“The Unabomber Was Right”, 2009-02-18 (; backlinks; similar):
Ted Kaczynski, the convicted bomber who blew up dozens of technophilic professionals, was right about one thing: technology has its own agenda. The technium is not, as most people think, a series of individual artifacts and gadgets for sale. Rather, Kaczynski, speaking as the Unabomber, argued that technology is a dynamic holistic system. It is not mere hardware; rather it is more akin to an organism. It is not inert, nor passive; rather the technium seeks and grabs resources for its own expansion. It is not merely the sum of human action, but in fact it transcends human actions and desires. I think Kaczynski was right about these claims. In his own words the Unabomber says: “The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity.”
…As best I understand, the Unabomber’s argument goes like this:
Personal freedoms are constrained by society, as they must be.
The stronger that technology makes society, the less freedoms.
Technology destroys nature, which strengthens technology further.
This ratchet of technological self-amplification is stronger than politics.
Any attempt to use technology or politics to tame the system only strengthens it.
Therefore technological civilization must be destroyed, rather than reformed.
Since it cannot be destroyed by tech or politics, humans must push industrial society towards its inevitable end of self-collapse.
Then pounce on it when it is down and kill it before it rises again.
…The problem is that Kaczynski’s most basic premise, the first axiom in his argument, is not true. The Unabomber claims that technology robs people of freedom. But most people of the world find the opposite. They gravitate towards venues of increasing technology because they recognize they have more freedoms when they are empowered with it. They (that is we) realistically weigh the fact that yes, indeed, some options are closed off when adopting new technology, but many others are opened, so that the net gain is a plus of freedom, choices, and possibilities…It is possible that the technium has brainwashed us all, except for a few clear-eyed anarcho-primitivists who like to blow up stuff. I would be inclined to believe in the anarchy if the Unabomber’s alternative to civilization was more clear. After we destroy civilization, then what?
View External Link: