A Wonderful Read

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Vivi

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http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/uni/uni.txt

It details what I feel are many problems modern society has created. My interest in wilderness / survival skills is mainly so one day I can revert back to a more primitive lifestyle. Ted does a good job explaining why this choice is a good one. The fulfillment issue he covers wonderfully. Long, but worth it.
 
I've heard he was really brilliant guy, must have had some impressive survival skills, to live in the woods like that for all that time.

Shame he turned out to be a wacked out, murderous loon.
 
Vivi said:
http://www.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/uni/uni.txt

It details what I feel are many problems modern society has created. My interest in wilderness / survival skills is mainly so one day I can revert back to a more primitive lifestyle. Ted does a good job explaining why this choice is a good one. The fulfillment issue he covers wonderfully. Long, but worth it.
Click to expand...

The main flaw in his theory is that he failed to recognize that human innovation is a product of nature. He is trying to stop the very thing that he is trying to further. The evolution of the simple to the interdependent, complex is the general trend in nature; human society is just a natural reflection of this on a grander level.

I do agree that most people are too dependent upon modern conveniences, but the responsibility falls upon the individual to learn how to survive in a primitive environment ONLY if he or she chooses to do so. By attempting to destroy modern, industrial-technology-driven society, he is attempting to control society.

Although I agree with a FEW of his points, most are too skewed by his paranoia to be realistic (at least to me).

Anyway, thanks for the link. It was an interesting read.
 
Yes, there are many flaws in his thinking. I think he has a few strong points and a good amount of not so strong points. The way he explains surrogate activities is pretty good, as well as pointing out things like man imposing threats upon itself more and modern isolation from nature. He seems to have brains, but like you're saying he seems a little skewed, to say. Fun read though, glad you enjoyed it too.
 
I think if you find yourself identifying with or agreeing with the writings of THE UNABOMBER (!) you should do a retake on your appreciation of other philosophies. You might not agree with the way others live, and find faults with their lifestyles, but be assured that somewhere there are people who return the favor.

Most extremist philosophies start with a grain of truth (or even a whole lot of truth), but deviate in subtle, insideous ways into oblivion. Ted Kaczynski is an example.

Let's not forget: Ted Kaczynski is crazy. If you find yourself agreeing with him, stop!

Scott
 
Insanity does not bar a person from having practical or insightful thoughts. One should be more wary of things they say, but they're not incapable of rationale. Ted obviously has some intelligence in my eyes and brings up what I feel are some valid points...

-Modern man is far more isolated from nature than is healthy for him
-In many ways, more primitive lifestyles were more satisfying
-In modern society we're trying to fill a void in our lives with "surrogate activities"
-In the past, man was much more at the mercy of nature and less at the mercy of other men. Now the opposite is true.

There are many holes in his thinking, many flaws. You can see him go off on tangents and deviate into hateful passages, but the man can still bring up some weighty arguements. Like you're saying, with these types especially you need to take everything with a grain of salt and have your BS meter on, but really you need to do that with most everyone. Be careful, but don't toss his writings out as worthless due to what he's done. Oh, I forgot a good one....

If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the
present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been
accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably would
not have attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch the
entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if
these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon
have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the
mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our
message before the public with some chance of making a lasting
impression, we've had to kill people.
 
I agree that Kaczynski is intelligent, but he is also a lunatic -- just like Ted Bundy and the many other intelligent nut-job murderers before him.

Kaczynski says he needed to kill people in order to bring attention to his cause. However the singular thing he will be remembered for is the murders.

We had better hope that he did not bring attention to the cause of simple living and closeness to nature. For *him* to do so puts such philosophies about nature in clear association with his violent, anti-social philosophies about getting people to do what you want them to do.

If you find yourself being the least bit sympathetic to such a murderer, you need to do a recheck of his activities:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/kaczynski/1.html

I prefer to think of him as a brilliant man who went mad searching for meaning; a man who clung to wilderness living because it was the only thing that made sense in his substantial, but severely diseased, mind.

His intellectual strengths were wasted by his own efforts. Far from encouraging those wilderness/natural philosphies, he profanes them.

Scott
 
It sounds like the ideas in Kaczynski's writing that Vivi finds appealing are more echoes of Thoreau than original thought by the Unabomber.

Apparently Kaczynski never got along with anyone, even as a child. He was teased badly in school, no doubt partly because he skipped two grades. By all accounts he was a brilliant mathematician and taught at Berkeley, but it seems his students disliked him. He quit after two years without explanation. Evidently he finally gave up and left his promising career to go be alone.

I would suppose his many social failures must have festered quite badly within him, because he was not content to live quietly by himself. Although he apparently had all the solitude he could hope for, he still felt it necessary to seek some kind of revenge on society.

It is sad really. He at least was a brilliant man. It looks to me like he became bitter and went off the deep end. Now he will live out his life in the Supermax prison ADX Florence. Not a nice place to be. They say the confinement there drives people completely insane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence

Thoreau, on a different note, is remembered still to this day as a noble conservationalist and amateur naturalist. His writings still are influential. I remember studying him in high school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoreau

Scott
 
You can see his spite for others rather plainly in a variety of moments outside his actual bombings. He's destroy neighbors property or steal it to get revenge. When a relationship didn't work out he'd contemplate trying to physically disable the woman as punishment, etc. Seems with all that childhood bullying he didn't react well to it later in life.

I think it's about time I re-read Walden. Fun read, inspirational too. I think you're correct Beezaur in that many of the points I liked from this piece were indeed "echoes of Thoreau"
 
I've always wondered how de-evolving makes you more natural, closer to nature. Wouldn't trying to get away from evolution make you less natural and more of well, just stupid? I don't see how making bombs brings you closer to a natural state of being either. Maybe making bombs along with taking yoga helps?
 
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