i flagged this because its essentially terrorist propaganda because of what the guy did. i dont know what the guidelines are regarding such things but i don't think this belongs in a civil place like this.
That aside, I think he seems to overly doubt the inevitability, which is to completely ignore the fact that if we didn't create these systems then someone else would.
Even if you believe that they're dangerous or harmful (inherently), there's some game theory involved in not having created them in the same way as not having designed the h-bomb when we did. Because another potential world power will and that seems hard to dismiss.
No, the article is specifically a letter written by a mass-murderer. The objection is not that the ideas are the same, it's that this is literally what the killer wrote.
And? What's the objection to that?
Rejecting A's ideas because those ideas led A to murder is somewhat defensible. It's evidence that there is something deeply morally flawed in A's thinking.
Rejecting B's ideas because they are similar to A's is shakier. B's ideas deserve a hearing on the merits. (Ideas have consequences, and A has shown what A thinks the consequences are. Those consequences can reasonably be considered part of the "merits" of A's ideas.)
But I also disagree with the idea that we can't constructively discuss what he was saying.
Censoring the ideas seems even more dangerous to me. For instance, I'd rather that an impressionable person read the ideas in public where sane people can openly critique them than have them only presented on batshit conspiracy sites.
He did math too. Do you want to ban math here also?
This is not a conspiracy board here. People here would me the enemies of this guy and we all see that he was wrong now. So what are you afraid of?
Blindly attempting to suppress writings because of the actions of the author, if it worked, might serve to devalue violence as marketing, but it is never going to keep words from the true believers, who will just overvalue them because they're suppressed.
It also damages our ability to discuss the complaints voiced. Like it or not, some ideas that in the past have been promoted via violence turned out to be correct.
Finally, history is important. This, I hope, needs no explanation.
Same reason suicide charities discourage newspapers from reporting the contents of suicide notes.
If you want to discuss this "math" of yours, bring it from a source that does not amplify the signal by killing people.
(this is a joke, but the point is reasonable)
We also read excerpts of Mein Kampf at school. I did not have the feeling I needed to kill Jews afterwards. Maybe the text is not the problem here?
I'm impressed to hear that you don't have a problem with his ideas. I certainly do! I went into some detail about that, not long ago: https://aaron-m.com/2017/07/09/on-kaczynski
Perhaps I have failed to take your meaning here. But the trouble with an idea is that you can't kill it by excluding it from what we please ourselves to regard as polite discourse. Kaczynski isn't the only radical anarchoprimitivist in the world. Don't you think it might be a good idea to give food for thought to the next one who might be thinking about blowing people up?
https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2013/03/22/the-best-th...
I don't think it does much, to help his thesis gain traction, that he should argue it the way he seems to do. But that's his mistake to make, I suppose, and even he strongly disclaims the "blow shit up and kill people" part of Kaczynski's analysis - and that's the only part of his analysis which is genuinely original; Against His-Story, Against Leviathan, just off the top of my head, predates Kaczynski's publication by over a decade.
So I'm not sure that we really can add one otherwise obscure adjunct professor to one otherwise forgettable NYT opinion columnist and end up with meaningful uptake of anything that Kaczynski actually had to contribute, rather than simply an early attempt to find in anarchoprimitivism what value may be there to synthesize with the culture in which we live. A subtle distinction, I concede - but, I maintain, a worthy one nonetheless.
I cannot pretend to know what timwaagh thinks, but it seems overwhelmingly plausible to me that his comment communicates the view that Kaczynski's behavior turned irretrievably inexcusable at the point when he resorted to actual violence.
Your argument is invalid.
Of course, that doesn't mean I disagree with your conclusion.