THE ’BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ’GOOD’ PARTS.

With the recent passing of Theodore Kaczynski (also known as the Unabomber), I wanted to reflect upon his infamous manifesto titled Industrial Society and Its Future. This is not a book review, for I do not believe that this would be right given its context. I want to preface by saying that I do not condone the act of violence to spread any message. Please do not mail bombs to people.

For those not aware, Theodore Kaczynski was a UC Berkeley professor who was well known for his anarchist takes on technology. He mailed homemade bombs to famous technologists from a remote life in the woods, with the hope to bring to attention his manifesto.

Kaczynski argued that there are roughly three groups of human drives:

1. Those that can be satisfied with minimal effort.
2. Those that can be satisfied only at the cost of serious effort.
3. Those that can never be satisfied no matter the effort.

He believed in the power process, a fundamental psychological need of human beings to have goals, make efforts to achieve those goals, and experience a sense of autonomy and competence in the process. He claimed that the modern society and technology had restricted society into first category, and made the second obsolete while making the third impossible.

He argued that humans fill these voids, with surrogate activities - pursuits or endeavors that people engage in as substitutes for the fulfillment of their genuine and inherent human needs. His problem with this behavior was that surrogate activities could not fully satisfy the power process, pointing to the fact that long-distance runners will always challenge themselves to run even further, and the scientists will pursue the next question as soon as the previous one has been answered. There is never a point of complete satisfaction, but only the idea of progression and improvement.

As for “curiosity,” that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists work on highly specialized problems that are not the object of any normal curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician or an entomologist curious about the properties of isopropyltrimethylmethane?

The need for power is a well-established idea that goes back to Freud and Nietzsche, but in Kaczynski’s eyes it is an incomplete picture. Kaczynski believed that mere power is insufficient for a fulfilling life. The complete power process includes goal, effort, attainment, and autonomy. Without these elements, life lacks meaning, leads to slavery, powerlessness, depression, or boredom.

While his points hold some value, his idea of freedom within society seems extremely oversimplified. For instance, he argues that a lot of the technology that is introduced at first, is undeniably good.

An example is the automobile, which was a revolutionary achievement of engineering and allowed people to travel more freely, faster and autonomously, without relying on horses or trains. This is a purely positive change, clearly; something that we would almost universally call progress. In the beginning, the use of cars was entirely voluntary, and optional.

He claims however, as time goes on, these things become involuntary, and eventually govern bodies that will restrict the freedom of each citizen, for the betterment of society. Once the genie is out of the bottle, he argues, there is no returning:

However, as time passed, the automobile has completely changed the layout of cities, where people live and work, and has imposed a huge cannon of rules and regulations regarding freedom of movement on people.

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.

According to him, things such as glasses (which help the disabled see), and the fridge (which increases the duration of food) are irrefutably good. The issue comes afterwards, when mass adoption create wasteful supply chains and cannot be undone.

While this holds some truth, resetting to before the Industrial revolution seems to ignore a lot of the benefits that society has given us. What fails to land with me is the romantic idea of a ‘primitive society’. It fails to appreciate the many innovations that have undoubtably made society better. Through the Industrial Revolution, our ancestors were able to purge extreme rates of violence and improve life expectancy greatly with modern medicine and sanitation.

To claim that past societies were better off as they were more psychologically attuned to their lifestyle feels extremely shortsighted. There is more control lost and more stability in a primitive world against the forces of nature than the upside might present. Is the freedom to chase these primitive drives better than the time that our streamlined society provides us?

Considering all this, the Unabomber reminds me of the very thin line between genius and insanity. While his analysis of the environment, society, and technology is spot on, his attempts to put it all together fail miserably. Another figure with a similar story that comes to mind is Terry Davis, the schizophrenic programmer who created TempleOS from scratch, convinced that he was chosen by God to speak to the masses. These individuals possessed remarkable intelligence and talents within their respective fields, but it is clear that their mental illnesses intertwined with their creative abilities. While their endings were tragic, their lives serve as a testament to the ideas that emerge from embracing individuality and nonconformity.

I struggled for days to trim down this critique/summary. I strongly recommend reading through it on your own here.