| List Price: | |
| Price: | $22.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details... |
| You Save: | $0.00(0.00%) |
| Binding: | Kindle Edition |
| EAN: | |
| Feature: | |
| Label: | Feral House |
| Publisher: | Feral House |
| Studio: | Feral House |
| Tags: | technological slavery collected writings theodore kaczynski unabomber |
Editorial Reviews
“Like many of my colleagues, I felt that I could easily have been the Unabomber's next target. He is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument. . . . As difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in [Kaczynski’s writing]. I started showing friends the Kaczynski quote from Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines; I would hand them Kurzweil's book, let them read the quote, and then watch their reaction as they discovered who had written it.” — Bill Joy, founder of Sun Microsystems, in “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Wired magazine
Theodore J. Kaczynski has been convicted for illegally transporting, mailing, and using bombs, resulting in the deaths of three people. He is now serving a life sentence in the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
The ideas and views expressed by Kaczynski before and after his capture raise crucial issues concerning the evolution and future of our society. For the first time, the reader will have access to an uncensored personal account of his anti-technology philosophy, which goes far beyond Unabomber pop culture mythology.
Feral House does not support or justify Kaczynski's crimes, nor does the author receive royalties or compensation for this book. It is this publisher’s mission, as well as a foundation of the First Amendment, to allow the reader the ability to discern the value of any document.
David Skrbina, who wrote the introduction, teaches philosophy at the University of Michigan, Dearborn.
Related Reviews
Technological Slavery: The collected writings of Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. "The Unabomber"
excellent window into the dark depths of the mind
The hellish future reality that Ted envisioned coming true is happening now more than ever as he had feared. Technologists such as Bill Joy have also echoed their fears (see Wired Magazine, "Why the future doesn't need us" article). I first came to give attention to Ted's works after that Wired Magazine article and also am horrified as many are of the negative implications of technology left to its own devices without any oversight. Movies such as the Terminator also deal with that issue. This is a great collection of writings by a mad man, he was indeed mad at everything and everyone as far as I can tell from reading this book. It's really a shame that he broke the law and decided to murder people. I would have loved to read more from this man, however it looks like that will never happen. The writings are interesting analyses of many of the trends which seem to put mankind into an intellectual prison. He's spot on about most of them, however the overall work is tainted with that sad fact that he led a violent revolution, rather than an intellectual one.
Ted Kaczynski's Technological Slavery.
The basic arguments presented in this book concern the role of technological and industrial society and the harm it has caused to both mankind and "wild nature". Kaczynski sees technological society as a "System" designed to oppress the individual. Kaczynski considers some of the harmful psychological effects of technological society as well as the role of "over-civilized" people and the superficiality of modern leftism and political correctness. Kaczynski examines the theories of anarcho-primitivists concerning the role of primitive humans but finds their theories to be marred by modern day political correctness. Kaczynski considers the role of revolution and examines the history of democracy as well as the role of the Russian Bolsheviks and the triumph of Western democracy in the two world wars. Kaczynski examines the harmful effects of modern day advertising and the role of surrogate activities in combating the "power process". Kaczynski regards modern technological society to be unfulfilling and thus sees the need for individuals to rebel against it.
The book includes the manifesto "Industrial Society and Its Future" as well as several of the writings of Kaczynski and his letters to David Skribina and others. Kaczynski comments on the anarcho-primitivist movement explaining how modern anthropologists falsely believe that primitive societies were politically correct (in terms of gender equality, more time for leisure, and environmental soundness). Kaczynski offers several goals for revolution and explains why he left his career in math to go live in the wilderness. One thing I could not understand is why he resorted to terrorism as he did. His bombs sent to computer programmers and others were largely ineffective for his goals, resulted in unnecessary killing, and ended him up in prison. It makes little sense why someone of his intelligence would resort to such horrific and pointless measures.
-1 star for resorting to violence
We need, Kaczynski was right, to have people work on real goals, rather than on surrogate activities. But we can't just create a new society and force people to work on real goals. Even if they understand the problem with surrogate activities, the choices they make are not always reasonable. The true revolution has to happen in the mind where these choices are made.
I suggest a book by author Eckhart Tolle called "A New Earth" that explains this psychological problem brilliantly. But please do not disregard it when you find it in the Spiritual section. Yes, spirituality is the answer; but it is not at all unscientific. In fact it is only as unscientific as our ignorance of how the brain works.
If you're deep and passionate enough to appreciate the arguments of Kaczynski, you will Tolle too. Offering an alternative solution was my intention for writing this review.
Create your own review
When reading the writings of Ted Kaczynski, it becomes obvious the man was intelligent and has a lot to say about our world's society. Mr Kaczynski writes about subjects such as ........
**Technology bringing us down the road of disaster. (pollution,slave-labor,etc)
**Primitive tribes & modern ones are compared to illustrate many of his beliefs.
**He gives many methods for opposing the "techno-industrial" world system.
The book is not entertaining to read.... but it is THOUGHT-PROVOKING. Most people are not interested in thinking, they only want to be entertained, as Mr. Kaczynski says on page 226, "Most people have no attitude about technology because they never bother to think about technology."
The thoughts of the author on subjects such as LEFTISM, FREEDOM, and CONTROL of human behavior in the 1st 100 pages are worth the price of the book. It is a total of more than 400 pages -- all equally interesting. The book might have been more readable if it had some pictures, drawings, and more chapter titles to break-up the text a little. Ted Kazynsky is not trying to entertain us in this book. He is trying to get the un-thinking public to see his viewpoints.
The introduction explains that prisoners have no right to profit from prison by writing or painting etc.... and maybe rightfully so... But they should have the right to express their opinions. They state that NO MONEY from this book goes to Ted Kaczynski. After reading his book, I am very glad he had the opportunity to express his opinions. More people should pay attention to what he has to say.