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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
Where to start with this…
I suppose “Why?” is the big question. Why read this?
Well, one reason was because a favorite author, Chuck Klosterman, has mentioned it a number of times.
Reason two was a matter of convenience. I found out this is available as a free audiobook on Internet Archive, and I was curious. I’m like a cat that way. I’m also like a cat because when I’m hungry, I’m obnoxious as hell.
Reason three was that this is a fascinating cultural document. One way to get published in the New York Times? Threaten to send people bombs. Poets, take note.
I suppose the next thing is to say that the star rating is completely divorced from the way Ted Kacsynski decided to try and bring about what he thought was a necessary revolution. Maybe my rating it this way is upsetting to some, but I don’t really care. Get your own Goodreads going, review shit based on how you felt about it. That’s kinda how this whole thing works.
I don’t think there’s much reason to read this thing if you’re looking to decide whether or not Kaczynski was a bad guy. He was OBVIOUSLY a bad guy.
I do think there’s an argument to be made that what he did was wrong, but perhaps he thought that what he was doing was taking extreme measures to prevent what he thought was basically the complete dissolution of human society, or that he was taking actions that he felt were necessary to “free” humans from their technological/societal enslavement. I don’t necessarily agree with these ideas, but I do see similar sentiments in modern culture, that extreme measures are justified if the end goals are important enough. If you tweeted or Instagrammed “Burn it all down” in response to a demonstration last year, I don’t know that you’ve got great ground to stand on in terms of judging hardline ideology and the willingness to go pretty far in order to achieve a goal.
Please note that I’m not saying that tweeting a sentiment is as bad as sending someone a bomb. I’m saying that holding the idea that it’s okay to create destruction and harm in order to achieve a goal (that would better society) is closer to the beliefs of Ted Kaczynski than the beliefs of Gandhi.
ANYWAY.
This starts off with a critique of the modern (at the time) left, which sounds almost identical to what someone would say about the modern left today, just with a less internet-centric focus. It’s almost uncanny, really, because this came out in 1995, almost 30 years ago, and yet it reads like something written by one of three people: A modern conservative pundit, a modern centrist criticizing the left because it’s currently the seat of power and the individual is more concerned with power than left/right dynamics, or a modern leftist who wants to make a name for himself by being anti-status-quo. So edgy! K (I’m just going to call Ted Kacynski K from here out because that’s not the easiest name for me to spell) even quotes a lot of French Revolution philosophy and ideas that are very en vogue right now with groups like antifa and ecoterrorists and whatnot. But seriously, if you’re a pundit or political commentator or whatever, you can basically just rip off this essay, and if you get caught, just say that you were taking Kacsynski’s ideas and removing the problematic context, and that you weren’t necessarily denying him credit, you just don’t think a murderer should receive any notoriety. Might work?
K’s bashing of the left isn’t really about the left, I think. I think he’s trying to say that the problems of technological modernity are easily seen in progressive, leftist people of the time. It’s important to put this in historical context: Bill Clinton was President from 1993 to 2001, so the Democratic party was experiencing a moment of real power. From 1987 to 1995 Democrats held the majority in the Senate. So I’d guess the bashing of the left is probably more about bashing the center of power at the time than it is specifically about the positions of the left, and I think if things had been the other way, K would’ve trashed Republicans instead.
K then talks about the main problem, as he sees it, with modern society: people have no access to going through a process of power acquisition. K defines “power” a little differently in terms of the type of power he sees as critical for personal development. Power over other people is not real power. Money is not real power. For K, it’s a more primitive thing, confidence in one’s self, that an individual can determine his own destiny. As an example, a person living long ago would obtain their power through learning to become a hunter. That would fulfill their power process, and they would feel fulfilled as a human being. People kind of had to learn something, be tested, and come out the other side in order to be a fully realized person.
Modern, technological, industrial society makes our baseline survival tasks easy enough that most of us do not have to do anything strenuous just to get by. As K puts it bluntly, to get a mid-level job with a comfortable salary usually only requires a moderate effort. Far, far less than the effort required to hunt and gather for survival, basically. Living a comfortable life in modern society isn’t all that difficult.
The last big thing is about technology, and this is where it gets a little depressing. More than a little, maybe.
According to K, technology is the most powerful force in the modern world. Technology ALWAYS progresses up to the point a society completely collapses. It’s the one force that operates this way. Regardless of who holds political power or what the prevailing ideology of the time is, technology always moves forward. Morality, centers of power, and other concepts may change, but technology is always expanding and moving forward.
“The system” exists to feed technological advancement, not human enrichment. People conform to the system, and to the needs of technological advancement, not the other way around. K’s assertions here are that we force kids into math and science because that’s what’s required to advance technology, not because this is what makes people happy. He also asserts that we mold the individual to fit society instead of molding society to suit individuals, even to the point that psychological and pharmaceutical interventions exist because they can turn someone who cannot or will not exist in modern technological society into a productive person.
TRUTHS
There are some things that K got right, if you ask me. I’d like to highlight some of those.
Early on, K warns that separation from industrial/technological progress will be painful and difficult, and the longer we go, the more difficult it will be. I think that if you’d told people they had to give up their smartphones in 2010, they’d have an easier time doing so than in 2020.
I do think, as K says, that technology is a difficult force to stop because each little piece develops separately and for a seemingly good or at least benign purpose. There are very few technologies that are “evil” from the outset, the problem is more that technologies come about, mesh with each other, and remove the human element from day-to-day tasks and interactions.
K talks about how it’s inhumane to use technology to make some jobs irrelevant, then to tell people they need to learn how to do other jobs instead. That there is no dignity for the people who lose their occupation, and there’s rarely consideration of technology removing jobs people may enjoy and that give them fulfillment. I think the most modern example is the whole “Learn to code” business. The concept of replacing manual labor with a computer-based profession probably gets caught up in the environmental discussion and the need to move away from fossil fuels, but I’m of the opinion that if coal miners were able to get jobs making solar panels or wind farm blades and so on, safer jobs that are still very hands-on and require physical skill, I think we’d be in a very different situation.
K mentions that the needs of a technological society are often disguised within propaganda. A technological society will need more people who can work with and advance technology, therefore more young people are pushed into science, math, and tech, even if they find these subjects uninteresting and unfulfilling. This seems possible to me. Movements like STEM-based education and Girls Who Code make it seem like a good thing, a pressing social issue, that more girls get into the tech industry, but I do question whether it’s a human-centered movement, intended to improve the lives of girls and women, or if it’s a techno-centric idea, intended to improve technology and the tech sector while mostly disregarding the happiness and preferences of the people who get swept up in it. Is the problem that we need a more even distribution among genders in the tech sector, or is this an inhumane effort to propagandize the underlying need, which is simply more people working in STEM? I’m 100% sure there are girls who are interested in these fields and who would be successful in them, by the way, and I don’t think people involved in these movements are consciously doing something wrong or evil. My question is: Are these movements really about getting a more even distribution of girls and women in STEM as the end goal, or is this more about getting more people in STEM, in general, as a method of continuing the technological system, and girls are a convenient, untapped population? By forcing the needs of the technological system through the lens of gender, we can actually make it seem as though we’re doing a good thing by pushing girls into STEM, and we can convince girls and women who might not be interested in STEM that by going into a STEM field, they’re in sort of activist role. So, a career field that might be very boring, rote, and machine-like in its day-to-day tasks may be marketed as a “feeds the soul” kind of job because by being in that chair, you’re representing an underrepresented group in the field. Meanwhile, the reality may be that the system just needs more bodies. I mean, this is depressing as fuck, but think about The Matrix and all those bodies plugged in to operate the machine. Is there a need to have a more even gender representation inside the matrix, or would that just be transparent propaganda to get more people in the system, powering the system, and the truth is that the system doesn’t give a flying fuck about the gender of those bodies?
This is hard to talk about, so maybe it’d help if I flip it to something more personal:
I worked as a librarian in a public library for 15 years. There are men in libraries, but not many, and there are very few men that I would call “traditionally masculine.” By the by, I don’t define “traditionally masculine” as being assholes or mean to women or whatever. I mean more like a fella who is interested in traditionally masculine things. Fuck it, a guy who doesn’t wear skinny jeans and suspenders, who has opinions on brands of power tools, drinks brands of beer that are sold at 7-11, and does not spend time or money on hair products, including and especially overly-precious beard care routines. A man’s man. Okay? I guess pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about if you want. I’m sort of over talking about this stuff in ways that anticipate the weirdest idealogues reading something and interpreting it in the wrong-est way possible.
I enjoyed working as a librarian, for the most part, and I do think it’d be nice to see more men in the industry. But, if an individual, a man’s man, asked me whether I recommend working in the library...I might say no. While it’d be good to have this person in the profession, it’s good for the profession and maybe the public served, it might not be in the best interest of that individual. So, is the abstract concept of diversifying this profession more important, or is the overall happiness of the individual over the course of their life more important?
This one might’ve spoken to me more than anything else: we don’t have to strain ourselves to do things that are useful in a direct way, like finding food, and we fill our lives with surrogate tasks and goals. Bodybuilding or distance running are surrogate tasks unless you actually need your strength and endurance for your everyday life (and if you did, you wouldn’t have to bodybuild, you’d build the needed strength from your work). Basically, everything we do, other than those things that are not for direct survival, are surrogate tasks. You can have goals, or even things you consider altruistic, but the truth is that these are filler tasks artificially created to fulfill our human needs and to create a faux power process. It’s an extremely depressing way to look at modern life, and it’s a little difficult to think another way once you go down this road.
Whew
SOME THINGS I DISAGREE WITH
Well, aren’t you glad THIS section exists!? And that there are words here!?
K sees genetic engineering as a big threat. I do not. I think, like most scientific ideas, genetic engineering is not inherently good or bad, it’s the application of it that changes things. K sees the obsession with beauty and longevity as a really bad thing, and he might have some points there, however genetic engineering has the potential to make the lives most of us live no longer, and maybe not aesthetically different, but better. I think most people see genetic engineering as basically evil Hitler shit. I guarantee you those folks have never been on dialysis. There’s a huge gap no one talks about between making all babies blonde and blue-eyed and making sure that someone’s vital organs function within a typical range, which allows them to live in reasonable physical comfort. I don’t really see genetic engineering as an evil influence if it allows people to have typical biological human functionality and removes suffering from people who just lost a genetic roll of the dice. I mean, there’s no reason for anyone to suffer from certain ailments if a cure, or even lessening of symptoms, is attainable through gene therapy. There’s no “Huntington’s Culture” or “Dementia Culture” that would be lost, and I think, weirdly, K talks so much about individual freedom and so on, yet doesn’t feel like genetic engineering should be a matter of individual choice. Maybe he feels that it should be, but it wouldn’t, in practice.
I think my primary disagreement with K is in the idea of what humans are “meant” to do. I think he sees humans as unhappy as a result of technological advancements, and I think there’s validity to his claims. I don’t see the advancement of technology as a force that increases happiness. However, I’m not sure that the answer is to go backwards on a societal level, both because that seems unsatisfying to me, and also because I don’t think that’s realistically possible.
On the realistic side, I just don’t see us rolling back technology for the sake of humane life. I honestly think it’s a possible solution, but I think when the rubber meets the road, it’s just impossible. We might compel people to give up technology, either by restriction or by damaging infrastructure, but that just seems so unlikely and difficult to manage.
On the reversion side, I wonder if the technological revolution is a necessary part of human development, and if there will be a fading of technology. K asserts that technology always advances as long as societies do, and that is true so far, but perhaps it’s possible that a society will last longer than the advancement of technology.
I wonder if technology naturally ebbs and flows, but on a longer curve than other things like politics and economics, which will always change and restructure with each subsequent generation (where technology is a-political, so it doesn’t necessarily change when a new, more progressive generation comes to power).
The thing that makes me doubt this the most: We’ve got so much amazing technology now. Shouldn’t most of us be able to work like 10 hours per week? Aren’t we capable of getting things done so much faster and more efficiently now? Why have we filled the time provided by technology with...more work? Or has work amount dwindled and like a goldfish, the remaining work expands to fill the time allotted? Either way, we’re all working 40-hour jobs even though we’ve got all this time-and-effort-saving tech.
I wonder if the technological revolution is necessary, and after we might get to something like a social, artistic revolution. If all of our daily needs were fulfilled by machines, what would we do with our lives? K seems to think we’d be miserable, but I’m not so sure. We’d certainly have to find new ways of living, but I think we would and could. People retire, and some are definitely miserable, some don’t know what to do with themselves, but others really enjoy retirement, find ways to be useful to others, and stay busy doing unimportant but fulfilling things.
This probably wouldn’t happen in my lifetime, I think we’ve got too far to go in terms of setting up a structure where people are clothed and fed without lifting a finger, figuring out how all of this would work. But as far as this version of society goes, it could be a total fucking disaster, but it could be fun. I mean, what if everyone you knew who had a mid-level job they didn’t care about was replaced in that role by a machine and was now a mid-level rapper? Would that really be a problem?
SHOULD YOU READ THIS?
Eh, maybe. If you’re curious, especially about systems of power, this is a pretty good read.
I think the most sort of stirring part is the way K talks about power and systems of power using lingo that has more recently come into the broader culture. I guess it’s a...useful mental exercise to consider that someone who did something horrible might hold a lot of the same beliefs as other people who have good goals.
I do think it’s also a useful exercise if you can read it and then think about the way that thinking only in terms of systems of power maybe isn’t wonderful. Or maybe even expanding it to looking at hardline ideologies as very questionable frameworks for looking at the world. Like, if you are of the belief that being wealthy is inherently immoral, you’ll hear echoes of yourself in here, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe you can kind of see how your hardline ideology comes off to other people.
Overall, the existence of this writing makes a great argument for the difference between speech and violence.
I suppose “Why?” is the big question. Why read this?
Well, one reason was because a favorite author, Chuck Klosterman, has mentioned it a number of times.
Reason two was a matter of convenience. I found out this is available as a free audiobook on Internet Archive, and I was curious. I’m like a cat that way. I’m also like a cat because when I’m hungry, I’m obnoxious as hell.
Reason three was that this is a fascinating cultural document. One way to get published in the New York Times? Threaten to send people bombs. Poets, take note.
I suppose the next thing is to say that the star rating is completely divorced from the way Ted Kacsynski decided to try and bring about what he thought was a necessary revolution. Maybe my rating it this way is upsetting to some, but I don’t really care. Get your own Goodreads going, review shit based on how you felt about it. That’s kinda how this whole thing works.
I don’t think there’s much reason to read this thing if you’re looking to decide whether or not Kaczynski was a bad guy. He was OBVIOUSLY a bad guy.
I do think there’s an argument to be made that what he did was wrong, but perhaps he thought that what he was doing was taking extreme measures to prevent what he thought was basically the complete dissolution of human society, or that he was taking actions that he felt were necessary to “free” humans from their technological/societal enslavement. I don’t necessarily agree with these ideas, but I do see similar sentiments in modern culture, that extreme measures are justified if the end goals are important enough. If you tweeted or Instagrammed “Burn it all down” in response to a demonstration last year, I don’t know that you’ve got great ground to stand on in terms of judging hardline ideology and the willingness to go pretty far in order to achieve a goal.
Please note that I’m not saying that tweeting a sentiment is as bad as sending someone a bomb. I’m saying that holding the idea that it’s okay to create destruction and harm in order to achieve a goal (that would better society) is closer to the beliefs of Ted Kaczynski than the beliefs of Gandhi.
ANYWAY.
This starts off with a critique of the modern (at the time) left, which sounds almost identical to what someone would say about the modern left today, just with a less internet-centric focus. It’s almost uncanny, really, because this came out in 1995, almost 30 years ago, and yet it reads like something written by one of three people: A modern conservative pundit, a modern centrist criticizing the left because it’s currently the seat of power and the individual is more concerned with power than left/right dynamics, or a modern leftist who wants to make a name for himself by being anti-status-quo. So edgy! K (I’m just going to call Ted Kacynski K from here out because that’s not the easiest name for me to spell) even quotes a lot of French Revolution philosophy and ideas that are very en vogue right now with groups like antifa and ecoterrorists and whatnot. But seriously, if you’re a pundit or political commentator or whatever, you can basically just rip off this essay, and if you get caught, just say that you were taking Kacsynski’s ideas and removing the problematic context, and that you weren’t necessarily denying him credit, you just don’t think a murderer should receive any notoriety. Might work?
K’s bashing of the left isn’t really about the left, I think. I think he’s trying to say that the problems of technological modernity are easily seen in progressive, leftist people of the time. It’s important to put this in historical context: Bill Clinton was President from 1993 to 2001, so the Democratic party was experiencing a moment of real power. From 1987 to 1995 Democrats held the majority in the Senate. So I’d guess the bashing of the left is probably more about bashing the center of power at the time than it is specifically about the positions of the left, and I think if things had been the other way, K would’ve trashed Republicans instead.
K then talks about the main problem, as he sees it, with modern society: people have no access to going through a process of power acquisition. K defines “power” a little differently in terms of the type of power he sees as critical for personal development. Power over other people is not real power. Money is not real power. For K, it’s a more primitive thing, confidence in one’s self, that an individual can determine his own destiny. As an example, a person living long ago would obtain their power through learning to become a hunter. That would fulfill their power process, and they would feel fulfilled as a human being. People kind of had to learn something, be tested, and come out the other side in order to be a fully realized person.
Modern, technological, industrial society makes our baseline survival tasks easy enough that most of us do not have to do anything strenuous just to get by. As K puts it bluntly, to get a mid-level job with a comfortable salary usually only requires a moderate effort. Far, far less than the effort required to hunt and gather for survival, basically. Living a comfortable life in modern society isn’t all that difficult.
The last big thing is about technology, and this is where it gets a little depressing. More than a little, maybe.
According to K, technology is the most powerful force in the modern world. Technology ALWAYS progresses up to the point a society completely collapses. It’s the one force that operates this way. Regardless of who holds political power or what the prevailing ideology of the time is, technology always moves forward. Morality, centers of power, and other concepts may change, but technology is always expanding and moving forward.
“The system” exists to feed technological advancement, not human enrichment. People conform to the system, and to the needs of technological advancement, not the other way around. K’s assertions here are that we force kids into math and science because that’s what’s required to advance technology, not because this is what makes people happy. He also asserts that we mold the individual to fit society instead of molding society to suit individuals, even to the point that psychological and pharmaceutical interventions exist because they can turn someone who cannot or will not exist in modern technological society into a productive person.
TRUTHS
There are some things that K got right, if you ask me. I’d like to highlight some of those.
Early on, K warns that separation from industrial/technological progress will be painful and difficult, and the longer we go, the more difficult it will be. I think that if you’d told people they had to give up their smartphones in 2010, they’d have an easier time doing so than in 2020.
I do think, as K says, that technology is a difficult force to stop because each little piece develops separately and for a seemingly good or at least benign purpose. There are very few technologies that are “evil” from the outset, the problem is more that technologies come about, mesh with each other, and remove the human element from day-to-day tasks and interactions.
K talks about how it’s inhumane to use technology to make some jobs irrelevant, then to tell people they need to learn how to do other jobs instead. That there is no dignity for the people who lose their occupation, and there’s rarely consideration of technology removing jobs people may enjoy and that give them fulfillment. I think the most modern example is the whole “Learn to code” business. The concept of replacing manual labor with a computer-based profession probably gets caught up in the environmental discussion and the need to move away from fossil fuels, but I’m of the opinion that if coal miners were able to get jobs making solar panels or wind farm blades and so on, safer jobs that are still very hands-on and require physical skill, I think we’d be in a very different situation.
K mentions that the needs of a technological society are often disguised within propaganda. A technological society will need more people who can work with and advance technology, therefore more young people are pushed into science, math, and tech, even if they find these subjects uninteresting and unfulfilling. This seems possible to me. Movements like STEM-based education and Girls Who Code make it seem like a good thing, a pressing social issue, that more girls get into the tech industry, but I do question whether it’s a human-centered movement, intended to improve the lives of girls and women, or if it’s a techno-centric idea, intended to improve technology and the tech sector while mostly disregarding the happiness and preferences of the people who get swept up in it. Is the problem that we need a more even distribution among genders in the tech sector, or is this an inhumane effort to propagandize the underlying need, which is simply more people working in STEM? I’m 100% sure there are girls who are interested in these fields and who would be successful in them, by the way, and I don’t think people involved in these movements are consciously doing something wrong or evil. My question is: Are these movements really about getting a more even distribution of girls and women in STEM as the end goal, or is this more about getting more people in STEM, in general, as a method of continuing the technological system, and girls are a convenient, untapped population? By forcing the needs of the technological system through the lens of gender, we can actually make it seem as though we’re doing a good thing by pushing girls into STEM, and we can convince girls and women who might not be interested in STEM that by going into a STEM field, they’re in sort of activist role. So, a career field that might be very boring, rote, and machine-like in its day-to-day tasks may be marketed as a “feeds the soul” kind of job because by being in that chair, you’re representing an underrepresented group in the field. Meanwhile, the reality may be that the system just needs more bodies. I mean, this is depressing as fuck, but think about The Matrix and all those bodies plugged in to operate the machine. Is there a need to have a more even gender representation inside the matrix, or would that just be transparent propaganda to get more people in the system, powering the system, and the truth is that the system doesn’t give a flying fuck about the gender of those bodies?
This is hard to talk about, so maybe it’d help if I flip it to something more personal:
I worked as a librarian in a public library for 15 years. There are men in libraries, but not many, and there are very few men that I would call “traditionally masculine.” By the by, I don’t define “traditionally masculine” as being assholes or mean to women or whatever. I mean more like a fella who is interested in traditionally masculine things. Fuck it, a guy who doesn’t wear skinny jeans and suspenders, who has opinions on brands of power tools, drinks brands of beer that are sold at 7-11, and does not spend time or money on hair products, including and especially overly-precious beard care routines. A man’s man. Okay? I guess pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about if you want. I’m sort of over talking about this stuff in ways that anticipate the weirdest idealogues reading something and interpreting it in the wrong-est way possible.
I enjoyed working as a librarian, for the most part, and I do think it’d be nice to see more men in the industry. But, if an individual, a man’s man, asked me whether I recommend working in the library...I might say no. While it’d be good to have this person in the profession, it’s good for the profession and maybe the public served, it might not be in the best interest of that individual. So, is the abstract concept of diversifying this profession more important, or is the overall happiness of the individual over the course of their life more important?
This one might’ve spoken to me more than anything else: we don’t have to strain ourselves to do things that are useful in a direct way, like finding food, and we fill our lives with surrogate tasks and goals. Bodybuilding or distance running are surrogate tasks unless you actually need your strength and endurance for your everyday life (and if you did, you wouldn’t have to bodybuild, you’d build the needed strength from your work). Basically, everything we do, other than those things that are not for direct survival, are surrogate tasks. You can have goals, or even things you consider altruistic, but the truth is that these are filler tasks artificially created to fulfill our human needs and to create a faux power process. It’s an extremely depressing way to look at modern life, and it’s a little difficult to think another way once you go down this road.
Whew
SOME THINGS I DISAGREE WITH
Well, aren’t you glad THIS section exists!? And that there are words here!?
K sees genetic engineering as a big threat. I do not. I think, like most scientific ideas, genetic engineering is not inherently good or bad, it’s the application of it that changes things. K sees the obsession with beauty and longevity as a really bad thing, and he might have some points there, however genetic engineering has the potential to make the lives most of us live no longer, and maybe not aesthetically different, but better. I think most people see genetic engineering as basically evil Hitler shit. I guarantee you those folks have never been on dialysis. There’s a huge gap no one talks about between making all babies blonde and blue-eyed and making sure that someone’s vital organs function within a typical range, which allows them to live in reasonable physical comfort. I don’t really see genetic engineering as an evil influence if it allows people to have typical biological human functionality and removes suffering from people who just lost a genetic roll of the dice. I mean, there’s no reason for anyone to suffer from certain ailments if a cure, or even lessening of symptoms, is attainable through gene therapy. There’s no “Huntington’s Culture” or “Dementia Culture” that would be lost, and I think, weirdly, K talks so much about individual freedom and so on, yet doesn’t feel like genetic engineering should be a matter of individual choice. Maybe he feels that it should be, but it wouldn’t, in practice.
I think my primary disagreement with K is in the idea of what humans are “meant” to do. I think he sees humans as unhappy as a result of technological advancements, and I think there’s validity to his claims. I don’t see the advancement of technology as a force that increases happiness. However, I’m not sure that the answer is to go backwards on a societal level, both because that seems unsatisfying to me, and also because I don’t think that’s realistically possible.
On the realistic side, I just don’t see us rolling back technology for the sake of humane life. I honestly think it’s a possible solution, but I think when the rubber meets the road, it’s just impossible. We might compel people to give up technology, either by restriction or by damaging infrastructure, but that just seems so unlikely and difficult to manage.
On the reversion side, I wonder if the technological revolution is a necessary part of human development, and if there will be a fading of technology. K asserts that technology always advances as long as societies do, and that is true so far, but perhaps it’s possible that a society will last longer than the advancement of technology.
I wonder if technology naturally ebbs and flows, but on a longer curve than other things like politics and economics, which will always change and restructure with each subsequent generation (where technology is a-political, so it doesn’t necessarily change when a new, more progressive generation comes to power).
The thing that makes me doubt this the most: We’ve got so much amazing technology now. Shouldn’t most of us be able to work like 10 hours per week? Aren’t we capable of getting things done so much faster and more efficiently now? Why have we filled the time provided by technology with...more work? Or has work amount dwindled and like a goldfish, the remaining work expands to fill the time allotted? Either way, we’re all working 40-hour jobs even though we’ve got all this time-and-effort-saving tech.
I wonder if the technological revolution is necessary, and after we might get to something like a social, artistic revolution. If all of our daily needs were fulfilled by machines, what would we do with our lives? K seems to think we’d be miserable, but I’m not so sure. We’d certainly have to find new ways of living, but I think we would and could. People retire, and some are definitely miserable, some don’t know what to do with themselves, but others really enjoy retirement, find ways to be useful to others, and stay busy doing unimportant but fulfilling things.
This probably wouldn’t happen in my lifetime, I think we’ve got too far to go in terms of setting up a structure where people are clothed and fed without lifting a finger, figuring out how all of this would work. But as far as this version of society goes, it could be a total fucking disaster, but it could be fun. I mean, what if everyone you knew who had a mid-level job they didn’t care about was replaced in that role by a machine and was now a mid-level rapper? Would that really be a problem?
SHOULD YOU READ THIS?
Eh, maybe. If you’re curious, especially about systems of power, this is a pretty good read.
I think the most sort of stirring part is the way K talks about power and systems of power using lingo that has more recently come into the broader culture. I guess it’s a...useful mental exercise to consider that someone who did something horrible might hold a lot of the same beliefs as other people who have good goals.
I do think it’s also a useful exercise if you can read it and then think about the way that thinking only in terms of systems of power maybe isn’t wonderful. Or maybe even expanding it to looking at hardline ideologies as very questionable frameworks for looking at the world. Like, if you are of the belief that being wealthy is inherently immoral, you’ll hear echoes of yourself in here, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe you can kind of see how your hardline ideology comes off to other people.
Overall, the existence of this writing makes a great argument for the difference between speech and violence.
I prefer our current boring dystopia to Kaczynski's prognostication.
I prefer Marshall McLuhan:
Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and evolve ever new forms.
Luddites are distasteful.
I prefer Marshall McLuhan:
Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and evolve ever new forms.
Luddites are distasteful.
challenging
medium-paced
A book so logical that it is respected even in a culture based around everything it opposes. Practically every person who reads the book, even moderate tech optimists such as Bill Mahr, will admit that Kaczynski made a lot of great points. ISAIF may not be the first critique of technology, but it is certainly the most radical, rational, to the point, and properly explained critique of it. The book can explain to anyone, regardless of if they have heard anti-tech arguments before, how the technological system disrupts the power process, insults human dignity, is incompatible with freedom and why it cannot be reformed and must be destroyed. But Kaczynski does not stop at criticizing the technological system; it is easy to explain problems but it is much harder to propose a solution. Kaczynski goes into great detail on why the system cannot be reformed and why revolution is our only hope to solve the problems that stem from modern technology.
Some may be confused as to why Kaczynski chose to start the book with a critique of leftism, as it may seem random and irrelevant to a critique of technology. I used to wonder this myself, but Kaczynski chose to start the book with a critique of leftism for a reason. Leftism is driven by “oversocialization.” The ideology of leftism (in 21st century America at the very least) is based upon the values that are taught by the system. So, a discussion of leftism can help us understand oversocialization. But more importantly, leftists are commonly drawn to movements which try to bring about radical changes in society. Therefore an anti-tech movement would inevitably draw a lot of leftists to it. And of course leftists will not remain completely loyal to the goals of the movement, they will inject their many social justice causes into it. In the long term this will be lethal to any chances of success the movement might have, as the movement's initial goal of the destruction of the technological system will be mixed in with a million social justice issues and the movement will have little-to-no chance of achieving its initial, primary goal. We have seen this happen with the movement Earth First!, and Kaczynski wanted to make sure it would never happen again. So he put a critique of leftism first and foremost to scare off any leftists who might think about joining an anti-tech movement.
The technological system brings many problems: it destroys the environment, disrupts small scale communities, leads to overpopulation, heightens social stresses and so on. But among these there is one problem which stands out among the rest: Freedom. Everyone shares a desire for freedom in one way or another, when one has acquired a taste for freedom he will go to any lengths to obtain it. Millions have fought and died for what they saw as their freedom throughout history. It may not be hard to think of one or two ways in which the technological system strips us of our freedom, but ISAIF explains how the system is fundamentally incompatible with freedom in every facet of life. It explains how the system deprives us of our autonomy, degrades our dignity, disrupts our “power process,” , subjects us to the impacts of decisions made by men thousands of miles away whom we are unable to influence, makes us dependent on it instead of being dependent on ourselves, subjects us to oversocialization, highly regulates every aspect of our lives, makes man a cog in the social machine, how technological advances that might not appear to threaten freedom often do in the future and so on. Kaczynski explains how these problems are not bugs in the system, they are not the product of mismanagement or corruption but rather are necessary for the technological system to function. Kaczynski makes it clear that technology and freedom are irreconcilable, and that even if by some miracle the system could solve all of its other problems it would remain unacceptable due to its attack on freedom and dignity alone. ISAIF is the perfect introduction to anti-tech ideology and is essential for anyone who wants to learn about anti-tech ideas.
The book carries the essence of a sequel to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Within its pages, Ted Kaczynski explores the bourgeoisie's relentless attachment to technology and the resulting erosion of human relationships and freedoms. His hypothesis contends that a society driven by industrialization becomes one of domestication, where genuine freedom can only thrive within a semi-primitive framework. Much like manifestos typically do, the writing serves to ignite revolutionary passion among the populace rather than offering tangible solutions to the challenges of society.
I'm deeply conflicted after having read Kaczynski's manifesto. I had quite high hopes, and it started on really strong. It was actually quite terrifying how much I seemed to agree with him in the beginning. It really didn't seem like incoherent ramblings of a madman as "they" would have you believe, but rather a thoroughly reasoned essay from a passionate man. As it went on, the momentum was however quickly lost.
In its most basic form, the arguments are based on the notion of historical trends. Kaczynski notes that we tend to follow a historical trend, and all small (reformist) changes either conform with that trend or are too small to affect anything more than briefly. Thus, the only answer is radical change, revolution. The problem, he notes, with radical change, is that it will inevitably have unforeseen consequences, society, and life, is just too complex to correctly predict. However, and please correct me if I missed something here, it seems like despite this his argument lies precisely in the fact that he claims to be able to see where the current historical trend is heading. Which doesn't align with the chaotic nature of society at all, especially not with the claim that radical rejection of technology is the only way.
As it went on, the essay seemed more and more to ramble about various "leftist" behavior, something that I hadn't expected at all. I think more than half of the essay was spent condemning leftist thoughts instead of arguing for his own claim. There were also a few honestly ridiculous quotes, here's two for example
The first one is in the context of children being easy targets for brainwashing, which seems so paradoxical when the entire claim is that technology imposes on our individual freedom. The second one is the slippery-slope argument, but when talking about child abuse the whole thing becomes quite absurd.
Those were the things I didn't like. As for the rest, as I said I'm scared by how much of Kaczynski's writing I agreed with. In the end though I just cannot accept his conclusion. Maybe I can blame it on indoctrination, but I just can't accept the world he describes and the solution he suggests, to me that solution implies that the battle has already been lost. Which I don't believe, but that's not even relevant. Anyways, aside from the whole "society is doomed abandon all technology" shtick, here are some really interesting points that was brought up and I will pull out of context.
This is such an important point to make in today's day and age. I know I can at least personally relate, sometimes I can't help but think that there's something wrong with me for not fitting in. It's just kind of difficult to take it seriously sometimes, I feel like people forget that none of it matters in the end and get hung up on weird completely arbitrary things with no real importance. This isn't to say that you should become a nihilist, but if it just makes you feel bad why not drop it and try something new? It reminds me of that quote that I can't remember so I'll paraphrase it ”To be sane in an insane world is the real definition of insanity.”
This is such an interesting thing to claim, as he does, as the ultimate dystopia. The obvious parallel here is [b:Brave New World|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575509280l/5129._SY75_.jpg|3204877]. What's interesting is that to a lot of people, most obvious one being utilitarians, this isn't a bad thing at all. Drugs to maximize happiness is for them truly a utopia, an end-goal. There's also a point to be made for the tendency to treat symptoms rather than causes in the medical industry. You might go to a psychologist and complain about not fitting in to the fast-paced society, i.e you have feelings of stress. Obviously they cannot change society so they try to help you adapt, that is they try to change you, not for any nefarious purposes but because there’s nothing else to do. You might try to opt-out, but capitalistic techno-societies (whatever the should be called) have really done a good effort on spreading to all corners of the world. So in the end, you're left here to read a manifesto of Kaczynski and sigh as you realize he was mostly right but you feel like there's not much to do about it.
In its most basic form, the arguments are based on the notion of historical trends. Kaczynski notes that we tend to follow a historical trend, and all small (reformist) changes either conform with that trend or are too small to affect anything more than briefly. Thus, the only answer is radical change, revolution. The problem, he notes, with radical change, is that it will inevitably have unforeseen consequences, society, and life, is just too complex to correctly predict. However, and please correct me if I missed something here, it seems like despite this his argument lies precisely in the fact that he claims to be able to see where the current historical trend is heading. Which doesn't align with the chaotic nature of society at all, especially not with the claim that radical rejection of technology is the only way.
As it went on, the essay seemed more and more to ramble about various "leftist" behavior, something that I hadn't expected at all. I think more than half of the essay was spent condemning leftist thoughts instead of arguing for his own claim. There were also a few honestly ridiculous quotes, here's two for example
”Revolutionaries should have as many children as they can.”
”Activists have fought gross child abuse, which is reasonable. But now they want to stop all spanking. When they have done that they will want to ban something else they consider unwholesome, then another thing and then another. They will never be satisfied until they have complete control over all child rearing practices. And then they will move on to another cause.”
The first one is in the context of children being easy targets for brainwashing, which seems so paradoxical when the entire claim is that technology imposes on our individual freedom. The second one is the slippery-slope argument, but when talking about child abuse the whole thing becomes quite absurd.
Those were the things I didn't like. As for the rest, as I said I'm scared by how much of Kaczynski's writing I agreed with. In the end though I just cannot accept his conclusion. Maybe I can blame it on indoctrination, but I just can't accept the world he describes and the solution he suggests, to me that solution implies that the battle has already been lost. Which I don't believe, but that's not even relevant. Anyways, aside from the whole "society is doomed abandon all technology" shtick, here are some really interesting points that was brought up and I will pull out of context.
”The concept of mental health in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in an accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress”
This is such an important point to make in today's day and age. I know I can at least personally relate, sometimes I can't help but think that there's something wrong with me for not fitting in. It's just kind of difficult to take it seriously sometimes, I feel like people forget that none of it matters in the end and get hung up on weird completely arbitrary things with no real importance. This isn't to say that you should become a nihilist, but if it just makes you feel bad why not drop it and try something new? It reminds me of that quote that I can't remember so I'll paraphrase it ”To be sane in an insane world is the real definition of insanity.”
”Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them drugs to take away their unhappiness”
This is such an interesting thing to claim, as he does, as the ultimate dystopia. The obvious parallel here is [b:Brave New World|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575509280l/5129._SY75_.jpg|3204877]. What's interesting is that to a lot of people, most obvious one being utilitarians, this isn't a bad thing at all. Drugs to maximize happiness is for them truly a utopia, an end-goal. There's also a point to be made for the tendency to treat symptoms rather than causes in the medical industry. You might go to a psychologist and complain about not fitting in to the fast-paced society, i.e you have feelings of stress. Obviously they cannot change society so they try to help you adapt, that is they try to change you, not for any nefarious purposes but because there’s nothing else to do. You might try to opt-out, but capitalistic techno-societies (whatever the should be called) have really done a good effort on spreading to all corners of the world. So in the end, you're left here to read a manifesto of Kaczynski and sigh as you realize he was mostly right but you feel like there's not much to do about it.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Published in 1995 on the pages of The Washington post, Theodore Kaczynski’s manifesto, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” has continued to retain its relevance to our modern world.
In a well-written, comprehensible manner, Kaczynski addresses the major consequences of technological progress on both a psychological and ecological level. These ideas are expressed through original concepts that exemplify and demonstrate the impact of humanity’s separation from nature under the industrial technological system.These include the disruption of what Kaczynski terms, the power process, which he identifies as an innate human drive to pursue and attain purposeful goals. The obstruction of this process along with the lack of autonomy over the circumstances and bare necessities of one’s own life has ultimately forced humanity into dependence on an exploitative system whose own needs are prioritized over the one of the individual. The individual is made helpless against prevailing threats produced by technological progress such as environmental destruction and nuclear war. In providing a solution to these issues, Ted Kaczynski gives a hard pill to swallow: that viable and long-standing solutions cannot result from reform but only through the destruction and break-down of the industrial technological system itself, whether through revolution or natural collapse—though revolution is the imperative.
Ted Kaczynski provides some key arguments as to why reform can not work as opposed to revolution. These are as follows:
1. Technological progress and individual freedom are incompatible. Technological progress always comes at a cost to individual autonomy in favor of strengthening the technological system. Thus any changes that try to reconcile individual freedom with technology would be contrary to the fundamental trend in the development of our society and would eventually fail. Any permanent change would have to be large enough to alter society as a whole, and this could only be carried out by revolutionists who can accept the risk.
1. Technological progress and individual freedom are incompatible. Technological progress always comes at a cost to individual autonomy in favor of strengthening the technological system. Thus any changes that try to reconcile individual freedom with technology would be contrary to the fundamental trend in the development of our society and would eventually fail. Any permanent change would have to be large enough to alter society as a whole, and this could only be carried out by revolutionists who can accept the risk.
2. The “bad” parts of technology cannot be separated from the “good” parts. Modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. The function of one industry depends on multiple other industries to uphold it. Kaczynski uses medicine as an example, as its progress depends on progress in other fields of science and high-tech equipment which can only be made available by a technologically progressive, economically rich society.
3. Technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration of freedom. New technological advancements almost always appear desirable at first, but eventually turn out to threaten individual freedom later on. Kaczynski brings up automobiles as a technology that first appeared to give people more freedom for better mobility between places, but caused more rules and regulations to be implemented that restricted transportation in a way that walking or horse-riding never did; and people eventually became dependent on motorized transport. Technological progress also marches in one direction and it never reverses (aside from the breakdown of the entire technological society), while individual freedom is forced to continuously take a step back. Human freedom and autonomy lose their authenticity in a world where freedom and autonomy are forced to reconcile with modern technology. What ensues is mere “permissiveness” in relatively meaningless and unsatisfying areas.
4. Simpler social problems have proved intractable. Kaczynski provides convincing evidence on how unsuccessful our society has been at dealing with social problems that were far simpler. Environmental degradation has only continued to worsen with no clear, consistent line of action from people in power. Attempts to resolve environmental issues usually consist of compromises between different factions and competing groups pursuing their own self-interest.
Ted Kaczysnki provides a solid case against the choice of reform in dealing with the current crises technological progress is bringing. Instead of trying to solve each and every social problem separately, a revolution would solve all problems at one stroke.
I highly recommend you read this essay if you want to think seriously about our modern technological society from a new and fresh perspective. It’s intellectually rigorous yet very easy to read. If you feel like you got a lot out of it as I have, you should definitely check out Kaczynski’s two books, Technological Slavery and Anti-Tech Revolution Why and How.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Industrial society and its future (ISAIF), colloquially known as “the Unabomber manifesto”, is not what one might initially expect from a man who was wanted by the FBI for nearly 20 years for his mail bombing campaign. Far from being a delusional rant, ISAIF is a serious intellectual work and has been acknowledged as such not just by Ted Kaczynski’s supporters, but also by his opponents (and potential targets) like Bill Joy. Almost 30 years after Kaczynski’s capture, his manifesto remains relevant and has proven itself to be highly prescient.
While many good points are raised throughout the text, what stood out to me most were the ideas about the power process and surrogate activities. Drawing heavily from evolutionary psychology, Kaczynski points out that each human individual possesses the need to go through the power process, a process consisting of three key elements: having a goal, investing effort towards it, and achievement of the goal.
Kaczynski divides all human drives into three categories: drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort, drives that can only be satisfied with serious effort, and drives that can’t ever be properly satisfied. Because most physical needs are satisfied with extreme ease in industrial society, they have been moved from the second category to the first. The need for the power process thus remains unsatisfied, so people take up surrogate activities – processes that attempt to fill the void through completing artificial goals the only real purpose of which is to bring fulfillment – but the fact that these activities do no deal directly with survival goals causes people to remain feeling unfulfilled.
Additionally, the fact that most meaningful goals can not be pursued with a sufficient degree of autonomy – another important element of the power process – leaves people feeling disempowered and helpless, especially when combined with countless external factors that determine our lives, but that people personally have no control and power over (economic crises, competency of specialists they have to rely on for survival, invasion of privacy by large organizations, etc.).
Being unable to go through the power process properly is very likely the main cause of many psychological issues, bad attitudes, and the all-prevailing crisis of meaning. This analysis is a much needed alternative explanation to the common leftist notion that alienation can be overcome by worker’s collective ownership of the means of production, and is part of why ISAIF resonates with so many people living in industrial settings.
In contrast to the members of industrial society, people living in primitive conditions get more opportunities to go through the power process with a high enough degree of autonomy, and reach fulfillment and a sense of self-reliance. It certainly offends modern sensibilities to suggest that technological progress can only bring about more suffering and degradation, but that is exactly what ISAIF argues with great eloquence. “The Industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race,” and the wisest thing to do, according to Kaczynski, is to bring down the techno-industrial system.
ISAIF is a work I can’t recommend enough; it’s extremely readable, clear, concise, eye opening, and has many more interesting things to say than what I’ve summed up in this review.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
“Industrial Society and Its Future” is essential reading for those who are concerned with the impact that our modern world is having on the Earth. This manifesto is the most condensed explanation of the anti-tech revolution and why it is necessary. In this review, I will outline the manifesto's main points and explain why anyone interested in actual environmental integrity needs to study this document—and Kaczynski’s other works—deeply. Theodore Kaczynski outlines how the toppling of industrial society would solve not only the issue of ecological destruction but also free the human race to live in a far more natural, liberated state of being.
In the first sections of the manifesto, Mr. Kaczynski explains why the world's current, modern, post-industrial system is problematic for the people who live in it. He does this by using modern leftism as a microcosm of society as a whole. (It must be noted that Kaczynski critiques the contemporary right as well). He identifies the issues with modern leftism (and, by extension, the world) as twofold. The first issue is the prevailing feeling of inferiority that surrounds many people in modern society. The second issue is what he refers to as “oversocialization.” This happens when a person is “trained” by society to act in a way that is most beneficial to that society. In modern society, the standards people are held to are so strict it is impossible to conform to them fully. This leads to the need to rebel and an overbearing feeling of stress, anxiety, and depression in the oversocialized individual.
The reason for these issues is made clear in the next part of the manifesto. Kaczynski posits that all humans need to fulfill a biological need for the “power process.” The power process is a cycle of finding a goal, putting in effort, and attaining the goal. This drive was meant to be used to attain food, clothing, shelter, and other survival needs, but those things are too easily accessible for (most) modern humans. Due to the ease of attaining the essentials of life, the modern human now needs to invent new goals, “surrogate activities,” to fulfill this innate need for the power process. Kaczynski also mentions “the excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe” as other issues with industrial society, which are conditions humans never evolved to live in.
In the final section of the manifesto, it is explained why the industrial society built up since the Industrial Revolution cannot be reformed or slowly dismantled. This is for a number of reasons, but in part because the people who benefit from the system (and the people who believe they do) will stubbornly fight to keep it going. This is the reason a large-scale revolution against the technological system is needed. Finally, it discusses why technological society must be broken down sooner than later. The longer we keep progressing technologically, the worse it will be when the system eventually collapses under its own weight.
This is just a brief overview of the manifesto, but if anything you read here interests you in any way, it is imperative you read it immediately.
dark
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced