The guy was a fruit cake and his manifesto is nonsense scapegoating, just because technology can create some problems does not mean thats the unibombers point, he didn't have one and his manifesto shows that.
Even Bill Joy thought that the dangers of Tech were real. Kaczinsky just reacted differently. In fact he didn't just "react". he "acted" - which if you have read Jacques Ellul and agree with Ellul you know there is no way out from Tech. To paraphrase Slavoj Zizek:
"it's easier imagining the end of the world then to imagine the end of capitalism" (e.g.: it's easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine a future without Technology or Systems.)
Kaczinsky was somebody with a strong desire to change things and who believes the dangers are real. He became what we call "insane" by reading Ellul and decided to live in the woods. He then became "criminally insane" after realizing Ellul was right and that there is no way of escape (and in a literal sense from other humans after they built a highway straight through the place where he sheltered and people starting to come too close).
He then decided to blow people up because they got too close with their fancy technology... a road, double fruit cake.
What was his point beyond technology bad? The only thing you mention is that Jacques Ellul had the arguments and he was just a fruit cake, which was my argument.
Not saying the Unabomber actually has anything worth reading, I've never read the manifesto, but dismissing it wholesale (and angrily) before doing so is rather illogical.
As DyslexicAthiest pointed out his beliefies are not reasoned he read some one elses reasoning and then adoped the belief "technlogy bad".
Roads are one of the oldest technologies originally built so we could get armies places faster, arguably a bad thing but those same roads can be use for ambulances that save peoples lives. Its obvious that how people use technology is good or bad and the technology is an inanimate object incapable of ethics, the unaboamber never considers this simply because it is irrelevant to his belief system.
He started to act on his beliefs when a road brought people to his world. He could have blown up roads, bridges, power plants etc but he choose to blow up people.
The unibombers problem was never technology it was people, like a facist he blamed every one else for his problems and technology was his judaism, the solution blow up the problem.
People have accused me of miss-representing him but these people have not read his manifesto the arguments against technology are surface level like some one arguing against 5g because they seen something on facebook, the real meat of his argument reads like mein kampf because thats his belief.
Also I obviously mean fruit cake as in insane not as in gay, I have no idea if he was gay and I really don't care it has no relevance to my argument or his beliefs or actions. I dunno why some one would think his sexuality was relevant but others have commented so wanted to be clear.
- Edit -
lucideer made my argument way better than me. (I had no assumptions when reading it and related to a lot of the right wing worldview)
> the manifesto is an enormous disappointment. It's filled with base broad assumptions, ignorant and unresearched assertions on "leftism" and in particular his treatise on "oversocialization" is so transparently a defensive lashing out at the elements of society that have not been personally accepting of him.
Why do you say he in fact didn't have a point?
For example, ctrl+f "technology"
> The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict [...etc]
People can do bad things witch technology and we NEED to talk about it and consider the reasoning and logic of that technology as this article does, but this isn't the unibombers point of view he was just "Technology bad"
The article makes good points and talks about ideas which have been talked about by intelectuals like noam chompsky for years. The problem is it then attributes these ideas to a fruit cake whos only contribution to the world was "tecnology bad you blow up now"
You can apply this logic to everything that's ever been said or written. It's a nonsense thing to say.
> Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
Of course, this manner of peaceful protest is neither masochistic nor unique to the left, so I'm not sure how he thought that this made any sense. He even acknowledges that it is often effective, and yet he still claims that it is motivated by self-hatred!
If you can highlight anything of value in his manifesto, I'd very much appreciate it.