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Comment by marcinzm | Hacker News Reader

>The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

I'll take detergent DRM any day over being a medieval serf.

It’s a prescient manifesto by Ted Kaczynski (an MKUltra’ed domestic terrorist). I often show it to friends who doubt that todays state of mass manipulation and over socialization could have been predicted.

I highly recommend reading it. His killing people to get it published put me off reading it, but a friend recommended it so I relented. I found it a good read.

I should point out that the consequence he was warning about was being made into a techno serf and that the danger was so great that it was worth abandoning technological comforts to prevent it.

You’re seriously recommending the manifesto of an anarchist that lived in a cabin in the woods without running water and sent dozens of mail bombs to innocent people?

Come on, you can’t find something to support your ideas that doesn’t help glorify random murders?

I am recommending it. He is clearly a smart person. If it was the ravings of a lunatic I would not. He is not a random murderer, he was psychologically tortured by the government as part of MKUltra before he killed anyone.

You just need to get on with the times. To read somebody now, you must: A) Be sure that whatever they wrote you agree 100% with. B) That person must share your full worldview and must have a pristine moral reputation. Anything else is dangerous, wrong and frankly subversive so I dont mind if you get punished by violating these simple principles.

there’s a very wide chasm between “don’t agree with an opinion” and “serial murderer”

you’re talking about the unabomber like he’s a victim of cancel culture instead of a guy that killed 3 people and maimed a dozen more

I've read books or articles by far worse people. Reading != morally approving the character of the author. Even easier in this case when the content is very interesting and relevant and the criminal author is not getting any revenue from me reading his content.

Yeah this isn’t reading it though, this is going online and praising a serial killer. Imagine a loved one dies from a mail bomb and someone online says “yeah but he made a good point tho”

You're seriously trying to censor one of the most influential anarcho-primitivists in the world, on the basis that talking about his work somehow "glorifies random murders"? Talk about oversocialization.

he killed several people and tried to blow up an airplane… I’m saying maybe find literally any other person to support an idea

I don't support his murders in the least. He is rightfully locked up. I just think some of his ideas are interesting. I see ideas as entities separate from humans - one human can have many ideas and one idea can be had by many humans. The ideas would be the same even if someone else wrote them down.

If you spend a few minutes looking you’ll find that many other people have written them down, even pre unabomber. His manifesto is popular because he blew people up, not because he was an original thinker.

I honestly don't understand your reasoning. Is it somehow immoral to talk about murderers, or about what they wrote? If so, why?

Isn't it rather precedented to do this? In most readings (that I've seen, anecdotally) of Timothy McVeigh's writings, or Hitler's Mein Kamph, people read these works specifically in the framing of a path to the atrocities, rather than in erstwhile debate of normative claims.

To me it feels immoral to promote reading what they wrote, because it was used to justify murder, and popularized as a result of said murders. It's a similar reason for not recommending Mein Kampf. It's a similar reason why some countries won't report the names of mass murders in the news.

If this were a unique idea not repeated since by others, I'd be more likely to agree with you... but it's not.

If you were recommending this reading as a cautionary tale about extremism, I'd also be more inclined to agree with you.

But in reality, all of the information found in the unabomber's manifesto can be found from sources that weren't serial murderers... so what does recommending this writing, and not other related writing accomplish? from my perspective it only serves the murderer. The original publication of the manifesto was also forced under the threat of murder.

> But in reality, all of the information found in the unabomber's manifesto can be found from sources that weren't serial murderers... so what does recommending this writing, and not other related writing accomplish?

You're trying to shift the burden of justification to me, when you are the one trying to censor.

What does censoring me accomplish in the real world?

Does me talking about him make his murders worse then they are?

Are Kaczynski's murders going to disappear once every single person stops talking about him?

Why should I even bother figuring out alternative sources, what difference does it make in the real world whether I talk about him or about any other anarcho-primitivist?

>While Kaczynski's violence was generally condemned, his manifesto expressed ideas that continue to be generally shared among the American public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto

Yeah maybe try one of the people expressing similar viewpoints that weren’t also serial murderers, they’re not unique ideas…

It's not a dichotomy though. I've got a boring dishwasher which works fine and I'm not a medieval serf, so I get the benefits of the industrial revolution and the big scientific leap (or to use hipster phrasing, I've got a dishwasher robot) at the expense of money (a new dishwasher would be a week's worth of wages).

If it was just detergent DRM, I'd probably agree with you.

So which parts are bad enough that you’d prefer medieval serfdom?

Noise pollution is my number one. There is simply no way to escape it living in the city, and there are no job opportunities for software engineers on the countryside (not that it's perfect on the countryside either - given all the motor-based tractors, chainsaws, lawnmowers, leafblowers...). I hate it and it's driving me crazy and all I want is peace and quiet, but apparently, that's too much to ask and I'm spoiled and it's all in my head and I should shut the fuck up and stop bothering the noisemakers.

There are many others that I can't think of right now, I don't really keep a list.

When I worked in San Francisco I lived in a quiet suburb a few miles from BART. I couldn't hear much of anything.

In any event, nowadays it's extremely easy to get a full time remote gig and live in a truly remote location - especially factoring in lower cost of living. This doesn't seem like an actual problem. Actually, it seems like the industrial revolution has provided an idyllic outcome for people in your situation.

That's a good point, and one I have considered many times. It has its tradeoffs. I suppose right now it's much more important for me to be close to humans and to learn and develop myself, so it's a necessity for me to be here. Once I get a good enough remote job I will definitely move somewhere far away from everything.

Sure. I think that's a really reasonable choice.

Regarding the original point, I think it's important to highlight that without the industrial revolution humans wouldn't be able to live closely together in cities. Living in a city is a choice, and you've chosen the modern option because it's superior.

This doesn't seem like a disaster as much as a net-positive with some fairly mild tradeoffs.

> Regarding the original point, I think it's important to highlight that without the industrial revolution humans wouldn't be able to live closely together in cities.

Note that settlements have naturally occurred around rivers because of agriculture (e.g. Mesopotamia), so "cities", in some sense of the word, have existed long before the industrial evolution.

I am aware that civilization brings good stuff with it - it's hard to not be aware of it - but I don't think the tradeoff is worth it. I think it can be, and ought to be, much better than this. It is my opinion that each and every human deserves to (be able to) live in an environment that is pleasant to them. I see it as a fundamental human right.

I mean with the growth of renewable energy, satellite internet and WFH you can work from the middle of the woods (and there's actually many woods out there still). All of that thanks to ever progressing technology.

In theory, yes. In practice it is a bit mote difficult.

If you own your house, spend the money for triple-glazed windows and have a sound/insulation gap check.

It helps tremendously.

Unusually high levels of noise sensitivity (low tolerance) may be an indication of an underlying genetic condition like hEDS.

Interesting, what makes you say that? Autism also typically comes with noise sensitivity and is about 100x more common than hEDS. Or were you suggesting that it may have a genetic basis in general (which would be useful to diagnose)? That makes sense.

It’s an example I’m more familiar with, but yes it’s a behavioral indication of a genetic condition. hEDS is massively under diagnosed (by at least an order of magnitude) and many with hEDS have ASD. Someone who is high functioning ASD has a much greater probability of having hEDS. Fewer people have heard of it and it is more treatable.

It's a shame we can't go back to the pre-serfdom days, before mass agriculture.

See also: The Agricultural Revolution Has Been a Disaster for The Human Race[0]

[0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZdjP0NZO-CU

You still are a serf, stop paying your taxes and see what happens.

Same. But capitalism's driving force, profit above all, is simply going to consume everything in the end.

Growth above all else is in many ways humanities driving force.

Nonsense, humans are no different than any other animals and survive best in equilibrium and always die out in cases of uncontrolled growth.

>Nonsense, humans are no different than any other animals and survive best in equilibrium and always die out in cases of uncontrolled growth.

Yet left on their own they will uncontrollably grow like what happens with invasive species. Then they'll collapse. Repeat a few times and some type of equilibrium may happen for a while until something else breaks it.

Animals have no magic "equilibrium" sense but rather the surviving ones have evolved to have an equilibrium with their environment. That doesn't even mean the animal changed genetically but rather that other animals (ie: the environment) did to provide competition.

> Animals have no magic "equilibrium" sense but rather the surviving ones have evolved to have an equilibrium with their environment.

There's nothing magic about persistence balance in nature. It happens in millions of ecosystems.

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