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wbt_1995 's review for:
Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How
by Theodore John Kaczynski
informative
medium-paced
Published in 2020, Dr. Theodore Kaczynski’s magnum opus, Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, Second Edition, stands as a masterful work and analysis of society, history, and revolution. For those already skeptical or disillusioned with the technological system, its blatant interference with nature, and the utterly reckless path the unremitting technophiles have us on, Anti-Revolution: Why and How proves itself as a crucial must-read.
The book is neatly and meticulously structured into four chapters and six appendices elaborating the various arguments and points made. Simultaneously, the contents too are meticulously and carefully crafted. In regards to the brilliantly wrought contents, Kaczynski first thoroughly examines historical and modern attempts at social planning and the arguments for such efforts. He then laboriously exhibits, demonstrably, that “the development of a society can never be subject to rational human control.” (Kaczynski, p. 11)
The second chapter of the book is perhaps the most remarkable and ground-breaking chapter of the work. Kaczynski expounds human society as one of self-propagating systems therein shaped by natural selection and competition. His ultimate conclusion, shaped by logical reasoning and sound observation, is that modern supertechnology, in the hands of increasingly interconnected, global, and reckless self-propagating systems, will wipe out Earth’s biosphere, leaving Earth as a dead planet. Rebuked, too, are possible counter-arguments that may be raised against his theory; these counter-arguments are surgically dissected and thus discarded.
Titled “How to Transform a Society: Errors to Avoid,” Chapter Three again draws on history. This time, however, Kaczynski draws on the extensive history of revolution and radical social change, from which he formulates several postulates and rules that any revolutionary movement ought to heed, lest they flounder or their results become undone. With each postulate and rule articulated carefully, and with great detail therein, Kaczynski also inspects two different “neo-Luddite” writers’ proposals. After closely examining the various goals of the writers with respect to the postulates and rules, he concludes the goals to be mere ineffectual fantasies with no hopes of guiding real change. What then can be the goals of the anti-tech revolutionary? With heed to the postulates, and rules, informed by countless historical examples, Kaczynski demonstrates that which, on a historical basis, can succeed: the complete collapse of the technological system. As a goal that is clear, simple, concrete, irreversible, and repellent to most, this goal is perfect for the creation of a dedicated, incorruptible minority of revolutionaries.
In the fourth chapter, Kaczynski writes that first, an anti-tech movement must build its sources of power, thereby preparing itself for the road to revolution. Second, the movement must build its power concerning its political and social environment. Third, a movement ought to undermine the faith people have within the system. Furthermore, Kaczynski points out that a movement must remain hard at work, and create opportunities for itself along with exploiting present ones.
Conclusively, Anti-tech Revolution: Why and How remains a masterwork that anyone seriously critical of technology and the technological system must read. It is well written, well researched, and well aware of the ongoing and impending disaster the technological journey has wrought and has in store for us.