/lit/ - Literature

>>21273208
He was right about the quote you cited, yes. Kind of like the concept of The Matrix. Very true and very easily observable in basically any developed civilization.
This is why it's so upsetting to people when he talks about the simultaneous importance and irrelevance of surrogate activities.

do we need to have 3/4 separate Ted threads?

His targets were wrong. He sent bombs to some literally who smalltime computer store guy. Rather than tech millionaires or someone more influential. This is why I think he was a psyop. Have you guys noticed that? All these supposed radicals only go after nobodies. They never attack the status quo, the powers that be.

>>21273504
>All these supposed radicals only go after nobodies
I still don't understand why this happens but my suspicion is that powerful people, even their front men, are far better protected than we think

>>21273494
Alphabets want these threads up to get autists to say unpractical things.

>>21273208
Another thread of this?

>5 threads on ted in like 2 days
Are the FBI trying to come up with new lists of people that support him or something? Slow day at the office, eh glowniggers?

>>21273208
>we define mentally sound invididuals as those who aren't starting shit and bombing places
Wow Ted you're so smart

>>21273710
Who cares
>>21273979
That's not what he said

>>21273208
Tl;DR: Right about some things but wrong about enough that I don't think much of what he has to say is super useful.
He is right about some things but wrong about others. And there are bits of him that are just utterly retarded.
To do what he gets right out of the way first, he does offer some correct analysis of the current state of things. Things are indeed more complex than they used to be. But ultimately his analysis is not super groundbreaking. There has been Rosseau and such before.
Moving on to where he is incorrect.
His understanding of the actual nature of technology is poor. I can't blame him too much for this in all honesty though the way everyone thinks about technology is incorrect. The dishwasher making it so you don't have to wash dishes isn't something that has only existed since the invention of the dishwasher. If you lived in the right time you could just get a slave for that. A lot of the inventions fit into the category of boring work that slaves used to do.
Is it any wonder that during the 18th and 19th centuries a lot of rich and powerful people were fans of Greek and Latin works? Our social structures are or were similar to them in some important ways.

But the thing that Uncle Ted gets the most wrong to the point of being absolutely retarded is Anarchism. Nearly every single Anarchist is absolutely fucking retarded beyond belief. The reason they are so fucking retarded is they don't understand Anarchism basically means violence rules everything.

Which brings me to the final thing wrong with Ole Uncle Ted. He calls people to commit random acts of violence. If all the mailmen in the world were brutally and horrifically murdered in the most painful way possible the current system wouldn't collapse. It is effectively the act of a angry child throwing a tantrum. It's quite frankly pathetic and it also probably hurt the spread of his ideas since it took a while for anyone to take him seriously.

>>21273208
I'd say it's true. To some extent. I know people thing of me as strange for haivng been unemployed for over a year and not wanting to work. Maybe because I don't fit the narrative how we are supposed to live our life. With media and social media (which hits closer to home, since it's ppl we actually know), a lot of people are falling into dispair/depression because the feel they're not living comparable lives to what they are seeing aka the life of the "normie" so to speak. So it's considered a mental illness

I was fired over no vax, haven't worked in over a year and for some reason I am not depressed at all. Compared to say a decade ago when I was unemployed or sduring the period when I had a more prestigious career and felt true depression.

I think the difference now is that I have a surrogate goal (regular exercise and reading) which has been keeping me satisfied and have simplified my life. And purged most of my other desires such as materialism etc which are bottomless pits that can never be satisfied. That we as a society often use to distract us momentarily for a false temporary validation.

>>21275218
You're not retarded, but you are wrong. So wrong that you couldn't be more wrong even if you tried. You're likely only correct if your opinion and arguments have been built on 85IQ internet tedposters or NYTimes journos.
>His understanding of the actual nature of technology is poor. [...] The dishwasher making it so you don't have to wash dishes isn't something that has only existed since the invention of the dishwasher. If you lived in the right time you could just get a slave for that. A lot of the inventions fit into the category of boring work that slaves used to do.
This is not the issue that Kaczynski has with technology. It is not about relegating tasks or reducing the amount that an individual has to do(as a slave would), but about the decreasing level of independence from technology that is possible, and the increasing power of technology.
A slave is a self-contained unit. He relies on nothing more than an individual. He does not require the existence of complex infrastructure, supply lines, strip mining, oil drilling, telecommunications, or anything else. A slave requires only that which a man might. The problem with technology is in fact NOT technology itself. Each technological invention, taken by itself, can be a GOOD thing.
>. You can't get rid of the "bad" parts of technology and retain only the "good" parts. Take modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can't have much Progress in medicine without the whole technological system and everything that goes with it.
An example he uses is insulin. A caveman that, by some magic has diabetes, would be in no way harmed by the sudden existence of an insulin shot. There is nothing INHERENTLY wrong with the technology itself. The issue is that to produce insulin (at least as the tech is now) requires the existence of the rest of the industrial system, which on the whole, heavily restricts human freedom.
(cont)

>>21275218
>127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man's freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn't want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man's freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one's own pace one's movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price.Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker's freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)
(cont)

>>21275218
As you can see, the way you interpret Kaczynski's view of technology is wrong. That may not be your fault if low-IQ tedposters and journos are your only exposure to his ideology, but we'll move on to the next point.
>But the thing that Uncle Ted gets the most wrong to the point of being absolutely retarded is Anarchism.
Anarchism is not the point. The sole and only issue at hand is the technological system AS A WHOLE, not individual technologies themselves or the underlying governmental system. Notwithstanding any of Kaczynski's later deranged prisonworks, the ideology has no political basis whatsoever. It is solely an ideological battle against the technological industrial system. It doesn't matter if the later political systems formed are democracies, monarchies, or communist dictatorships.
>He calls people to commit random acts of violence.
This is absolutely not the case:
>193. The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily involve an armed uprising against anygovernment. It may or may not involve physical violence, but it will not be a POLITICAL revolution. Its focus will be on technology and economics, not politics. [32]
The actual method of the revolution is vague by necessity. He wants to advertise and convince powerful people within the industrial system to form connections and eventually pull of an extremely unlikely simultaneous sabotage of the system on a global level.
>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. [...]
(cont)

>>21275218
>>21275319
>>21275325
>>21275346
Random acts of violence would be what Kaczynski considers useless and in fact strengthen the industrial system and its resistance to destabilizing forces.
All in all, your post is entirely, objectively wrong. It may not be your fault if you had limited exposure to Kaczynskiism, but now you know.

>>21273494
I would like a general but which board is suitable? This isn't strictly literature. I have been thinking about him a lot because he is probably going to die soon.

>>21275218
>Anarchism basically means violence rules everything.
But anon, violence already does and forever will rule everything.

>>21275218
To pre-emptively combat the likely counterargument:
>TWO KINDS OF TECHNOLOGY
>207. An argument likely to be raised against our proposed revolution is that it is bound to fail, because (it is claimed) throughout history technology has always progressed, never regressed, hence technological regression is impossible. But this claim is false.
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 rather recent times did the sanitation of European cities equal that of Ancient Rome.
And for the counter-argument "what does it matter? Things will go back to the way they were anyway.":
>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.

>>21275325
This is the most important passage for anyone already skeptical of technology but not yet aware of how far it goes. The preceeding and following chapter are both very helpful to understanding the issue if you want to know more.

I think the biggest thing people misunderstood about Ted is that he doesn't have a black and white view on technology.
Technology grew too fast and our lives from the days of our ancestors changed too dramatically that we just aren't able to adjust to it well.
If I was president I'd parden Ted and let him live his life outside.
He might legit die next year. Let the man free

Tbh I should have elaborated more

>>21275404
Sorry I should have clarified what I meant. Violence is and forever shall be the court of last resort. But in a society where the rule of law predominates violence isn't the only thing that exists. Anarchism is basically saying everything should be decided by violence at every opportunity. Anarchist who think that Anarchy doesn't involve don't realize that in order for this to not be the case there must be some force or ORDER that cause it to not be the case.

>>21275319
A slave is absolutely not free not at all and the slave owner is also extremely reliant on the slave. The reason I bring up the thing about Technology being similar to slavery is to point out how technology hasn't fundamentally changed the limits of the nature of mankind's possible existence all that much. Social systems in which you are extremely reliant on large systems are not new. Rome had its own "supply chain issues" all the time. For example similar to recent events there was a plague during Marcus Aurelius' reign that disorganized trade and grain shipments to Rome were harder.

THIS suggests that the issue we are facing is in fact not a technological one at all but a social/political one

>>21275325
Notice the inherently Anarchist viewpoint. Freedom from all constraints is the maximized goal. This considering human nature is retarded one its own. People need other people. Also in addition this argument has a sort of utilitarianism built into it. Ted has a version of utilitarianism built into his worldview in that any sort of inconvenience or rules is horrifyingly evil. But for a lot of people the pain of the absolute fucking garbage dumpster fire of the DMV is worth it. It is wisdom to know that sometimes there is just large amount of stupid shit you have to put up with.

>>21275314
In the Modern World we often suffer in order to accomplish and experience meaningless, vapid things. Life as a bugman is fundamentally not worth living. Keep it up man find things that are worth suffering for.

>>21275360
I've read the manifesto didn't find much that super impressed me beyond him noticing that life is more complex and that he noticed a few things that were not obvious back then.

>>21275360
I seem to recall him calling for this but I could be misremembering. But the fact he did commit such acts himself and use his ideas as justification to do so means that even if I misremember I have a point to make.

>>21275408
>>21275346
These actually get into a big issue that I have with Ted (fuck spelling the last name). We should replace the word industrial with the word URBAN. I think it more accurately describes the modern world. City life has been and always will be more complicated than rural life. The best city in the world is Tokyo and the reason it is the best is because it is actually like 20 different cities that developed independently close to each other.

shelveset

>>21275589
Continued:

The work that is to be done that needs to be done is not some kind of revolt against technology as such but to work to make it so men can live in small localities.
Most existing technology has been developed to work best in large scales but this needs to change. And we aren't on some sort of limited time scale where if we don't accomplish this soon we'll lose the ability to do so. Modern TFRs means that the entire world basically being urban will die one way or another.

Sorry for grammatical error and length. I wish I was a better writer so I could be more concise.

connotatively chuchupate

taken place
SATA

Cycadaceae
iridodiagnosis
weeds

>>21275589
>A slave is absolutely not free not at all
It doesn't matter what a slave is because that's independent of technology.
>slave owner is also extremely reliant on the slave
It doesn't matter because this is not the issue. The issue is organization-dependent technology. A man may be extremely dependent on a stick to walk but obtaining a stick won't require the Earth to fall to its knees in pursuit of the stick. The slave and the master are the affected parties. It doesn't matter the dependence in this case; the master chooses to be dependent on the slave and the slave is forced to be dependent on the master.
>Rome had its own "supply chain issues" all the time. For example similar to recent events there was a plague during Marcus Aurelius' reign that disorganized trade and grain shipments to Rome were harder.
Kaczynski brings the topic of Rome up and claims they had negative organization dependent technology, namely aqueducts. Either way, this isn't the point. Random plebs living in a forest in Roman territory would not care if grain shipments to Rome failed. The problem today is that if grain-shipments got screwed almost everyone would be fucked. It's not reasonable for everyone on Earth to have a home garden that can provide for them, so they are dependent on industrial agriculture, which is dependent on roads, which limits freedoms and is further dependent on complex governments that must extract taxes from the populace, so even if you live in a forest and make your own food you're still going to be forced to interact with the industrial system to pay your taxes.
>Notice the inherently Anarchist viewpoint. Freedom from all constraints is the maximized goal. This considering human nature is retarded one its own. People need other people.
This is false. Freedom from the technological-industrial system is all that matters. It doesn't matter if there is more poverty, starvation, and death after a successful anti-tech revolution, all that matters is the destruction of the technological industrial system. Small-scale social dependence, or dependence on non-technological government is fine and completely in tune with nature.
>I seem to recall him calling for this but I could be misremembering.
He committed the attacks for the sole purpose of publicity. He stated this.
>We should replace the word industrial with the word URBAN.
He has no problem with cities in any practical sense. A medieval city has little effect on anyone outside, except parties that willingly choose to be involved. A small-scale village could produce enough grain for itself, or it could choose to become dependent on the city economically. Today, individuals do not have that choice for reasons stated earlier and elaborated further.

I think you're smart and I recommend you re-read ISaiF. If you disagree based on values that's certainly fine, and from you make good points following the premises(given by low IQ-tedposters) you're given.

>>21275617
Kaczynski explains that small localities will become increasingly artificial as technological power increases. Even then, imagine society gets to the point that large tracts of land are designated "wilderness" where people can live without technology. He acknowledges the possibility but (and I agree) that would be highly artificial. It's like a big playground for adults to pretend they're "in nature," when really it's just a hyperreal portrayal of the idea of nature. That's really degrading and dehumanizing. Of course, you can say that's purely on a moral basis- and yes. Opposition to tech is built on moral grounds. Kaczynski writes:
>2. 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. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.
Additionally, one change in governmental leadership and the whole nature preserve changes. Suddenly they decide all of the primitives must move out to make space for a new powerplant. Further, nothing is stopping a technological society from atomizing you with a hydrogen bomb.

>>21275649
>>21275669
chlorurated pleasedness
unbiddable

I fuckin love you guys. /lit/ has a soul again. idk why the past year was so garbage but looks like real discussion is happening here again.

>>21275649
>I think you're smart

I appreciate your cordiality and politeness.
With these types of things very rarely does anyone convince anyone of anything. But it is good as a type of fencing with both side learning more of the opponents moves.

I think the thing that separates us is our view of what technology is. My main point in the master slave thing was to dissolve the conception that you have of technology. The situation we find ourselves in isn't actually all that new. If we base our understanding of our current system only on the past 200 years or so I think we will miss the bigger pattern and fail to diagnose what is really going on.

Our current system attempts to control every aspects of its citizens lives and hides many of its attempts to do so in order make it harder to distinguish. It attempts to destroy rural simple lives and force people to live complex lives in cities as city life seems to demand this type of totalitarian system.

>He has no problem with cities in any practical sense

He should the practical nature of the city creates certain bad incentives

We live in a giant empire that attempts to coordinate and control billions of very different people. It desires to create a world where there is only one city and it's the entire world.

To say this poetically or schizophrenically I would call it Babylon.

>I recommend you re-read ISaiF
I might because skimming through it there is some interesting stuff there(I forgot how good he is at describing leftists) and it's something to do in the interim between doing stuff. But I don't think it'll change my opinions much. Many of my opinions are reactions to John Michael Greer and Nick Land both of whom I think make similar mistakes as Uncle Ted.

Be well anon

News Suite

>>21275669
I think his point about smaller things being more artificial is backwards. Smaller things need less management and rules due to less moving parts. In addition smaller things have certain massive advantages compared to larger things. An artisan can change an aspect of something he is building extremely easily to fit the environment(notice the similarity to life here) while an assembly line is extremely hard to change and every single piece has to be altered. In the long term Artisanal production will be able to better fit an environment since things change constantly.

>>21275785
>Our current system attempts to control every aspects of its citizens lives and hides many of its attempts to do so in order make it harder to distinguish. It attempts to destroy rural simple lives and force people to live complex lives in cities as city life seems to demand this type of totalitarian system.
>He should the practical nature of the city creates certain bad incentives
>We live in a giant empire that attempts to coordinate and control billions of very different people. It desires to create a world where there is only one city and it's the entire world.
>To say this poetically or schizophrenically I would call it Babylon.
I know what you're getting at, and I agree. The world is complex and there are many more issues than technology alone. One part of Kaczynski's works stands out:
>Whatever kind of society may exist after the demise of the industrial system, it is certain that most people will live close to nature, because in the absence of advanced technology there is no other way that people CAN live. To feed themselves they must be peasants or herdsmen or fishermen or hunters, etc. And, generally speaking, local autonomy should tend to increase, because lack of advanced technology and rapid communications will limit the capacity of governments or other large organizations to control local communities.
I believe the power of 'Babylon' is so great now because of technology, and that supposing the industrial system were to fall, it would lose much of its ability to do harm. Unfortunately, an anti-tech revolution is so vastly improbable that I do not believe that it is a reasonable solution. Faced with the improbability of such a revolution, it would be better to align with more 'practical' ideologies.

Cheers, thanks for the high quality posts.

>>21275325
>When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.

I find this true. Take social media for example. It became so interested in our lives that YOU seem weird if you don't have one and may even start missing out on invites because it becomes the standard way to organise things. I know it happened to me . Not all cases, as some people manage to still maintain relationships with people they met when they were younger and IRL. But more often than not to start new relationships/friendships you often trade Facebook/Instagram page sfirst before even phone numbers.

Then there is linkedin where it's borderline expected to start one as your career is building.

>>21276460
>linkedin
That shit died like years ago
People still use that? doubt it

>>21276477
Must be an Australian thing that it's still popular

All white collar workers I know basically have one set up.

>>21275589
>But in a society where the rule of law predominates violence isn't the only thing that exists
Covering up the threat of violence if you don't comply with a bunch of paperwork is just lipstick on a pig.

>>21276538
these circumstances which lead one group to force the decisions of another isn't relatively new if you want to pilpul about it

>>21273208
he was not right for killing people. his non-violent ideas have truth to them. everything in moderation, and violence is not the answer.

>>21273208
I'd rather read a well-functional individual who also happens to be an authority on the subject, rather than a failed professor who became a deranged terrorist.

>>21276972
Who?

>>21273208
But character assassination is hilarious. It happened to me over a decade ago to me so it should happen to everyone else tenfold in return

>>21273208
>Now that the dust has settled
..oh you waldun wannabe faggot, I despise you like you wouldn't believe

>was he right?
Yes and nothing you can do about it. So much so that we are losing everything for the sake of stability abiding to that rule, and in the same reality that made it possible, it's worth every goddamn Penny.

>>21277194
Bold of you to assume every country will demanufacture simultaneously on a peaceful note

>>21273208
>Now that the dust has settled, was he right?

I don't want to live in a cardboard box and eat out a dumpster.

>>21277303
>not wanting to be a Box Man

>>21277209
>Stability = country talk
I mean I get it, it is a condition at this point. You simply don't use this word unless you are talking about a nation. But isn't that the point, just like with the mental illness take, it's a condition of life and its circumstances.

I was leaning more into the side of the simulacrum, psychology, sociology and linguistics. There are almost no destinations in these topics. Only what is. The country might as well be an individual and vice versa. You make equal cases for both since way of function is, arguably, the same.

My assumption here is the exact opposite, the demanufactur will be withheld to the last limit since it's the only thing that keeps us together in the first place. "Great collapse" is simply the truth of life, it will happened eventually, to everything, but it will do so unexpectedly slow, it will drag it's self until the last moment, employing every dirty truck it can get it's being on, like an animal in distress of impending end. Better get used to the game, since it's the only thing to do.

To romanticize about "great collapse" is equal to "word stability is a trigger for political discussion", easy, fun, but in the end, self imposed delusional pastime, that is if, if absolute truth is concerned.