Theodore John Kaczynski, the University and Airline Bomber, is one of those enlightened, if misguided,i fellows for whom modern mainstream society was not only entirely distasteful, even abhorrent, but for whom the only reasonable recourse was to attack the entire institution and inflict as much damage as humanly possible.
Over the course of 17 years, from 1978 – 1995, by mailing and personally placing explosive packages that he’d built in his utility-free Montana bush cabin, Ted killed 3 people and injured scores more. He was the kind of “lone wolf” domestic terrorist that Obama would have you believe ISIS is recruiting, despite Ted being a Harvard-trained mathematician who was intensely methodical and independent while most of the mujahadeen breeding next door are little more than lost rugrats in search of the father figure they never had.
That being said, Kaczynski attacked the USian Empire at a time when, at least for the majority of his campaign, the US had foreign enemies in the traditional nation state sense, namely, Russia.ii As such, while his missions were a nuisance to the state, even a costly one for the FBI agents tasked with his pursuit, he was so stealthy and so effective for so long that he could never be used for the type of grossly reactive and inherently totalitarian legislation that follows isolated and acute incidents of the sort.iii
Despite incredibly well thought through bombmaking that left zero evidence as to the providence of the weapon, what eventually led to Ted’s undoing was the publishing of his 35,000 word manifesto in the New York Times and Washington Post, at his own behest, a document that his brother was then able to identify as being of his pen before tipping off the feds.
If both his tenure and the self-determined path of his demise weren’t fascinating and remarkable enough, the subsequent trial demonstrated both the power of Kaczynski’s individualism and the increasing impotence of the United States Government as a going concern. The court-appointed lawyers wanted to plead insanity on behalf of their client in order to avoid the death penalty.iv Ted refused not only to this concession, arguing that he was perfectly sane, but he also refused to have the court lawyers represent him once their motives became clear, arguing that he was perfectly capable of defending himself and that the appointed suits could still make useful research assistants.
Incredibly, and in hindsight incredibly crushingly as well, in order to avoid the embarrassing political beat-down that Kaczynski had lined up for The Establishment, the courts not only denied his bid to represent himself, the courts entered a plea agreement under which the accused would plead guilty, which he’d already done anyways, and receive life in prison with no possibility of parole, bypassing the death sentence for not only the Unabomber, but for the entire echafaudage of lily-livered bureaucrats.v
Needless to say, Kaczynski spanked the USG six ways to Sunday, twisting its limp wrist behind its scrawny back and forcing it to beg for mercy like a common dweeb, but he didn’t have everything figured out, as his famous Unabomber Manifesto (archived) makes crystal clear. He hated industrialism, he loathed technology, he despised socialism and the entire political left wing for what it was doing to humanity, but some of his passion was a bit off the mark. So, selecting a few bits and pieces from Ted’s magnum opus, for your enlightenment and entertainment, let’s look at what the Unabomber got right about “leftists” (i.e. socialists) and what he got wrongvi :
Leftism is totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is in a position of power it tends to invade every private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold. In part this is because of the quasi-religious character of leftism; everything contrary to leftists beliefs represents Sin.
HIT : This is in fact quite on point. Look no further than the religious zeal with which socialistoids defend apocalyptic climate change, despite the number fudging and dissent suppressing required to prop up the flimsy cardboard cut-out of a “consensus.” Denial of the left’s scientistic ideology is a denial of their entire belief system, and their arm flailing and bloody wailing is commensurate with this.
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 unfulfilling, 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.
MISS : The conjecture that the Industrial Revolution is to blame for the social decline of the West – that is, that inert hunks and chunks of metal and wood are to blame – is to be imprisoned in a myopic reading of social and political history. If the finger deserves to be pointed anywhere, and I whole-heartedly agree that it does, it’s undeniably in the direction of those fraternising frogs and their monstrously rationalistic conceptions of the human condition. The Industrial Revolution has brought about real progress – increased control for man over his environment – that has awfully little to do with the instability of social society, at least as far as the urban form goes.vii The Industrial Revolution introduced a new class of wealthy entrepreneurs into the upper echelons of society, sure, but the toxic effects of French/Soviet democratic socialism are the properly attributed cause of all the commotion.
Besides, as far as life expectancy goes, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. And as far as personal fulfillment goes, that’s on you, man.
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.
HIT AND MISS : Given that Kaczynski was active before Bitcoin entered the socio-techno-political scene, and as he was evidently not up on the cryptoanarchist digital cash movement of the early 90’s,viii he completed missed the advent of the technology that WILL IMPROVE THE SITUATION of political, social, and domestic affairs. This having been said, he correctly estimated that indignities and sufferings will be inflicted upon the masses, or at least their foolhardy elected representatives, on account of the fundamentally disruptive force that is Bitcoin, and that “advanced” countries will not only suffer but suffer disproportionately as their stupidity is reshaped into something resembling functionality. Of that, there’s little doubt, at least initially, though I have every confidence that the lizard and monkey brains rested atop the torsos of The People will find their footing after a decade or two of humiliation. Humans are nothing if not adaptable.ix
If leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done.
MISS : The historical account of the brutal Soviet police is accurate enough, and so too is the embracing and encouragement of technology for leftists. Not that decent conservatives don’t use technology, of course we do, but we promote it as a means of individual self-determination, not as a means of centralised command and control over every aspect of every citizen’s life the way the leftists do with their iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, Google, and that database of where everyone travels, Uber. Not to mention 3D glasses and, I wish I could make this shit up : fusion.
The Most Serene Republic Of~ promotes sane personal computing (to the extent that such a thing exists) and tried & true technologies, particularly strong encryption, not the latest greatest most thooper dooper fabulous product for data tracking and flesh commercialising as a means of “joining the conversation.” Fuck that shit.
But almost regardless of how technology is used, by whom, and for what ends, it’s used. As it must be. It’s a weapon and this is war. Even if you’re just fighting strong retards like Marcus, you’re best served using the tools at your disposal. The idea that conservatives are going to thump the leftists into next Tuesday with sticks and stones is just so much wishful caveman thinking I can’t even begin to describe it.
If one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs.
HIT : Quite right, this. The whole affirmative action nonsense is a neat and tidy ball of confused morality that serves to lower barriers to entry, that which make the world worth living in, in exchange for some short-lived endocrine rewards for middle-class privileged whiteys who feel puritanically ashamed at having been born. It’s a pretty awful trade-off and therefore one not long for this world.
Want to be a lawyer ? Get better grades. Coming from the bottom and rising to the top is hardly worth writing home about when said top is moved from being way up here, where only a few of the very tallest and most ambitious people can reach it, to six inches off the ground where every drooling toddler can grab it and put it in his mouth.
Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology. You can’t have a united world without rapid transportation and communication, you can’t make all people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can’t have a “planned society” without the necessary technological base.
MISS : Again, socialism didn’t require nuclear bombs, rocket ships, and Instagram when it swept across France in the 1790’s and overturned the ancien regime, so I have to contest this point from a historical perspective. It may be that we can’t have a united world without rapid transport and communication, but this is only in the sense of interconnectedness, not in the sense of it being collectivist in any particular fasion. That individuals and groups trade and communicate with one another in no way makes this a coerced arrangement, as Kaczynski implies. In a market system, such as it exists today in those unregulated corners of the globe, the arrangement is altogether more voluntary than the image painted here, and better for it. If anything, trade and communication throw a wrench in the narrow narrative of socialism, providing the opportunity for intellectuals and entrepreneurs to connect as never before.
Another miss : making everyone love one another certainly requires some papering over of the material differences between people, but a planned society requiring a technological base ? Hm. Seems to me that the Chinese and Ancient Egyptians each had a couple successful millennia of planned societies without any of the electronics, massively urbanised factories, and other recent technologies used to shape Industrialised Man. Does this single piece of disconfirmatory evidence not discount his theory ?
Furthermore, while the left may be trying to bind together the whole world into a single undifferentiated mass of equality, it can scarcely be said to represent organised society. Quite the contrary, in fact. The most organised societies are those with the strictest hierarchies, those where people know their place and know their role, however minor or major. The unintelligible and inconsistent ramblings and rationalisations of the impeachably stupid idjits currently making such a hash of law, politics, and economics can in no way be called “organised” or else every second sentence out of their dumb mouths wouldn’t be “no one could’ve predicted,” etc etc. You think intelligent organisations get blind-sided on the daily like that ? Think again.
On the more sophisticated level the ideology should address itself to people who are intelligent, thoughtful and rational. The object should be to create a core of people who will be opposed to the industrial system on a rational, thought-out basis, with full appreciation of the problems and ambiguities involved, and of the price that has to be paid for getting rid of the system. It is particularly important to attract people of this type, as they are capable people and will be instrumental in influencing others. These people should be addressed on as rational a level as possible. Facts should never intentionally be distorted and intemperate language should be avoided. This does not mean that no appeal can be made to the emotions, but in making such appeal care should be taken to avoid misrepresenting the truth or doing anything else that would destroy the intellectual respectability of the ideology.
HIT : It’s almost spooky how closely Kaczynski comes to describing #bitcoin-assets here. Whoa, future trippin’, man !
The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily involve an armed uprising against any government. It may or may not involve physical violence, but it will not be a POLITICAL revolution. Its focus will be on technology and economics, not politics.
MISS : Not a political revolution… NOT A POLITICAL REVOLUTION ??!1 So that’s where gmail guy got his inspiration from… the Unabomber ! This kind of retardation is the sister idiocy of “I don’t feel math is useful for real life.” Herpaderp and a bottle of rum. There is no economics without politics because there’s no money without politics, and there’s no technology without politics because there are no weapons without politics. It’s as simple as that. What’s more, there’s no change without politics.
Ironically, Kaczynski was a political force in his own right and the USG knew it all too well. That’s why they had to muzzle him : he had a lot more hits than misses.
___ ___ ___
- He toyed with the idea of becoming a woman, and knowing that he’d need to confess as much to his psychiatrist at the time, he arranged an appointment. At the appointment, he chicken out and made up some nonsense about anxiety. He never forgave himself for his cowardice in that session.↩
- This was obviously before the Internet changed the game.↩
- See Patriot Act in the States or Bill C-51 in Canada.↩
- If this reminds you of Ulbrict’s lawyer, Joshua Dratel, it should.↩
- The cowardly and defeated approach taken by the courts in this case compromised the entire notion of an effective American justice system ruled by law, as this decision was contrary to a) The court-appointed psychiatrist’s assessment (archived) :
In regard to the issue of competency to stand trial, it is my opinion that at the present time, despite the presence of significant mental illness historically and residual evidence of such problems at the present, Mr. Kaczynski is able to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against, and is able to assist his attorneys in his defense. Thus, I view him as competent to stand trial. Extensive interviewing around the issue of competence to stand trial in conjunction with the diagnostic assessment and review of extensive collateral material, support that Mr. Kaczynski does have an excellent factual understanding of the legal proceedings against and has an adequate rational understanding of these proceedings. He does have the ability to assist his attorneys in his own defense and the capacity to choose whether he will opt to assist them in presenting his defense. Mr. Kaczynski does describe goals for the trial process that might be viewed as somewhat inconsistent with maximizing the potential success of a defense to support his plea in innocence. It appears, however, that his motivation for his decision making in regard to his legal situation is not primarily his wish to clear his name and set the record straight about his family. His decision making, instead, appears to take into consideration a realistic review of the probability of various outcomes in his case, and supports his lack of interest in spending his life in prison as an alternative to being put to death if found guilty.
As described in detail above, Mr. Kaczynski has superior intelligence; he has the ability to read and interpret complex writing, he can contribute to review of documents; he has a full understanding of the roles of the various court personnel; he understands the charges against him and potential penalties if found guilty; he appreciates the nature of the proceedings and understands the likely sequence of events in a trial. Mr. Kaczynski has formed an unusual relationship with his defense team, in that he has quickly come to regard them as “friends and family” In some ways he has idealized his relationship with them, and at times can as easily devalue the relationship with individual members of the team. Nonetheless, he retains an awareness that they are a skilled group of individuals, who have provided him with good legal advice and maneuvering to date. He recognizes that continuing to utilize them in his defense would provide him with a higher level of representation than self-representation. He continues to wish to make the crucial decisions in his case, even if they could lead to less likelihood of a more lenient outcome.
And in contravention of b) the letter of the Sixth Amendment of the US Constituion and the supporting US Supreme Court FARETTA v. CALIFORNIA (1975) decision.
The ensuing and trumped-up charade about how Kaczynski couldn’t possibly keep up with the case, despite his evident brilliance and promises to not delay the proceedings even a day, was pretty tragic. Mostly for its unimaginativeness on the part of the sophists calling themselves judges.↩
- Fully granting Ted’s own caveat to his Manifesto :
Throughout this article we’ve made imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts of qualifications and reservations attached to them; and some of our statements may be flatly false. Lack of sufficient information and the need for brevity made it impossible for us to fomulate our assertions more precisely or add all the necessary qualifications. And of course in a discussion of thiskind one must rely heavily on intuitive judgment, and that can sometimes be wrong. So we don’t claim that this article expresses more than a crude approximation to the truth.
Dude lived in the bush for a couple decades, after all.↩
- So the Industrial Revolution disrupted rural society. So what of it ? It was isolated, brutish, and ignorant, if quite possibly happier for it. But who the fuck cares about being happy ?↩
- Digicash, CyberCash, Mondex, First Virtual, and Open Market, anyone ?↩
- Human women are particularly adaptable. Whereas men tend to be pigheaded, “brave” and always ready for die for a cause, no matter how forgettable, women are more likely to play peacekeeper and suck the cock of whoever happens to be in power. Men have “honour” but women have survival skills that are uniquely well adapted to turbulent and complex social periods. No wonder Judaism is matrilineal.
Note how masculine is the view espoused by Kaczynski :
One has to balance the struggle and death against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better to die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but empty and purposeless life.
…said no woman ever.↩
[…] Myeah, more “markets aren’t fair, mkay ?” blablah. You’ll be able to wake me up from this national socialist dream when “speculators” aren’t as evil as very rich child pornographers who blow up airports. […]
[…] head-on, they created ISIS because Saddam was bad mkay, they’ve created domestic monsters left, right, and centre, and they’re creating “cyberterrorists” as we speak.iii The […]
[…] this definition, Ted Kaczynski was rich. He had his own log cabin in the bush where no one could tell him what to do, he could […]
[…] it did for the Unabomber. […]
[…] best naïve and at worst suicidal. But don’t just take my word for it, just ask our old pal Ted K. […]
[…] Since 2011, an emerging schism between physical geography and the Internet has developed, whereby, more than just choosing from an existing set of mores and cultural axioms, Bitcoin began to fashion its own set of rules and regulations from the scavenged relics of former empires – those both long dead and presently dying – while filling in the necessary gaps needed to accommodate the newly digital nature of human existence.v This cleavage has since grown and will continue to grow, ever-wider and ever more irreconcilable, and it means that Citizens of Bitcoin will, before long, enjoy the benefits of diplomatic immunity in many a jurisdiction as local courts will prefer to leave gentlemanly matters to gentlemen, mostly on account of the costs.vi […]
[…] and misses : Ted K. styles! […]