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nozoing 's review for:
Industrial Society and Its Future
by Theodore John Kaczynski
I don’t know why I read this, really. It was short.
TK has a lot of broad critiques and makes some really interesting points, but they are often interrupted by strange rants about leftism (some of them are interesting and valid but as a whole they are unhinged). His take on “power process” and “surrogate activities”?? Idk, things besides physical survival can be incredibly fulfilling - seems like one of his main premises is just super subjective.
I’m specifically interested in his theory that technological advancement is completely inevitable under capitalism, and that every advancement will eventually boomerang towards civilian/worker control. Also, that reform of technology or “progress” is doomed to fail & people opposed to it must be revolutionaries - to TK, even reforms such as environmental protections are useless without revolution. I ultimately think he’s right that without serious revolt, humanity is cooked in the long (short) run.
There are a lot of reviews of this book on Goodreads that summarize his views towards revolution and inevitable societal collapse much better, but a lot of what he says is interesting and almost surely true. There are absolutely better sources and analyses of a lot of the topics that TK talks about, which I think I’ll seek out.
At the end of the day it’s very obvious that this dude was quite lonely and isolated, to the point that he couldn’t believe that there is anyone in modern society who feels truly content and happy with their lives. After learning about his history as a Harvard “genius” and a person with intense unrealized gender dysphoria (he was very close to exploring being a woman), this manifesto feels tragic and sad.
Edit: It’s capitalism. The problem is capitalism, not technology or leftism. He missed the point and his killings were misguided at best.
TK has a lot of broad critiques and makes some really interesting points, but they are often interrupted by strange rants about leftism (some of them are interesting and valid but as a whole they are unhinged). His take on “power process” and “surrogate activities”?? Idk, things besides physical survival can be incredibly fulfilling - seems like one of his main premises is just super subjective.
I’m specifically interested in his theory that technological advancement is completely inevitable under capitalism, and that every advancement will eventually boomerang towards civilian/worker control. Also, that reform of technology or “progress” is doomed to fail & people opposed to it must be revolutionaries - to TK, even reforms such as environmental protections are useless without revolution. I ultimately think he’s right that without serious revolt, humanity is cooked in the long (short) run.
There are a lot of reviews of this book on Goodreads that summarize his views towards revolution and inevitable societal collapse much better, but a lot of what he says is interesting and almost surely true. There are absolutely better sources and analyses of a lot of the topics that TK talks about, which I think I’ll seek out.
At the end of the day it’s very obvious that this dude was quite lonely and isolated, to the point that he couldn’t believe that there is anyone in modern society who feels truly content and happy with their lives. After learning about his history as a Harvard “genius” and a person with intense unrealized gender dysphoria (he was very close to exploring being a woman), this manifesto feels tragic and sad.
Edit: It’s capitalism. The problem is capitalism, not technology or leftism. He missed the point and his killings were misguided at best.