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Comment by cjbgkagh | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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…

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