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Comment by qpooqpoo | Hacker News Reader

"200 hours of brutal psychological experimentation"

This is a conspiracy theory and a myth.

No it isn't. They were stress experiments and the goal was to humiliate him to see what his limits were and they're on the record.

The (often claimed) part of the story that's conspiracy theory is that the experiments are tied to MKULTRA, which I didn't claim at all, because there's no evidence of that.

If anything's a conspiracy theory, it's that the entirety of your comment history on Hacker News, spanning 2 years is to post solely on the topic of the Unabomber, and that you do the same thing on Reddit.

Kaczynski has come out and said it wasn't stressful, and that it was mostly multiple choice questions.

Other participants in the study and other researchers involved have come out and stated that it was benign.

No other students involved reported any lasting issues.

We have on record the actual transcripts of Kaczynski's participation and it conclusively shows that it was benign--in fact it shows a calm and relaxed Kaczynski make the interviewer appear silly.

It's easy to see why people cling to the idea that Kaczynski must somehow have been affected by this study: it distracts their own and others attention away from his ideas and on to his personality. The reasons for his violence are entirely consistent with his ideology. There have been terrorists and revolutionaries throughout history who have committed far worse "crimes" and yet we don't need to pathologize them or their motivations.

When I checked the comment history after reading that last line I couldn't believe my eyes.

I wonder if Dang considers it astroturfing if an intelligence agency does it? (edit: joke, but it is weird that your comment history is nothing but about Ted).

And for those of you who are wondering if the psych. experiments are real or not: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard...

This constitutes the "proof" that Kaczynski was somehow lastingly affected by the study? A writers theory in a book? The problem with that is that I can just as well present evidence that the book is completely inaccurate:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/09/letters...

Why would an intelligence agency do what I'm doing? What would they have to gain by posting this?? I'm trying to understand the humor, please help me.

They've even suggested wikipedia edits on his page that were rejected. Single-issue posters in general are hard to deal with as far as community & discussion, but this is just weird.

I'm genuinely worried here.

What are you worried about? A debate about facts on a controversial topic with someone who is interested in it?

Why does everyone here seem so timid and silly? Is it really necessary to get your panties in a bundle about someone interested in this controversy? Do you find it....disturbing? lol.

It's strange that they suggest the alternate books at the same time. I just want to understand the agenda.

If you look at the reddit posts you'll see more of the same and in a number of boards. Deeper searches of the name turn up alt-right memes (triple ellipses, ok hand gestures) via car message boards. I'm assuming accelerationist?

“There is an old saying in politics: ‘As soon as you start explaining, you have lost.’ It becomes incredibly difficult to counter misinformation with a point by point rebuttal—even when you are trying to bring science to bear. Any liar and propagandist knows this.” –Fox, Josh, “Meet the New Flack for Oil and Gas: Michael Moore,” The Nation, April 30, 2020.

This quote is especially on topic. Speaking of which, what do you think of that new Michael Moore doc "Planet of the Humans"?

"If anything's a conspiracy theory, it's that the entirety of your comment history on Hacker News, spanning 2 years is to post solely on the topic of the Unabomber, and that you do the same thing on Reddit."

How is that a "conspiracy theory"???

Reply on news.ycombinator.com