phone. 10 years ago, you could get one if you wanted, or not. Now they’re all but mandatory. China has used AI to build the most advanced surveillance system in the history of the world. If you don’t think these technologies are going to be used in “democratic Western” countries, I have a bridge to sell you. Jobs and credit are determined by AI. There is a vast political divide due to social media’s influence and information silos, which will only escalate past the point of no return. With the advent of AI, the world has reached a turning point, and techno-ethics are rarely considered. Monopoly Capitalism is combined with technological control and manipulation to siphon every last dollar out of the working class. I don’t think a sabo-cat revolution is necessarily the answer to these problems. What is missing is an honest discussion of the pros and cons of unending technological innovation, and how they can be used to manipulate, control, and ultimate subjugate entire populations. The tech giants do not want any such discussion, as technological progress is the goal of it’s own sake, never mind the consequences, the people it puts out work. Technology has become a living organism, and it’s goal is to reproduce and grow, until man has no choice and little understanding of how the machines they designed even work. The tech giants are multinational, bound to no nation state, with the only code of loyalty being profit, monetizing human behavior. Eventually they will figure out a way to read thoughts. They are already working on it. Information is being encoded in DNA, which has a high storage capacity. In this society, man has become more like a machine that the machines have become like men. But, if not for this tech, we would not be posting on this page. It’s high time we have a talk about where we are and where we want to go, as all indicators to me seem to point towards dystopia. It is possible that Kaczynski could have gotten his ideas published without having to resort to terrorisim, as many of his arguments stand on their own merit, and are descended from Jacques Ellul’s “The Technological Society. (10)>>Kaczynski wrote that the leftists can't truly rebel against the modern. Kaczynski HATED left-wing politics and people. He wrote extensively on it, going so far as to say leftists are driven by “feelings of inferiority” and that leftist politics are “one of the most widespread manifestations of craziness in our world.”I don’t know if its necessarily fair to say Kaczynski was right-wing, though. He was definitely a primitivist, and I think that’s all he was concerned with. To say he was “just crazy” is an exaggeration, but I don’t think his views can be labelled as part of either end of the spectrum.Kaczynski opens the manifesto with a full on attack against the Left. Points 6–9 in the Manifesto are actually entitled THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM. He later blames modern leftism for the way that it oversocializes humanity making the individual less of an Autonomous being.Kaczynski clearly detests what he sees as the Left’s tendency to make up problems. This is expressed in point 22 of the manifesto‘If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.’For Kaczynski, those on the left are plagued with low self-esteem and he believes that this has negatively impacted society.However he also views the power process as all important. In a sense some of his writing has a undertone that would resonate with Arthur Schopenhauer or Friedrich Nietzsche. He would like it if human beings rise above the fray and throw off the yoke of oversocialization. It is through the creation of our own goals that we truly live with purpose in his world.Technology for Kaczynski is destructive force in that it pulls people away from a self-sufficiency that is in tune with nature. It is in this context that his primitivism comes out. He would like a return to some type of traditional value system that emphasizes stability.Nevertheless Kaczynski has harsh words for Conservatives. In point 50 he says this:The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.So he throws scorn on both sides as he sees each as enabling the malice of a technological society that he believes has been a disaster for our species.Where does that place him on the political spectrum? Certainly far from the moderate center. One could argue that his political worldview falls into an anarchist camp whether that is part of the extreme right or left is open to interpretation.(11)>>While I would agree that this is where the modern left is ending up. Each and every time we give in to radical leftists, we give up a little more of our own freedom. If you are a Republican, your words are either banned, censored, or turned against you in false accusations of racism, sexism, or one of many other isms. When Americans began to identify themselves by their heritage, gender preference, or sexual orientation, it became too easy to say the wrong thing or address a person in the wrong way. We are now supposed to feel guilty about everything we are, everything we say, everything we do, and everything that has happened in our nation’s history. As long as voters continue to elect leftist Democrats to local, state, and federal offices, the chaos will only spread until we no longer have a civil society.Look around and the signs of dysfunction are everywhere. Just as the scale of the country’s wealth and power are hard to comprehend for those of us outside the imperial homeland, so too is the scale of its violent disorder and dysfunction. Take homelessness. In Los Angeles today, there are approximately 42,000 people sleeping rough at the moment — and some 113,000 in California overall. In the whole of England, by contrast, there are around 3,000.Or consider the scale of violence. Across the whole of the US, around seven people are murdered for every 100,000.I think. Something is clearly wrong in America. What, exactly, is it? The use of the criminal law for political purposes (which some say is the essence of the “f” word)? But it’s liberals doing that, and the essence of liberalism is that every thing is permitted. What would drive a liberal to abandon, in such an obvious way, what he cherishes most of all? Is this the answer: Science, liberalism’s main weapon, provokes the fury to destroy its own liberal reason; it cannot endure science’s victory over morality, a victory sparked by the spirited self-pity of a nonexistent self, a self reduced to zero.”(12)>>After every period of swift technological advancement comes a period of societal regression where ideological blindness . While we cannot deny the fact that technology has made errand running obsolete in some aspects of life, it is important to say that we are also losing a chance to work our brains, muscles, and body in general. Overall, technology has undoubtedly become a large part of everyone’s lives and our society. Although it offers plenty of advantages, it comes with drawbacks such as ruining our productivity, making us insanely lazy at times, and potentially even threatening our long-term health.Yes, every element of technology is designed to be as addictive as possible, but deciding whether technology controls our lives is entirely on us. Although technology will likely never become a smaller distraction than it is today, we’re more than capable of minimizing the chances of letting technology negatively affect our lives.Just a few decades ago, no one could expect to push some few buttons on a certain gadget and expect a ride to come to meet them within a twinkle of an eye. Long before we had Lyft and Uber, people would trek to their destination if they couldn't find a cab or a ride to hail. In case they couldn't find a ride close to wherever they are, they would walk to the nearest stop to find a cab, or find the nearest public hub to wait their turn. These days, however, you don't have to walk to cabs anymore; instead, fast cars drive themselves to you.It seems as though with every new piece of technology that gets released, we get lazier and lazier.
