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No, Kaczynski compiled his own writings. He also wrote a second book, Anti-Tech Revolution. In Kacynski's latest edition of Technological Slavery Skrbina's introduction doesn't even appear. It was a shitty introduction anyway.

The book Technological Slavery is not "by" David Skrbina. It is by Theodore Kaczynski. Skrbina just wrote the "afterward" in that book.

Anti-Tech Revolution and Technological Slavery are both amazing books and must-reads.

His books are even better. "Anti-Tech Revolution" and "Technological Slavery".

Agreed.

Thank you for this discussion. Suffice it to say I think you are dead wrong here. But a debate on the points you now raise is beyond the time I have to devote now.

"(a) humans behaved the way he needs them to behave for his system to work."

This is flatly wrong. Humans aren't "needed" to behave in this system in any way other than they have always behaved throughout history. The revolutionary ideal is not to create a utopia, or to control society and human behavior, it is only to destroy the industrial system. the world that will remain will approximate the world prior to the industrial revolution: full bellies and hunger, sickness and health, greed and compassion, etc. etc. But it's a world where the biosphere and humanity are not threatened with existential destruction.

"(b) you ignore all the death and suffering his solution demands."

No need to "ignore" anything. You just have to come the the conclusion that FAR more death and destruction lays in store for humans and the biosphere if technology is allowed to continue. This is a matter of facts and logic and can be reasonably deduced. You can;t somehow shirk from your intellectual and moral responsibility to think about something simply because it's painful to think about, which is essential what your doing. Would it be wrong, for example, for the Allies to have ever considered fighting and defeating Nazi Germany because it would entail millions of people suffering, regardless of the consequences of not doing anything???

You're still conflating the success of a tactic in furtherance of a goal with the success of a goal.

"..the Unabomber gets remembered as this struggle's John Brown, not this struggle's Abraham Lincoln."

You could be right about this. But then you could be wrong. Ideas still matter, and their particular expression still can have material impacts. Time will tell. Will Kaczynski's work inspire the sort of material, decisive impact that Martin Luther's works inspired during the Reformation's wars?? or Will Kaczynski as you say be more like John brown, while the real decisive impact will be made by those that actually organize and lead. (Just staying with your analogy). Only time will tell.

On this point you would do well to read the third chapter of "Anti-Tech Revolution." In it, Kaczynski argues for why an anti-tech revolution as he lays out would succeed and why its success would be more or less permanent while all other social revolutions and goals have failed and were fundamentally doomed to fail.

"You appear to be assuming the communist manifesto was a success due to the Russian Revolution."

You've missed the point. The point is not that the communist manifesto was ultimately successful or not judging by how its ideas were implemented successfully or not. It is merely to point out that there is an expected lag between when political ideas are produced and when they have an impact and it is irrational to imply that a political idea is a failure or wrong simply because you haven't observed their implementation or impact in your lifetime. Communism ultimately failed because of the fundamental failure of the ideas in the communist manifesto. But it does not follow that therefore Kaczynski's ideas, once implemented, will also ultimately fail. They are fundamentally different sets of ideas with different potential material outcomes.

Now, when looking at the short-term (historically speaking), Kaczynski's actions have been a resounding success. The manifesto and his other works are read by millions--far far more than if they were published traditionally where they would have been buried or left obscure. You may disagree with this point given the new media technologies and their leverage. But even in that case this overlooks a far more important aspect relating to revolutionary dynamics: Kaczynski's works have established themselves as the most radical and oppositional ideas in our world today by virtue of their violent context. This has the (necessary) effect of preventing the ideas from being co-opted and keeping away mild, reformist types who are offended by the actions (which is exactly what you WANT to do in the formation of any revolutionary movement).

This only makes sense if you place a limited and arbitrary timeframe on when "success" must be achieved, and what the "success" should be. Remember, the communist manifesto was published in 1848, and by your standard of "success" things more or less remained unchanged until the ideas in that manifesto culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1917--nearly 70 years later. Kaczynski understands this lag, and is quite sober and realistic about the long-term effect of ideas. This is adumbrated by the manifesto:

"If the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down. We think the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say forty to a hundred years." --Industrial Society and Its Future, paragraph 162.

Further, your statement implies an assumption which is not correct. The implication you're making is that because things have so far remain unchanged, Kaczynski's actions were therefore unjustified and/or his writings were not true. This does not follow. Just because an anti-tech revolutionary movement has not (yet) materialized and the industrial system is not (yet) under serious revolutionary threat does not invalidate the truth of Kaczynski's ideas or the validity of Kaczynski's actions. You would not be justified in implying this any more than you would be justified in claiming Galileo had no effect or was wrong because he was placed under house arrest and almost nobody believed him (at the time).

"His approach was not successful, no."

According to what criteria do you make this determination?

"The tranquility he's describing would, I imagine, guide one to understand that you can't control other people's actions."

This makes no sense.

Also check out Kaczynski's books: "Technological Slavery" and "Anti-Tech Revolution."

"...whether or not murder is acceptable..."

Here you're begging the question. Murder is unjustified killing, and by calling something murder before you've even fully determined the truth of the justification, your premises irrationally assume the truth of the matter.

By definition murder is not acceptable. The question is, were Kaczynski's actions "murder," and how well does this argument stand the test of reason.

This is extremely difficult, because morality is in large part determined by education and propaganda. For example, if you took someone from our time and raised him in the civil war south U.S., under that system of education and propaganda, would they see a black man's killing of his slave master because he thought it was the only way to escape as unjustified and therefore murder? This is not to say that the morality of all killing is relative! It is merely to point out that the society in which you live has a great role in determining moral justification. Was Kaczynski justified in his actions? Were the people he killed only moral from the perspective of an evil society that is destroying the earth and enslaving humanity? The answer to these questions lies in the truth value of Kaczynski's reasoning. And in this area there is very very little open and honest debate... precisely because, I think, the ideas are far too dangerous and uncomfortable.

Check out "Anti-Tech Revolution." That's his second book.

“There is an old saying in politics: ‘As soon as you start explaining, you have lost.’ It becomes incredibly difficult to counter misinformation with a point by point rebuttal—even when you are trying to bring science to bear. Any liar and propagandist knows this.” –Fox, Josh, “Meet the New Flack for Oil and Gas: Michael Moore,” The Nation, April 30, 2020.

This quote is especially on topic. Speaking of which, what do you think of that new Michael Moore doc "Planet of the Humans"?

What are you worried about? A debate about facts on a controversial topic with someone who is interested in it?

Why does everyone here seem so timid and silly? Is it really necessary to get your panties in a bundle about someone interested in this controversy? Do you find it....disturbing? lol.

This constitutes the "proof" that Kaczynski was somehow lastingly affected by the study? A writers theory in a book? The problem with that is that I can just as well present evidence that the book is completely inaccurate:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/09/letters...

Why would an intelligence agency do what I'm doing? What would they have to gain by posting this?? I'm trying to understand the humor, please help me.

"If anything's a conspiracy theory, it's that the entirety of your comment history on Hacker News, spanning 2 years is to post solely on the topic of the Unabomber, and that you do the same thing on Reddit."

How is that a "conspiracy theory"???

Kaczynski has come out and said it wasn't stressful, and that it was mostly multiple choice questions.

Other participants in the study and other researchers involved have come out and stated that it was benign.

No other students involved reported any lasting issues.

We have on record the actual transcripts of Kaczynski's participation and it conclusively shows that it was benign--in fact it shows a calm and relaxed Kaczynski make the interviewer appear silly.

It's easy to see why people cling to the idea that Kaczynski must somehow have been affected by this study: it distracts their own and others attention away from his ideas and on to his personality. The reasons for his violence are entirely consistent with his ideology. There have been terrorists and revolutionaries throughout history who have committed far worse "crimes" and yet we don't need to pathologize them or their motivations.

Yes, this is more or less correct. You should absolutely read Kaczynski's two books as well, "Technological Slavery" and "Anti-Tech Revolution."

"200 hours of brutal psychological experimentation"

This is a conspiracy theory and a myth.

"Not to fail in an ad hominem"

You mean TO fail in an ad hominem.

Also the books "Anti-Tech Revolution" and "Technological Slavery"

"...Thus we are left with the inescapable conclusion that democracy became the dominant political form of the modern world not through human choice but because of an objective fact, namely, the association of democracy, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, with economic and technological success."

--Theodore Kaczynski, "Technological Slavery", Revised and Expanded Edition, p. 297

The naive view is that we "chose" democracy because it was a freer and more humane system. That's a total farce. On the contrary, modern democracy arose out of a process of natural selection because it was the social arrangement most conducive to technological and economic success given the environment. As the world environment changes (due to technology) there very well may be other social arrangements that will out-compete and replace democracy because they will be technologically and economically stronger.

"Technological Slavery" and "Anti-Tech Revolution"

You should certainly also read the books "Technological Slavery" (2010) and "Anti-Tech Revolution" (2016) by Kaczynski