/lit/ - Literature

>>20492374
>seething about technology
>posting on imageboard
you've refuted yourself

>>20492374
it sounds all good and logical but it lacks what every ideology needs to have - a solution/ideal state from today (killing everyone and then the group that opposes technology in the end? good luck with that)

>>20492374
what he's proposing doesn't stop the cycle, a society will get fucked up by technology again. He's just suffering a brief reprieve rather than a sustainable solution. And, like most revolutionary texts, it expects someone else to execute it. Spontaneously everyone is supposed to over throw the elites... okay? And how do we ensure that not for the first or last time that the power vacuum doesn't mean a new generation of elites doesn't fuck us up too? Perhaps decides to selectively interpret an anti-industrial doctrine that supports their power base?

>>20492418
>basedface.png

>>20492374
He can be right all he wants, it remains meaningless and irrelevant to the reality that actually is. The inertia of the Levithan cannot be overcome by human means for the Levithan is what gives human means their power. You would be wiser to tilt at windmills than resist the Levithan.

>>20492418
exhaust all gasoline

>>20492418
>And, like most revolutionary texts, it expects someone else to execute it.
he literally build bombs you nigger

>>20492379
You can still use it while it lasts retard

>>20492379
>hurr durr you use a phone so you cant criticize phones' effect on society
midwit response

>>20492418
>what he's proposing doesn't stop the cycle, a society will get fucked up by technology again
I agree. It's a critique though. I don't think it's supposed to provide definitive solutions. But as for the critiques, I believe they are valid. The only part I disagree with is the same as you said. He believes the solution would be some type of anti-technology revolution that changes the complete foundation of the system. I just don't think it's possible, we're too far gone imo and I guess we have to make the best of it. Whatever the hell that means.

>>20492433
What point is a bomb when the Levithan kills by the millions and no one even cares? You think you can change the world by killing a handful of people? You can't even change the world by killing a thousand people. If you want to change the world, you have to murder on the scale of nations. Kill a hundred million people and you might make the Levithan shift an inch.

>>20492374
He refutes himself in 2nd paragraph

>The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period
of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.

Just make industrial society work.

>>20492374
His end goal is naively idealistic. Plus there's nothing wrong with hobbies

>>20492374
>what's the counter-argument to this?
Nick Land.
Make a pact with an AI-demon; put the rat back into RATionality. Humanity as it is, is not worth saving, but the future genetically-modified superhumans might be.

>>20492645
>huh we've been trying to consciously overthrow the natural order for 3 centuries now but it's only made things worse
>LET'S TRY HARDER THIS TIME

>>20492440
Our greatest hope is climate chamge. Hopefully at least 2 or 3 billion people will be removed.

>>20492374
Every single philosophy and ideology has one goal: to make you turn away from reality. To make you happy little navel-gazer. Add to that your personal feelings and circumstance, and you create a God out of each one of these books. And once you do that, you don’t do anything else.

>Hey why don’t you try getting ahead in your career?
HAHHHAA LOOK AT THESE BOURGEOISE FUCKS. Trying to repaint their mediocre corporate lives as revolutionary.
>Hey why don’t you pursue an interest to its end?
HAHHAHHAHHHHA hobbies are merely a master signifier. They don’t correspond to the real.
>Hey why don’t you start a business?
AND WHAT!!! CAUSE MORE DESTRUCTION TO THE PLANET!!!! We have exploited the planet for profit for too long. No thanks.
>I get what your saying. Why don’t you help children with education? They are really stupid now. Someone teaching them basic maths will definitely help.
BWWAAHHHAHA life is suffering. Children should not be born.
>Ok but surely you can help your neighborhood in some way? Maybe a relative? You can start somewhere?
LOOOOOL family is a capitalistic construct.
>Fuck off. If you want to see something happen, why not get a bunch of your friends together, look out for each other, make a trust or a company and go from there?
SMIRK According to Hegel groups formed on such a basis are bound to fail.
>Seems to me you just want to point your finger at something and discuss endlessly.
LAAAAWLLLZZZ look at this brute. Don’t you get it, man of action, you need to think to be able to act. Such morons these are. We’re sophisticated because we think a lot.
>Look if this is your thing, then just say so. We leave gamers by themselves. We leave painters by themselves. We will leave you by yourselves too, if you stop making such a fuss over it.
LMMMAAAAAOOOOO projecting much?

So you see? Ted Kac and everyone else have to draw you in with some truth and some compelling emotional commentary. Then they sell you bullshit, which you happily buy and keep juggling around thinking you’re smart and sensitive. Instead of having a sensible analysis and conclusion, their aim is to keep the discussion going forever. Ted Kac and everyone else are the same.
Open your eyes. Half knowledge is more harmful than no knowledge.

>>20492683
>huh we've been trying to consciously overthrow the natural order
Under the banner of humanism

>LET'S TRY HARDER THIS TIME
Computers are more worthy than you.

>>20492439
>>hurr durr you use a phone so you cant criticize phones' effect on society
>midwit response
Tbh, this usually is done against iPhone users. If they are so against phones, why the fuck they are always buying the most expensive ones? It's like those communist that are buying apple stuff. For some reason, they hate capitalism, but are always taking the most expensive options of anything.

>>20492374
Ted thinks that the future of technology will result in humanities extinction, through genetic engineering. He's right, this is the stated goal of most futurists.

Its basically a stemnerds solution to things. You cant just stop history and technics

>>20492433
How does that magically destroy the industrial complex? Did 9/11 magically destroy America? Remember when Mishima failed to get a single Army base to join his revolution? Good times.
>>20492439
>But as for the critiques, I believe they are valid.
Yes, I never once questioned or attacked his criticism of the industrial age. I think most rational people would agree with that part, because it's not even particularly radical.

>>20492719
>Half knowledge is more harmful than no knowledge.
And let me guess, you, or someone else, has "true knowledge", but as soon as anyone tries to state that it is "true", you will immediately retort with the same "critique." Your type is so tedious. I hope the fact that you are citing Hegel is ironic, which I believe it is, but I cannot tell in full honesty.

>>20492733
general AI doesn't exist, it's just a gay sex cult in the bay area

>>20492757
No you fucking retard.
That middle paragraph was a caricature of people exactly like you.

>>20492418
Yes, just as cutting out a tumor doesn't stop the inevitability of death.

>>20492374
Refuted by Christian theology we have been kicked out of eden(our primitive past) now we have to try and make do in the world. There is no going back.

>>20492757
Even your response to my post sounds like my caricature. Holy fuck you people wont change. You will keep discussing nonsense endlessly.
Im expecting another retarded response exactly like my caricature.

>>20492773
So what is reality then? Why do you have knowledge of what is or isn't valid? The real joke I think is that your type is the true navel gazer.

>>20492780
>Im expecting another retarded response exactly like my caricature.
And here it is. A variation of "haha projection much".

Right about everything.

>>20492775
Bad analogy, it's more like removing most of the tumor but the tumor itself could come back. He doesn't propose a way of completely removing it. And he should, otherwise he's condemning humanity to a continuous cycle of the same shit. He doesn't solve the problem.
What are you doing to solve the problem?

>>20492786
>he doesn't solve the problem
the entire point of anti-tech thought went over your head.

>>20492783
Do you have anything meaningful to say? Why are they wrong? Or are they just wrong because you say so? You won't answer. You will just repeat the same mantra again and again: "you can't know anything!!!!"

>>20492786
>He doesn't propose a way of completely removing it.
That's exactly what he does. And yes, tumors can always come back, because the original cause will always exist, just as the laws of nature always exist. That does not devalue a potentially longer life with a removed tumor as opposed to an actual short life without removing.

>>20492764
>general AI doesn't exist
Yet.
And just a half a century ago, computers didn't exist at all. But now they are a game-changer already.

>>20492374
Read Ellul.

>>20492846
half a century ago we had mechanical and even electromechanical computers, we don't have a precedent for AI - neural networks aren't it

>>20492791
>That does not devalue a potentially longer life with a removed tumor as opposed to an actual short life without removing.
Bad analogy. A tumor requires a incision, it hurts for a little bit but it heals.
A militaristic overthrowing or revolution against the industrial order would cause incalculable deaths, destruction, and suffering because obviously humans being humans - not everyone would be on board - leading to a ghastly protracted conflict, that at the end of which we just pray that the same fucking thing doesn't happen again even though it almost certainly will.
>>20492789
Wouldn't people just invent tech again? In the same way that atheists have pretty much reinvented religion and branded it Marvel and Progressivism?

>>20492860
>we don't have a precedent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias
You don't have it, until it suddenly emerges. So goes the story with any other invention or discovery.

>we don't have a precedent for AI
Let me paraphrase it this way: modern day humanity has achieved a lot in production of *intelligence*. You have internet, you have smartphones, your brain is being cracked via neuroscience. And just a century ago, all this would have been unprecedented. Science suddenly arrived and delivered.

Therefore, behavior-wise you have 2 alternatives:
1. Keep shitting under yourself and spitting into the ceiling, just like the furless apes have been doing throughout most of their history.
2. Help creating something genuinely new and unprecedented, that would atone you for the thousands of years of your shitty existence.

>>20492876
>Wouldn't people just invent tech again?

This is why he suggests global cooperation to suppress it.

Don't ask me if he thinks this is possible; it's what he merely suggests.

>>20492895
>your brain is being cracked via neuroscience
you're approaching this from a high-level/heuristic-based rather than technical perspective. we're still at the "when this happens, this general area lights up" stage, which is very far from being able to reverse-engineer a brain. and that's not to suggest that you can't build something without fully theorizing it first, but we don't even have real criteria for sentience other than "thing that can run a logistics network for us"

>>20492374
I like technology. So not my problem.

>>20492374
he may be right but the society has progressed too far to revert to hunter-gatherer lifestyle
If you go to live in a forest and hunt using primitive methods you're nothing more than a larper

>>20492374
I enjoy my hobbies.

>>20492989
There's no true measure of "progress", it's just a political buzzword so you can label any change you endorse as being necessary. The so-called progression pushed by tech advocates is to turn all human beings into insects by force. Ted's antics were an attempt to wake people up and if properly heeded then we could succeed at this. Trying to live in the physical world as a real human being with a soul is not a larp, and if you believe so then you are spiritually compromised and can't even connect with your own natural state on planet earth anymore.

>>20492852
Fuck Elol

>>20492989
>Another retard who has never even read Ted
He hates anprims and doesn't advocate utopian "retvrn".

Why do the mods keep deleting Bible threads? What rule are they breaking?

>>20492418
>just suffering a brief reprieve rather than a sustainable solution. And, like most revolutionary texts, it expects someone else to execute it. Spontaneously everyone is supposed to over throw the elites... okay? And how do we ensure that not for the first or last time that the power vacuum doesn't mean a new generation of elites doesn't fuck us up too? Perhaps decides to selectively interpret an anti-industrial doctrine that supports their power base?
It's really tiring seeing people continue to simply read the meme manifesto and call it quits. ISAIF is so bare-bones, you really cannot get his ideology from it only. He makes it very clear in Technological Slavery that he doesn't advocate for a political revolution. First of all he makes it very clear that he has no pretentions of a mass-movement, and he is in fact actively opposed to it. The Anti-Tech movement should be composed of a small well-organized of highly motivated and fit individuals who takes down the system by means of mass terrorism. There is taking over of countries, it is a global shutdown of the techno-industrial system.
>Bad analogy, it's more like removing most of the tumor but the tumor itself could come back. He doesn't propose a way of completely removing it. And he should, otherwise he's condemning humanity to a continuous cycle of the same shit. He doesn't solve the problem.
Ignoring the very real potential that the resources required to kick-start a new industrial revolution have already been used up, it really doesn't matter. If you have the opertunity of dying today or living another hundred years, it only makes sense to fight for that hundred. The inevitability of death doesn't render life useless.
>A militaristic overthrowing or revolution against the industrial order would cause incalculable deaths, destruction, and suffering because obviously humans being humans - not everyone would be on board - leading to a ghastly protracted conflict, that at the end of which we just pray that the same fucking thing doesn't happen again even though it almost certainly will.
It has nothing to do with not all humans being on board, the opinions of the masses are completely irrelevant because they will be unable to do anything once society collapses through a targeted global destruction of technological infrastructure. Imagine the electric grid shutting of all across the world all at once. Imagine nukes going off in all the major cities. Their cooperation is unnecessary.
What will, however, lead to mass death in the billions is the total shutdown of agriculture that follow such an event. The carrying capacity of any given area without using industrial farming methods is incredibly smaller than the current living population. In the 1500s, the world population was 500 000 000. This is not taking into consideration what would happen once everyone in the cities start flooding out into the countryside because there is no food there. There won't be enough for even 1%.

>>20493710
Mods are being based for once.

>>20493710
Off-topic. Religion threads go in /x/.

>>20493855
The Bible is the most influential work of literature in history.

>>20492379
202. It would be hopeless for revolutionaries to try to attack the system without using SOME modern technology. If nothing else they must use the communications media to spread their message. But they should use modern technology for only ONE purpose: to attack the technological system.
>>20492418
210. So it is clear that if the industrial system were once thoroughly broken down, refrigeration technology would quickly be lost. The same is true of other organization-dependent technology. And once this technology had been lost for a generation or so it would take centuries to rebuild it, just as it took centuries to build it the first time around. Surviving technical books would be few and scattered. An industrial society, if built from scratch without outside help, can only be built in a series of stages: You need tools to make tools to make tools to make tools ... . A long process of economic development and progress in social organization is required. And, even in the absence of an ideology opposed to technology, there is no reason to believe that anyone would be interested in rebuilding industrial society. The enthusiasm for "progress" is a phenomenon peculiar to the modern form of society, and it seems not to have existed prior to the 17th century or thereabouts.

211. In the late Middle Ages there were four main civilizations that were about equally "advanced": Europe, the Islamic world, India, and the Far East (China, Japan, Korea). Three of those civilizations remained more or less stable, and only Europe became dynamic. No one knows why Europe became dynamic at that time; historians have their theories but these are only speculation. At any rate, it is clear that rapid development toward a technological form of society occurs only under special conditions. So there is no reason to assume that a long-lasting technological regression cannot be brought about.

212. Would society EVENTUALLY develop again toward an industrial-technological form? Maybe, but there is no use in worrying about it, since we can't predict or control events 500 or 1,000 years in the future. Those problems must be dealt with by the people who will live at that time.
>And, like most revolutionary texts, it expects someone else to execute it.
You're forgetting the part where he was bombing professors involved with technological development and infrastracture with the intent of, in his words, increasing the instability of the system to lead to its destruction. He said multiple times that he alone could not do it so he wrote the book. He was not so insane as to believe he could destroy the entire world alone.

>>20492408
It's a reactionary ideology.
>Future will be really bad
>Do this to prevent that
Regardless,
>168. In the second place, one has to balance struggle and death against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better to die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but empty and purposeless life.

>>20495536
>freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain.
if someone is crushing your balls you would do anything to make him stop, you won't care about dignity, all other balls owners agree, avoiding of the pain of crushed balls > dignity.

>>20492379
>technology didnt exist before industrial society

>>20495678
>implying someone crushing your balls against your will has no affect on your dignity
it must be summertime

>>20495703
>indumstrial society bad because my wife loves BBC

>>20495711
>t. coombrain living the american dream

>>20495710
>doesn't know about CBT
it must be summertime

>>20495716
thats not an argument though, thats implying the person would like it and that they are free to have their desire fulfilled so them having their balls crushed is a non-issue

>>20495703
>208. We distinguish between two kinds of technology, which we will call small-scale technology and organization-dependent technology. Small-scale technology is technology that can be used by small-scale communities without outside assistance. Organization-dependent technology is technology that depends on large-scale social organization. We are aware of no significant cases of regression in small-scale technology. But organization-dependent technology DOES regress when the social organization on which it depends breaks down. Example: When the Roman Empire fell apart the Romans' small-scale technology survived because any clever village craftsman could build, for instance, a water wheel, any skilled smith could make steel by Roman methods, and so forth. But the Romans' organization-dependent technology DID regress. Their aqueducts fell into disrepair and were never rebuilt. Their techniques of road construction were lost. The Roman system of urban sanitation was forgotten, so that not until r ather recent times did the sanitation of European cities equal that of Ancient Rome.

Anyone else notice how the only objections to Ted's philosophy are practical ones or just gotchta's like this >>20492379 ?

>>20495715
>t. whiteboi idolizing losers

>>20495729
Yes. And all of those gotcha's are addressed in the source material that they clearly did not read.

>>20495727
>old technology good
>new technology bad
this is some boomer shit

>>20495732
you misrepresented his argument see how >>20495727 points out it isnt technology itself? this is the board where people are supposed to actually read. i never gave a value judgement on ted one way or the other.

>>20495734
>source material that they clearly did not read.
Its a 60 page of seethe, we all read it and it sucks

Ted Kaczynski is the logical conclusion of being a TolkienFag. Think about it logically.

>>20495743
>this is the board where people are supposed to actually read
I read it and I actually subscribed to the ideology in my teen years, its the most backward and most useless ideology ever, why would you regress while all the people move forward get better than you?

>>20495747
This, and Varg Vikernes is the retarded conclusion of being a TolkienFag, that retard lives in middle earth.

>>20492379
I'm aware of the irony of using technology in order to decry it, so don't bother pointing that out.

>>20495751
>195. The revolution must be international and worldwide. It cannot be carried out on a nation-by-nation basis. Whenever it is suggested that the United States, for example, should cut back on technological progress or economic growth, people get hysterical and start screaming that if we fall behind in technology the Japanese will get ahead of us. Holy robots! The world will fly off its orbit if the Japanese ever sell more cars than we do! (Nationalism is a great promoter of technology.) More reasonably, it is argued that if the relatively democratic nations of the world fall behind in technology while nasty, dictatorial nations like China, Vietnam and North Korea continue to progress, eventually the dictators may come to dominate the world. That is why the industrial system should be attacked in all nations simultaneously, to the extent that this may be possible. True, there is no assurance that the industrial system can be destroyed at approximately the same time all over the world, and it is even conceivable that the attempt to overthrow the system could lead instead to the domination of the system by dictators. That is a risk that has to be taken. And it is worth taking, since the difference between a "democratic" industrial system and one controlled by dictators is small compared with the difference between an industrial system and a non-industrial one. [33] It might even be argued that an industrial system controlled by dictators would be preferable, because dictator-controlled systems usually have proved inefficient, hence they are presumably more likely to break down. Look at Cuba.
>196. Revolutionaries might consider favoring measures that tend to bind the world economy into a unified whole. Free trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT are probably harmful to the environment in the short run, but in the long run they may perhaps be advantageous because they foster economic interdependence between nations. It will be easier to destroy the industrial system on a worldwide basis if the world economy is so unified that its breakdown in any one major nation will lead to its breakdown in all industrialized nations.
The evidence indicates you did not read it.

>>20495771
Hypocrite, benefits from using tech but decry it, many such cases.

>>20495774
>wants everyone internationally to organize a worldwide revolution
and when you state the fact that its impossible, he says "kek its possible if you believe its possible" yeah I read it and its a joke.

>>20495798
It's alright to disagree with Teddy, it's A-OK to make fun of something you didn't read on an arabian rugmaking bazaar, but if you actually read it and you're still this uninformed that's actually pretty hilarious. I kinda feel bad.

>>20495781
There is no way to avoid technology in an industrial society. Kaczynski elaborated on this.

>>20495843
I agreed with him, I argued in favor of him but in the end you just grow out of it, because its an unattainable ideal, an extreme just like the trans-humanists and there unrealistic ideals, all will grow out of it.

>>20495857
>no way to avoid tech
yes, you can also stop browsing this site, but you are a degenerate hypocrite.

>>20495861
Of course it's a nigh impossible ideal. Kaczynski said it was essentially impossible but that it's better to just try to avert technological enslavement than to do nothing at all.
>>20495866
>202. It would be hopeless for revolutionaries to try to attack the system without using SOME modern technology. If nothing else they must use the communications media to spread their message. But they should use modern technology for only ONE purpose: to attack the technological system.
It is impossible to avoid technology in an industrial system, even if one were to buy a plot in the middle of a forest they would eventually need to pay taxes- to pay taxes one would need to obtain capital- to obtain capital one would need to interact with industrial society.
Of course I use technology for other purposes. I do not follow Kaczynski's directives for revolutionaries. I understand that unless industrial society is destroyed it's pointless to avoid technology.

>>20495895
Industrial society will crush you under its boot.

>>20495904
Yep. Unfortunate but inevitable.

>>20495895
if it is impossible, why do you expect people, with loved ones and children to risk their lives for an impossible revolution? you won't make one man with a kid to agree to this shit, now imagine trying to do a worldwide revolution with all the people on earth to agree on this suicide mission that is bound to fail.

>>20495930
I do not advocate revolution but the idea is that the suffering and damage to human freedom and dignity caused by the industrial system is so great that the small chance of success is worth the temporary suffering and death caused by such a revolution.
It is a common rationalization for revolutionary and extremist movements.

>>20492645
>>20492733
>>20492846
>>20492895
You just know this poster faps to gay sissy hypno porn.

>>20492374
Ted Kacyznski? Refuted by being a tranny.

What we actually need to do is go back to the bygone era of true designated Warrior castes and hero worship. That's literally it. All ideology is cope besides fulfilling this end.

>>20492645
>Humanity as it is, is not worth saving, but the future genetically-modified superhumans might be.
>genetically-modified superhumans might be.
more like genetically castrated bugmen.
Actually, even bugmen are preferable to the genderless grey goo humanity could be

>>20492483
>Plus there's nothing wrong with hobbies
"Hobbies" are effectively just as worthwhile as sitting on your ass and doing nothing all day.

>>20495951
>revolution
we already agree that its not a useful solution since its impossible. ted got nothing but complains, even if he is right, he got nothing.

>>20495981
you to sit on your ass shitposting on this board anyway, its your hobby.

>>20492374
>So what's the counter-argument to this?
His obsession with conflating industrial revolution with collectivism is really annoying,

>>20496026
There is a subtle difference. Industrial society can only function as complex organism. Industrial society just as well ensures collectivism through its effects. For example, if one were to decide to leave the collective entirely and live in the "wilderness", they would have to rely on the collective as they travel along a system of roads, rely on the collective to allow them use of land, and finally rely on the collective not to repurpose the land.
This form of collectivism is diffetent from the type that Kaczynski establishes.

>>20496026
>>20496069
Different from the type that is common in modern discourse*

>>20496069
But Industrial Society just as well ensures there's no cohesion or meaningful interpersonal relationships when everything is so atomized on such a massive scale, implicitly encouraging everyone to be individualistic and see themselves as an "island". Anyways it's just a political thing (I'm just pointing out Ted is definitely a libertard), it's not necessarily a refutation of his work.

>>20496095
A society with no interpersonal interaction of any kind could still function as a collective. Individuals still function as units of production for the system, and all of these units act in aggregate as a collective to keep the system running, whether it is through distribution of goods to other individuals, programming of machines to produce goods, or even entertainment to keep the collective "greased" and working at tip-top efficiency.

>>20492379
Fpbp

What Ted really wants to say, but refuses to for the sake of attacking technological society on its own rational merits, is that the natural life is inherently superior to it (e.g. a life without dependence on mind altering drugs > the alternative).
The only problem is, operating on technological society's own logic, technology could theoretically solve the all the problems Ted outlines. Technological society causing feelings of unfulfilment, depersonalization, and alienation could be seen as a temporary inconvenience, just one thing of many to be fixed as society progresses. As long as bugman logic is the only kind of argument being had, bugman conclusions are all you can expect.
This is one of a few reasons why Ellul > Ted, because Ellul posits that the natural life has intrinsic value that can't be replaced.