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Comment by paulie_a | Hacker News Reader

I read his manifesto in middle school because it had just came out in the papers. Previously I thought it was incredibly repetitive to disguise the simplistic ideas. Reading this I change that opinion, he was an angry "loser" with delusions of his own intellect that overcompensates with a lot of words.

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Perhaps you should look at how he became what he became, the CIA and the MKULTRA project were probably a huge factor in the creation of his persona. So calling him a loser is probably an unfair assessment.

Calling him a loser also means largely discarding anything he says without any consideration. The fact is, we've done that with large classes of people (in every country, in every time) who feel that the "current" (whatever it is at the time) system or progress is harming them. Eventually, they boil over to become either the majority or mobilized minority army and we have chaos in a country, region, or globally.

This letter speaks rather directly to our contemporary issue of technology displacing non-degreed workers. Either by exporting the jobs (cheaper transport, better logistics), eliminating or reducing the number of people required (increased automation), or increasing the technical sophistication required (again, automation but also increasing presence of computer systems and more complex tooling). It's pretty obvious in the present discussions (and the most recent US presidential election) that people are feeling a great deal of fear and hardship because of our direction over the past 30-40 years (in particular). We have to confront these issues. Otherwise, a lack of consideration or deliberation (publicly) is a tacit endorsement of the current direction and its negative effects on large blocks of our fellow humans and citizens.

It really is a sad and fascinating story. For those who don't know and are curious:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard...

Rational arguments against his ideas will be more successful than ad-hominem arguments against his ideas.

I am not defending a terrorist so much as espousing a better communication of ideas.

"You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it."

- Wendell Barry

Not saying I approve of bombing people, but we owe much progress to nonconformist losers.

How is the youngest full professor in mathematics at Berkeley a loser in any sense if the word?

The man is clearly mentally disturbed and needed medical care, but that in no sense should dimish his academic accomplishments and raw intelligence.

he's a terrorist and a murderer. whether he won a genetic lotto is pretty much irrelevant.

Sounds like you refuse to even consider other possibilities. Okay, but there is still the question of his genesis as a terrorist and a murderer. Do you refuse to discuss that too?

> you refuse to even consider other possibilities

what do you mean, exactly? that he didn't terrorize and kill people?

> there is still the question of his genesis as a terrorist and a murderer. Do you refuse to discuss that too?

i don't 'refuse', but it doesn't hold that much interest for me.

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