He did less damage than a Harvard grad who went on to run a hedge fund, or went on to work in private equity, or work for McKinsey, or become a lobbyist.
Where's the detailed list of victims of globalization and finance?
Where's the detailed list of victims of globalization and finance?
However, that's still irrelevant and does nothing to alleviate the fact that he killed many innocent people.
Two wrongs don't make a right, as they say.
Surely no one making decisions of consequence in our world. They certainly prefer tit for tat.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
If we're going to make a rank order list of genocidal maniacs, Ted Kaczynski isn't anywhere near the top.
(Megadeth - Captive Honour, by way of Jean Rostand)
Getting into or graduating from Harvard as an undergrad doesn't mean much. Granted, Kaczynski didn't buy his way in, but the comment as written doesn't differentiate between some rich kid buying their way in and some genius earning their way in.
"he did less damage" - "then a lobbyist or McKinsey" is a wild statement. He was a purposeful murderer. Trying to lump McKinsey consultants and politicians (horrible people, most of them, I am sure) with a serial killer is normalizing murder. Murder is a line that, I imagine, is drawn in concrete for any person who expects to be welcome in the modern society.
I will take my chances in being the subject to damage done by any randomly picked lobbyist vs Unabomber. Won't you?
What is going on with HN if this is the kind of discourse that's getting upvoted and approved.
I think half a million dead Iraqis would say the latter.
Best of luck.
I'm sorry this makes you feel bad.
I'm not trying to excuse, or minimize, Kaczynski's crimes. I am asking you to understand that in the case of revolutionaries and political leaders, the difference between heroes and terrorists is ultimately decided by the people of the future. It is very easy to see serial killers and bomb makers as individually evil, because its a very personal sort of violence, and the motivations are expressed and enacted on a very personal level.
But how do you deal with more indirect motivations and indirect violence? Was Churchill's inaction during the Bengal famine murder? What about all the collateral damage during Bush's tenure with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is Barack Obama a murderer for ordering the death of Anwar Al-Awlaki? Or was it the drone operator who followed the order?
This is to say nothing of the original comment, that Kaczynski did less damage than the average Harvard grad (depicted as someone in finances. The extent to which working in finances causes damage and death is, I think, a lot less direct than even the damage done by a head of state enacting national policy).
I don't think Kaczynski did the right thing, or that his underlying motivations were even coherent, let alone morally correct. Do not misunderstand me. But if we're stack-ranking history's greatest monsters (and Harvard graduates), actual effectiveness counts at least as much as intent.
A factual correction: George W. Bush was both an undergradate at Yale (Class of 1968) and got his MBA at Harvard (HBS Class of 1975)