/lit/ - Literature

>>14333298

Alright who can let me read this for free?

What are some interesting “banned books” that you’ve read?

literally "We live in a society..." the book.

ITT shit /lit/ memed you into reading

pic related was dogshit by the way. Would have been deep and cool if I was thirteen and smoked weed all the time and hated my mom and my step-dad though.

"Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason,
science, objective reality and to insist that everything is
culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and
about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can
be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically
analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply
involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality.
They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for
hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates
science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs
as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false
(i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority
run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of
some things as successful or superior and other things as
failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many
leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of
IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations
of human abilities or behavior because such explanations
tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to
others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame
for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is
“inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has
not been brought up properly" - Ted Kacznski

Industrial Society and Its Future is the best book i've ever read; the guy sounds like a great guy to get a beer with.
do you think he would be my penpal too?

>164. Don’t imagine that the systems will stop developing
further techniques for controlling human beings and
nature once the crisis of the next few decades is over and
increasing control is no longer necessary for the system’s
survival. On the contrary, once the hard times are over
the system will increase its control over people and nature
more rapidly, because it will no longer be hampered by difficulties
of the kind that it is currently experiencing. Survival
is not the principal motive for extending control. As we
explained in paragraphs 87-90, technicians and scientists
carry on their work largely as a surrogate activity; that is,
they satisfy their need for power by solving technical problems.
They will continue to do this with unabated enthusiasm,
and among the most interesting and challenging
problems for them to solve will be those of understanding
the human body and mind and intervening in their development.
For the “good of humanity,” of course.


Here is where I doint agree with Ted. Sure, there will be scientists that enable the technology for further mass control, but this does not automatically entail that the technology could be implemented. If we regard technological society as a non-personal, unintentional yet destructive process, why would it necessarily want to control humans if humans is no longer a threat or problem to it? It might just be more efficient leaving humans be, or even more so, humans and their dreams might be needed as the end goal for the process to satisfy?

Seems to me like Ted here is making unfounded assumptions