A Reading List of Analysis of Ted Kaczynski's Ideas & Actions

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anon (not verified)
A Reading List of Analysis of Ted Kaczynski's Ideas & Actions

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Here's a reading list of analysis of Ted Kaczynski's ideas & actions:

https://thetedkarchive.com/library/analysis-of-ted-s-ideas-action

I know Ted's not an anarchist, but I think because Ted thought anarchist political philosophy was the closest philosophy to his own when he wrote his manifesto, and for many other reasons he has maintained a somewhat persistent relevance to a fair few discussions had about anarchy.

He also has a strong overlap with fascist movements, so I think it's worthwhile knowing what he argues and discussing the various critiques of his ideology.

A few questions for potential discussion:

1. What do you think of some of these critiques?

2. Are there any essays that are missed out from this long list?

3. Are there any essays not included in the short list that you think deserve to be there more than others?

4. Do you think there's any better way of reorganizing the way all the essays are categorized?

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The Unabomber's Ethics is my favorite critique of Ted's ideas.

I don't mind asserted beliefs about our biological nature like "In any case it is not normal to put into the satisfaction of mere curiosity the amount of time and effort that scientists put into their work." But, statements like these are fairly clear admissions that Ted simply intuitively values primitive life as holding more value, and therefore any value a person does derive from modern life is not even counted.

The problem is, Ted often sets up a clear argument with premises and a conclusion, then smuggles in this other premise, later on, to move the goalposts so that the counter-arguments for a technological society appear to have had no ability to defeat the initial argument. But, they could have easily, if not for the smuggled-in premise (an asserted belief about our biological nature).

For example, to simplify Ted's power process argument, if primitive society were 10% easily achieving goals, 80% satisfying the power process and 10% needing to be stoic about the goals you can't achieve, then that would be a sign of a good quality of life.

If technological society is 40% easily achieving goals, 10% satisfying the power process & 40% needing to be stoic about the goals you can't achieve, then that would be a sign of a bad quality of life.

Now, say I accept the first premise that this percentage distribution of secure goals is a good way of measuring quality of life, but reject the second premise that technological society falls into the 40/10/40 split. All I would need to do is counter-argue that for most people who have experienced the luxuries of technological society, choosing to participate in an anti-tech revolution that would take us to a very low-tech society would be choosing to experience a hellish low-quality 10/10/80 split.

Because although an uncontacted tribes-person who knows no other life than hunter-gathering can to some degree accept disease stoically, a person who has experienced high-tech society would be constantly reminded of all the goals they would like to be pursuing that they feel would make their life more meaningful and secure, like not worrying about getting attacked by lions, but can't because there's no large-scale organization among people anymore. Also even if society would eventually forget the positives to high-tech societies, why would most people want to view ignorance as a virtue?

Then Ted anticipating this argument adds the other premise, saying that the 80% suffering the pro-tech person would be feeling isn't as meaningful, because it's not caused by nature.

But, that's a massive meta-philosophy premise that shifts the goalposts, as it defeats the entire usefulness of all the other premises, and makes the categories laid out in detail completely pointless.

In many circumstances, the tyranny created by other people does depress me more than for example a natural mosquito sucking on my blood does, but the biggest tyranny to me would be forcing an anti-tech revolution on billions of people who have made no claims to desiring one.

And some people creating petty tyrannies is suffering I'm comfortable experiencing whilst working towards a left-anarchist, pro-technology future, as I think it's character virtue building. Just like I would desire to help organize worker-co-op penicillin and eyeglasses assembly lines in the post-apocalyptic ruins.

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anon (not verified)
I don't think you have to

I don't think you have to hand it to the mkultra'd half-mad incel

SirEinzige
U guys really hate incels don

U guys really hate incels don't you.

anon (not verified)
omg ziggy i'm your biggest

omg ziggy i'm your biggest fan. also not really, you're just trying way too hard to read between the lines.

anon (not verified)
Just because some guy

Just because some guy (reverse sexism cos this term can't be applied to women) has no work, no money, isn't attractive by capitalist fashion norms and advertising and therefore can't get laid, so he is judged and labelled as an undesirable and toxic Incel, wtf!

anon (not verified)
i called him an incel not

i called him an incel not because of anything you listed, but rather for unleashing his violent impulses on random computer store employees while living in the woods lol

anon (not verified)
so what's your definition of

so what's your definition of incel? the person behind thetedkarchive -- a one man crusade to tell reddit what a Bad Person ted k was -- is definitely celibate, judging by their extreme-onlineness, but are they an incel?

anon (not verified)
i'm gonna be 100% with you

i'm gonna be 100% with you here, i called him a half-mad incel cause i thought it was funny. if you're serious about it, a lot of the people in the incel subculture are there bc they have very shitty attitudes towards women, which ted k *didn't* have as far as i'm aware. ishkah on the other hand is a technomonk.

anon (not verified)
Bad wording. He was a Volcel,

Bad wording. He was a Volcel, a voluntary celibate, a totally different phenomena. Yep, and he voluntarily vented his disgust on the minion tech nerds complicit in the destruction and murder of nature's animals and habitats. Self-defence!

lumpy (not verified)
dear OP, as soon as i read to

dear OP, as soon as i read to the part where you admitted you've let your guard down about the lions?
because the civ cucks got to you? i knew you were already dead.

but at least sky burial by lions is pretty awesome, so you got that goin for ya!

anon (not verified)
>> Just like I would desire

>> Just like I would desire to help organize worker-co-op penicillin and eyeglasses assembly lines in the post-apocalyptic ruins

factory boss in waiting...

anon (not verified)
OooOoo nOooo 11:01 wants us

OooOoo nOooo 11:01 wants us all to be roaming blurry-eyed through the forest dying from infection!

anon (not verified)
Well yeah, easy prey and less

Well yeah, easy prey and less queuing at the food distribution centre.

anon (not verified)
well of course, you dont

well of course, you dont expect an Organizer(tm) to do the work, do you?

anon (not verified)
"He also has a strong overlap

"He also has a strong overlap with fascist movements" , Your obviously a leftist who calls anyone not aligned with your socialistic values a "fascist". I don't even think you realise that true Fascism, or what originated in Italy in 1930s, was a corporatist based social blueprint very similar to the liberalism of this present Western corporate hegemony. TedK was the opposite. Have you ever heard of "Luddites"? Maybe read a book or 2 and then come back with something closer to the truth.

Ishkah
Thanks for the advice amigo.
anon (not verified)
"I enjoyed reading..." Four

"I enjoyed reading..." Four cope pieces by Marxists and Liberals trying to claim the Luddites as Marxists ("they just wanted workers councils at the factory!") and Liberals ("they just wanted higher wages at the factory!")

Here's a more anarchic perspective by Kirkpatrick Sale: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-against-civilization...

The Luddites were against Progress and against the machines. They were hardly the first or the last to be so. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-dunlap-i-don-t-want-yo...

Ishkah
You've gone done made me

You've gone done made me smile linking back to me a chapter section from a book I archived. Appreciate it :)

anon (not verified)
the anarchist library

'''An overall crisis—personal, social, envi- ronmental—is rapidly deepening''

OCR error on second line of the introduction. good work, ishkah

Ishkah
Always a critique lol. I've

Always a critique lol. I've submitted the corrections to the errant end-of-line hyphens.

Ishkah
*critic

*critic

anon (not verified)
Tell us more about your True

Tell us more about your True Fascism, dude...

Ethno-nationalist cult, traditionalist convictions, centralization around an instituted leader figure, militarist view of governance, rejection of liberal democratic values... it's all there, in any fascism, but not exactly there in Keynesian neoliberalism or even the Chicago School of Economics that followed. Even Ayn Rand was conservatively antifascist.

anon (not verified)
You are soOo still in the

You are soOo still in the 20th century, sure, most of the aithoritarian State variants you listed are correct, however now the true fascism, in its terminal final stage, is a democratically chosen form of existence, corporatist and neoliberal values fused into the pursuit of spectacular consumerist obedience and a blind worship of authority all encompassed within an AI technologically monitored panopticon of surveilance.

anon (not verified)
That'd one form of

That'd one form of totalitarian society, that is democratic, indeed, but nowhere near the hard power, retrograde view of the state you got with fascism. Having Zuckerbot as a thinly-veiled global techno-emperor or a literal Technoking Musk is fascistic, but not full fascist. Most Facebook disciples don't even know who the Zuck is, and pretty sure many of the Musk fans are just bots and/or paid shills.

Not saying there isn't a dangerous fascist detour happening these days, with normie consumerism having vastly consumed (no pun intended) the alternative ways, and old-school authoritarianism making its way back to mainstream politics.

anon (not verified)
Maybe I am exaggerating the

Maybe I am exaggerating the severity of this present detour into totalitarian consumerist fascism, but the willingness with which it is being accepted has likewise allowed for a relaxation of formerly harsh imperatives and hard power to achieve total control. Which brings me back to my initial retort and the context in which I was framing it, that TedK did not lean towards fascist ideas and that he opposed them.

anon (not verified)
Also, I regard Ludd first and

Also, I regard Ludd first and formost as a passionate artisan who despised the uniformity of mass production and the loss of uniqueness in the values of a creative and unique community of individuals.

anon (not verified)
Ignoring the Evident
anon (not verified)
here's a meme i made

here's a meme i made

> forcing an anti-tech revolution on billions of people who have made no claims to desiring one [ISHKAH SUPER SAD FACE]

> forcing an industrial revolution on billions of people who have made no claims to desiring one [ISHKAH SUPER HAPPY FACE]

anon (not verified)
Hahahaa, ISHKAH SUPER HAPPY

Hahahaa, ISHKAH SUPER HAPPY FACE *as antifa anarchist workers toil away in anarchist factories*

anon (not verified)
https://theanarchistlibrary

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/william-gillis-15-post-primitivi...
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/brian-oliver-sheppard-anarchism-...
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/brian-oliver-sheppard-bakunin-ve...
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/stephen-booth-primitivism-an-ill...
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/william-gillis-a-quick-and-dirty...
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-social-anarchism...
Primitivism and Luddism are Eco-Fascist ideologies that infiltrated the Eco-Anarchist school of thought during the Green Scare to spread anti-civ views and farther destabilize any sort of organized attempt of anarchists to progress by use of technology to empower the workers.
It has been evident from the beginning that they are extremely inhumane and more closely related in praxis to organizations like the Taliban than any historical anarchist organizations. Hence why ''Anarcho''-Primitivists within the organization named ITS (Individualists Tending to the Wild) became allies with the Neo-Nazi organization O9A - https://web.archive.org/web/20211102005303/http:/maldicionecoextremista.... , the organization of MOVE founded on a mix of Christian and ''Anarcho''-Primitivist beliefs began to express homophobic views and had domestic abuse - https://leavingmove2021.blogspot.com/ , the Green Anarchy magazine celebrated the terrorist attacks of the cult Aum Shinrikyo - https://www.counterinfo.org.uk/ga.htm , https://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ga/ along with many other instances of vile praxis, goals and outcomes.
They are rooted in traditionalism, religious hegemony, misanthropic nihilism, conservativism and generally more appearing to the right wingers than leftists. They have a close connection to other attempts at appropriating anarchism such as the self proclaimed ''National-Anarchists'' and it is deeply saddening that they are gaining traction online considering the hypocrisy of their resentment towards the benefits of technology.
The Unabomber himself is one of the most popular figures currently within Neo-Nazi circles.

anon (not verified)
sounds great! where do i

sounds great! where do i sign up?

ps Green Anarchy magazine (US) is not the same as Green Anarchist magazine (UK). id've thought an expert on the subject like yourself would know that

anon (not verified)
Lol, "They are rooted in

Lol, "They are rooted in traditionalism, religious hegemony, misanthropic nihilism, conservativism and generally more appearing to the right wingers than leftists"
Classic corporatist neoliberal dogma!

anon (not verified)
why can't anarchists argue like normal people?

why can't anarchists argue like normal people? instead of ''luddite/primitivist/anticiv ideas are not good because a,b,c, but bakuninist ideas are good because x, y, z'' we get ''luddites/primitivists/anticivs are EVIL and FASCIST and NAZI and MASS SHOOTERS!''

anon (not verified)
MOVE organization

Thank you for bringing this up. I’m not really swayed by your overall take here (for the record I’m a former eco anarchist who has disavowed the tendency) but I have spent days going down the rabbit hole, reading the blog and listening to the podcast about the assassination of John Gilbride.

There’s shockingly little info out there about certain aspects of the MOVE organization and its history. It’s a story that has been surrounded in silence in large part because of the truly horrific repression the group has endured. But it’s also a story about how (predominately white) leftists and anarchists enabled a cult-like group to harm (predominantly Black) people and especially children for decades, under the pretense of being a radical liberationist movement. It seems that the state was also enabling or at least staying out of MOVE’s way after 1985 including in the 2002 Gilbride killing case. The 1981 bomb plot trial has also been little discussed despite its surprising result. Major connections too to the Mumia case/movement which consumed so much activist energy in the 90s and raised a large amount of funds that were controlled by MOVE leaders and helped the group rebuild after the massacre. I remember around the time Green Anarchy and others listing the MOVE 9 as political prisoners, which of course they were, but I think there has always been a strong element of tokenism in the failure to ask hard questions about a group where white supporters knew children were being abused. Embarrassed avoidance or outright denial seems to be the prevailing response. I don’t think that’s what “critical solidarity” looks like. Aside from the abuse that happened behind closed doors the abuse of using children as political props transpired in full and very public view, while white radicals used MOVE as a whole as props for their own anti racist bona fides.

Now that young adults who grew up in the group have begun leaving over the past few years, and for the first time giving inside accounts, I’m shocked that I didn’t hear anything about this til now. I have heard of MOVE of course at least 20 years ago (mostly in relation to 1985); even then people said, that the group was some kind of a weird patriarchal cult. The reluctance to criticize them is in many ways understandable but it’s a very troubling case for a number of reasons and I’ll just encourage everyone to look into it further.

anon (not verified)
7:52 here again I will

7:52 here again I will respond quickly to your take on GA. Again, I don’t hold with primitivism or Luddism as I once did. (Well maybe just a bit with Luddism but from a more social perspective.) Anyway I don’t think these are fascist ideologies although I do think they’re susceptible in some key ways to fascist subversion. They’re kinda fash adjacent. For instance one of my closest companions of my green anarchist days joined the TERFy cult of Derrick Jensen (see also: MOVE).

I don’t think you’re entirely on the wrong track but for one thing your chronology is very wrong, they were definitely part of radical environmentalism and eco-anarchism since at least the 80s. (And problematic since then too: Dave Foreman of the Abbey-influenced founders of EF! later dedicated himself to anti-immigration activism.) but I mean the Green Scare hit in 2005, I don’t know what you’re talking about there, when probably the most famous primitivist anarchist, JZ, had his heyday along with the PNW scene in the 90s and early 00s. And citing vice and the daily dot etc …? I mean come on… if you think eco-anarchists are fash-adjacent, I have some terrible news for you about liberals!!

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