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verelalarmas 's review for:
Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How
by Theodore John Kaczynski
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
In his latest thorough exposition of anti-tech ideology, Theodore Kaczynski carries out a masterful description of the current situation we face with technology arguing in the first two chapters of this book why a revolution against the technological system is needed. Kaczynski illustrates how the technological system is far too complex and irrational in order for a meaningful reform to be made reconciling freedom with technology. He notes that even just one part of the technological system (such as setting the prices of commodities in the United States) would take over 60 trillion simultaneous calculations, requiring a sort of machine that in and of itself would increase the complexity of the system, rendering this calculation essentially pointless. This is the sort of paradox that Kaczynski raises, challenging the reader to seriously think about the nature of all societies, not just technological ones. This argument helps to convey the idea of the complete impossibility of rationally ordering the system around, as those who oppose the technological system but instead want to reform it so foolishly ignore. This first chapter is one of two that justifies Kaczynski’s idea of revolution (of the anti-tech kind of course!).
The second chapter is where Kaczynski’s analysis of the technological system broadens in scope. It is “theoretical” to Kaczynski, but the sort of theory he proposes is a clear and logical application of the laws of natural selection that have been applied to nature. To Kaczynski, the techno-industrial system is a self-propagating system that has essentially emerged through a process of natural selection, following short-term benefit over long-term negative consequences (e.g., swallowing up a large amount of natural resources, entirely ignoring the ramifications that such an action would cause in the long run). Because of the way the system has emerged at this point, anything else that tries to go down a separate path will be crushed. This is because any less technologically advanced self-propagating systems will simply be swallowed up by the more technologically advanced ones as the objective factor that is turning the course of societies is acquiring more and more power through technology, gobbling up all in their path in order to outcompete and become the most “fit” relative to all other systems. This process to Kaczynski essentially spells doom for the global techno-industrial system in the long-run as the system’s actions are now seriously threatening the ecological stability of the Earth, therefore threatening the system itself and everything else in it. This conclusion is another reason for why Kaczynski thinks an anti-tech revolution (a very rapid one at that) must be carried out as soon as possible: the world might die if no action is taken.
Kaczynski’s other arguments in the book are what a revolutionary movement should be in order to be successful, expounding upon loose ideas put out in “Industrial Society and Its Future” into understandable principles anchored by relevant concrete examples throughout history. These arguments give a new light of legitimacy to Kaczynski’s idea of anti-tech revolution as many readers (who have also likely read the manifesto) get to know more precisely what Kaczynski’s thought of revolution is. This fact alone is why anyone interested in anti-tech works should read this book: it is the most relevant (and up to date) work related to the technological crisis we are enmeshed in.
This is certainly Kaczynski’s most challenging book, but I do not think that should dissuade people from reading it. It is his true magnum opus, and it is why Kaczynski instructs the reader to not simply treat the book like one they would read casually but one that should be studied (as if it were an engineering textbook). In addition, it is a book that helps to give real practical information to the reader, something that Kaczynski desperately wanted to do in order to kickstart an active and effective anti-tech revolutionary movement.
The second chapter is where Kaczynski’s analysis of the technological system broadens in scope. It is “theoretical” to Kaczynski, but the sort of theory he proposes is a clear and logical application of the laws of natural selection that have been applied to nature. To Kaczynski, the techno-industrial system is a self-propagating system that has essentially emerged through a process of natural selection, following short-term benefit over long-term negative consequences (e.g., swallowing up a large amount of natural resources, entirely ignoring the ramifications that such an action would cause in the long run). Because of the way the system has emerged at this point, anything else that tries to go down a separate path will be crushed. This is because any less technologically advanced self-propagating systems will simply be swallowed up by the more technologically advanced ones as the objective factor that is turning the course of societies is acquiring more and more power through technology, gobbling up all in their path in order to outcompete and become the most “fit” relative to all other systems. This process to Kaczynski essentially spells doom for the global techno-industrial system in the long-run as the system’s actions are now seriously threatening the ecological stability of the Earth, therefore threatening the system itself and everything else in it. This conclusion is another reason for why Kaczynski thinks an anti-tech revolution (a very rapid one at that) must be carried out as soon as possible: the world might die if no action is taken.
Kaczynski’s other arguments in the book are what a revolutionary movement should be in order to be successful, expounding upon loose ideas put out in “Industrial Society and Its Future” into understandable principles anchored by relevant concrete examples throughout history. These arguments give a new light of legitimacy to Kaczynski’s idea of anti-tech revolution as many readers (who have also likely read the manifesto) get to know more precisely what Kaczynski’s thought of revolution is. This fact alone is why anyone interested in anti-tech works should read this book: it is the most relevant (and up to date) work related to the technological crisis we are enmeshed in.
This is certainly Kaczynski’s most challenging book, but I do not think that should dissuade people from reading it. It is his true magnum opus, and it is why Kaczynski instructs the reader to not simply treat the book like one they would read casually but one that should be studied (as if it were an engineering textbook). In addition, it is a book that helps to give real practical information to the reader, something that Kaczynski desperately wanted to do in order to kickstart an active and effective anti-tech revolutionary movement.