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Comment by vezzy-fnord | Hacker News Reader

It's worth noting that the author recanting his book isn't as of recent. In fact, he dropped his views all the way back in 1976.

This editorial review on the Amazon page for the book might offer some more insight: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0974458902

Oh, and might I add, The Anarchist Cookbook isn't flawed so much in that it presents violence as a means to an end, but rather that actually following the recipes will likely get you killed or maimed. Hopefully people reading the book already knew this.

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>Oh, and might I add, The Anarchist Cookbook isn't flawed so much in that it presents violence as a means to an end, but rather that actually following the recipes will likely get you killed or maimed. Hopefully people reading the book already knew this.

The Vice's Guide episode where they try out recipes makes this crystal clear. The napalm experiment was probably the most eye opening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcIMuoUcc1s

The recipes cooked by Vice were not recipes from the book, the were recipes from the electronic version which bears little resemblance to the printed version.

Could you elaborate on this?

The Anarchist Cookbook is the title of a dead-tree book, which the article is about.

The Anarchist Cookbook is also the title of an unaffiliated text file containing explosives recipes.

And yet the Anarchist's Cookbook, the original that is, is widely available in electronic form. Are you saying there is another file, that is also widely read, that also contains explosive recipes, that is also titled "The Anarchist's Cookbook", that is completely unrelated to the original?

Yes. Several of them, actually. This has led to lots of confusion, though the original recipes are hardly any less safe.

See here: http://www.anarchistcookbookz.com/the-anarchist-cookbook-faq...

Thanks for the info. The narrator of the Vice Guide episode claims that the paper version was appropriated into the electronic version so I got the impression that these experiments where related to book mentioned in the guardian article. Confusing.

interesting! this link should be at the top of the thread since at least half of the people in this discussion seem to be talking about the electronic version(s).

Eye opening in what way?

I'm not familiar with the book; are the recipes simply handling dangerous chemicals? Are the methods shoddy? Or are they written intending to harm the preparer as a form of sabotage?

In order: Usually; almost always, especially when involving fun stuff like nitric acid; that question's answer depends on whom you ask, but I tend to doubt it.

Most of them are just overly optimistic. Overestimating the size/power/destructive power of things that ultimately would be little more effective as weapons than firecrackers (though like firecrackers, more than capable of maiming the handler...)

If you wanted to make such a book properly, you would be best off describing things that you did not invent (or worse, dream up but never tried) but instead things that have actually been used. For example, describe how the Finns used storm matches to make Molotov cocktails (which they used to great effect against Soviet tanks, though modern tanks will not be vulnerable to those sort of attacks. That should also be mentioned prominently in this hypothetical "Cookbook-done-right.")

The sabotage idea is the most likely to me, since anyone who would have written the articles probably would have tested the ideas first, and realized how stupid and unworkable they were. Instead it purports to be a real guide, so either it was written by a total moron, or someone who knew the recipes would end up backfiring. The time at which it was written is filled with examples of USG trying to subvert or break up anti-war groups, so it's not unreasonable to assume they might produce misinformation like this.

I still whip up a batch of bananadine from time to time and get ripped.

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