/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4935999]

I want to talk about the Unabomber's manifesto.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

Is there any merit in it? Are there any academic critiques of it?

[Anonymous No.4936030]

Yeah, it's poopy.

[Anonymous No.4936042]

>>4936030
You're just assmad because he called your feminine herd mentality for what it is. Everything he says about technology is spot on and undeniable.

[Anonymous No.4936064]

>>4936042
Yeah, but like, it's poopy. So...

[Anonymous No.4936068]

>>4935999
Is it good. His only fault is that he's always implying that Whites without technology would behave like Native Americans. Hint: they wouldn't because they're not from the same race.
Other than that, yes, he's spot on about many things, including his wonderful analysis of leftism. An essential text IMO.

[Anonymous No.4936077]

>>4936068
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.4936078]

most manifestos suck fantastic ass.

I haven't read crazy guys manifesto, but if it contains a hint of primitivist bullshit, I'll probably rage quit.

[Anonymous No.4936081]

>>4936078
>45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any society, but in modern industrial society they are present on a massive scale. We aren’t the first to mention that the world today seems to be going crazy. This sort of thing is not normal for human societies. There is good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than modern man is. It is true that not all was sweetness and light in primitive societies. Abuse of women was common among the Australian aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some of the American Indian tribes. But it does appear that GENERALLY SPEAKING the kinds of problems that we have listed in the preceding paragraph were far less common among primitive peoples than they are in modern society.

[Anonymous No.4936082]

>>4936064
xD upboated my le bro

We'll get 'em #banbossy

[Anonymous No.4936088]

>>4936068
>Hint: they wouldn't because they're not from the same race.

Ask me how I know you're mentally deficient.

[Anonymous No.4936089]

>>4936077
>Waaaaahhhhh

How boring

[Anonymous No.4936093]

>>4936088
Do you really think he's implying he was black?

[Anonymous No.4936095]

Read it yourself, it's actually a fairly competent anti-technology manifesto. There's a lot of luddites who quote it in modern academic literature.

In general, he was pretty much right about how technology is changing society. The real question is whether that's actually a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.4936099]

>>4936081
That guys is such a dumb prick.

Archeology proves that your chances of being murdered in the bad old pre-history days of hunter-gatherer/herding was really fucken high.

[Anonymous No.4936114]

I'm finding it pretty interesting, but a lot of the stuff he talks about "leftism" applies a lot to the religious right as well, so I don't think that's the right term for it.

Also, I don't think technology in itself is responsible for the problems he presents, low tech societies present similar issues.

[Anonymous No.4936121]

>>4936081
This guy is a bastion of intellectualism.

Trying to make appeals to try and rationalize how good you have it versus how good they had it always seems to somehow, not work, we have trouble thinking about it wholly.

I also have a hard time believing in the necessity of the ending of industrialism. He at least acknowledges that it will have a catastrophic effect on humanity, but he goes on to say that down the road, it would be far worse if left alone. I would like to see some sort of evidence for this, in the longrun as a fundamental reality. If he were to talk about financials, and concepts as 'too big to fail', I'd agree with him.

[Anonymous No.4936169]

>>4935999
He should have finished school, he's mixing up some stuff that don't belong together. Some interesting ideas, mixed up all wrong.

[Anonymous No.4936198]

>>4936169
I imagine those of a vast intellect sometimes have difficulty synthesising and streamlining their ideas.

[Anonymous No.4936202]

>>4936077
>>4936088
I didn't say that Native Americans were retarded or inferior, just that different races do different things in similar situations.
Read any depiction of the people of the world before the industrial era, for Wotan's sake (hint again: Buffon). All in the same non-technological shitholes, yet completely different mental constructions (when the weather was actually comparable).
I could take Unabomber's methodology to argue that the absence of technology turns people into psychopaths, since pre-Columbian cultures had no technology while they were sacrificing a lot of people, including children.

[Anonymous No.4936210]

>>4936202
>for Wotan's sake
Varg pls.

[Anonymous No.4936220]

>>4936198
We get it, you want to suck off the unabomber...

[Anonymous No.4936232]

>>4936202
You're giving some theoretical rule universal application. You don't know that they would have behaved differently just because they're a different race.

The proof you're trying to use for this is ridiculous, since you go from isolated examples to universal spread. You jump from some to all. Your brain is broken. You are not fit to think about these things.

[Anonymous No.4936248]

A lot of what he says about Leftism is true, but it's not exactly a critique he came up with.

He criticizes modern leftists for having no self-confidence, valuing similarity rather than indepenedence or uniquneess, glamorizing defeat and self-pity, and for demanding that things be made easier without appreciating that this also makes you less able to appreciate the things you desire (i.e. struggle makes the achievement worthwhile)

He is very similar to Nietzsche in his thinking on this topic, and he discusses Nietzsche a little in his letters with his editor, which suggests he is at least acquainted with his literature.


His anti-technology stuff is accurate to a point IMO. Technology is all-encompassing, and is so widely used that it effects all aspects of our lives and can't be curtailed or restricted to one branch of society because of that (i.e. space shuttle tech influences microwave ovens)

His fear about cloning and babies born with pre-chosen traits is a real one, but again whether or not this is fated to take place is not definate, though again IMO it will.

However, his alternative is to return to small, nomadic groups of people who hunt and so on (a lifestyle he strips of all its glamour, having lived it himself for a number of years), is a very extreme reaction, sort of like not liking your office job and therefore runnning off to a litle island in the middle of nowhere.

[Anonymous No.4936266]

>>4936232
not the guy you're responding to but

>you're wrong and i wont tell you why you are but you are a cis shitlord who DOESNT want to hide uncomfortable parts of history

[Anonymous No.4936274]

>>4936248
>and for demanding that things be made easier without appreciating that this also makes you less able to appreciate the things you desire

Somehow I don't think this applied to Nietzsche and Kaczynski themselves, who were fucking University professors. Lecturing starving people about how it would be bad for them to be fed since it would make them value food less.

[Anonymous No.4936294]

>>4936232
>everyone can do everything because life is so randumb XD
>genetics don't count
>without technology, Aborigines would do the exact same thing than White Australians in the bush
>without technology, Africans had the same mindset and same civilization achievements than Asians in comparable geographical conditions, because THE ABSENCE OF TECHNOLOGY MAKES US ACT THE SAME, REGARDLESS OF RACE (actual thesis implied by Unabomber)
>any difference between any people is nothing more than an "isolated example" (i.e. the facts don't count)
>thinking does not consist in "going from isolated examples to universal spread", nor "giving some theoretical rule universal application"
>ad hominem attacks: "YOUR WRONG CUZ YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN LOL"
>alright

[Anonymous No.4936343]

>>4936294
And even if race was nothing but a socio-cultural construction -- this construction began well before the technological era, and will not collapse with the end of said era, so taking old Native American examples to deduce what White people would be in a post-technological world is still wrong!

[Anonymous No.4936439]

>>4936169
He finished a lot of school. Youngest professor ever at Berkley.

[Anonymous No.4937351]

>>4936248
>However, his alternative is to return to small, nomadic groups of people who hunt and so on (a lifestyle he strips of all its glamour, having lived it himself for a number of years), is a very extreme reaction, sort of like not liking your office job and therefore runnning off to a litle island in the middle of nowhere.

We can never go back. Unless civilization is bombed back to the Stone Age, we can never go back.

[Anonymous No.4938222]

>>4936099
You mean you don't agree and lack a valid argument.

[Anonymous No.4938229]

>>4936042
>feminine herd mentality
usually /pol/ neckbeards take a few posts to warm up but you're going ham right out the gate. good for you op

[Anonymous No.4938236]

>>4938229
>Thinking I'm op
>Le neckbeard xDDD
>Le /pol/ xDDD
>No actual rebuttal

Yep, it's marxism! Useless bitchy moron. That's what I get for unhiding random threads, I suppose.

[Anonymous No.4938245]

>>4936266
>and i wont tell you why you are

But he does say why he's wrong.

>>4936294

It's pretty simple. Human interaction with the world is not a fucking computer program. You can't look at levels of attributes in a person like a video game character and expect predictable results.

[Anonymous No.4938260]

I wish /pol/tards took some fucking genetics courses before ranting about race. Seriously, it's physically painful to read posts like >>4936068

[Anonymous No.4938298]

>>4936068
>his wonderful analysis of leftism

lmao

[Anonymous No.4939400]

>>4935999
DAT NO. 26. Fuck, it's too real.

[Anonymous No.4939426]

Last time this was brought up on /lit, some anon said: "he was right, but being right is neither that difficult nor that important in this case".

I agree with this. His diagnosis of modern society is nothing new, you can find traces of it as far back as Pascal, and most of it could just as well have been taken from Nietzsche and Marx.

His main contribution is the argument that the system will eventually collapse, and the later the worse, so we have better make it collapse now.

I don't think he has enough evidence to support this solution over trying to fix thing on a day-to-day basis and trying to learn to use technology more reasonably. So, good insight but disappointing solution (cutting the gordian knot is not always the solution).

And of course, but that's a bit off point, there's his bombing stint that makes everyone who agrees with his diagnosis look like a terrorist by association. That was a retard strategy.

[Anonymous No.4939447]

>>4936343
>And even if race was nothing but a socio-cultural construction -- this construction began well before the technological era

Race is explicitly a nineteenth century invention.

> taking old Native American examples to deduce what White people would be in a post-technological world is still wrong!

Perhaps, but not because of "race", which is a sketchy as fuck concept on which neither historians nor biologists agree with. Try geography and history.

[Anonymous No.4939477]

Way too much /pol/ on here recently.

Get the fuck out of /lit/.

[Anonymous No.4939506]

>>4936294
what the fuck do the white settlers of australia have to do with the aborigines

the aborigines arrived 50,000 years earlier than the europeans, the civilisations of the fertile crescent hadn't even appeared at that point. the europeans had benefited from tens of thousands of years of cultivating green lands which allowed them to develop the complex society that eventually settled australia, and they did so using technology far beyond what the aborigines had developed precisely because the aborigines had not had the advantages of an easily cultivated continent

besides that, the europeans' cultivation of the australian coasts means nothing when the outback (i.e. most of the continent) still remains largely wild and untamed

i'd be quite confident to suggest that if you were to go back 50,000 years and have white nomads reach australia instead of black ones, you'd see pretty much the exact same lack of technological and agricultural progress with those early settlers in comparison to later european ones

bad example

comparing the people of african jungles to south american or asian ones is a little fairer, but we still see agriculturally comparable primitive tribes in all three environments even today, so. yeah

and all this is leaving aside things like cultural impact on technological advancements. many primitive cultures resist change

[Anonymous No.4939521]

>>4935999
UNabomber was a coverup, it was pynchon all along

[Anonymous No.4940259]

>>4936248
Damn, what a qt.

>>4936274
Kaczynski actually did live like that for years, Nietzsche as well.

[twinshiggy No.4940313]

I really liked it.
Where does the word "oversocialised" originate?
I started using that after I read his manifesto.

[twinshiggy No.4940322]

>>4936169
He was a mathematician and professor,
ya fucking cunt.

[Anonymous No.4940341]

>>4936068
what the fuck is everyone on /pol/ like this?

This is hilarious

[Anonymous No.4940393]

It's basically this, and I have no idea what he means by "leftist" since in Technological slavery he seems to like Marx and even goes as far as to say he would agree with him if he was alive today.