Have you read "INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE"?

[DJB72]

I just finished watching the Netflix series about Ted Kaczynski. It's tragic that someone who had such insight into the human condition was driven to kill thanks to the way the system treated him as a child.

The thesis he wrote is - as long as you ignore his threats and demands - is bordering on prophetic. Our modern, "developed" world is destroying individuality in the name of "freedom" but it actually does enslave us. I've sat on juries for crimes ranging from burglary to murder. The criminals all had the same issue, regardless of the crime they had committed: they were considered to be "broken" by a system that is, in itself, so badly broken that the law enforcers can't see it.

He was pointing out the problems we face today in 1993. That's 30 years ago.

I'm NOT suggesting we destroy modern society. Just take a moment and think about it.

Depressive disorders are at an all-time high. Suicide rates are higher than at any time in history.

Isn't it time we start to think about the long term impact on future generations of living the selfish "Reaganomics" life?

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

[Curmudgeon]

"Isn't it time we start to think about the long term impact on future generations of living the selfish "Reaganomics" life?"

Oh good Lord. Are you Leftists STILLbutthurt about losing the Cold War?

As for the pathological modern society, sure, but from where does that pathology come?
How about the empty vacuous Hollywood Life?
Or the degenerate promiscuity Life?
Or the alienating social media Life?

None of that came from Reaganism.

I dare say the destructive actions of the "Social Justice Warriors" (sic) are a direct result of abandoning traditional faith, family, community, and other institutions that used to give people meaning.

[DJB72]

I never said everything about Reagan was negative. Some good came from his presidency - in particular the way oppression in the Soviet Union was reduced and the reunification of Germany. Some of the behaviours that were seeded then, particularly the way everyone now seems to want to ask what their country can do for them rather than what they can do for the country, are damaging to society as a whole.

But my question isn't about Reaganomics specifically. It's about the pathology of a society that is failing it's most vulnerable members, and how someone as personally damaged as Kaczynski saw this coming but the way he chose to try to make his voice heard - bombings and murder - meant his message pointing out that the "freedom" Western society claims to love is actually a prison built by our own hands is largely ignored. The biggest irony of the Unabomber case is how the behaviours of the investigation actually prolonged the length of time he was able to avoid capture because the system couldn't comprehend the possibility of someone with a doctorate being capable of such actions. With the extremists who follow Trump so blindly now I'm sure it's more believable. If Kaczynski had been born 30 years later he'd probably have just been jerking off in his parent's basement using the internet instead of the US Postal service to get his message across. He'd probably have been given a big enough audience to run for president himself

[OlderAndWiser]

I got no further than "It's tragic that someone who had such insight into the human condition was driven to kill thanks to the way the system treated him as a child." If people were actually driven to kill based on the way that they were treated as a child, then everyone who was mistreated as a child would become a killer. . . and I know that isn't the way it really works.

[DJB72]

You don't think that the ethical human experiment that Murray conducted at Harvard university, deliberately shattering the egos of the test subjects - including Kaczynski - which today would have seen Murray fired, and his professional licence revoked, may have been a contributing factor in how Kaczynski ended up? I'm not saying everyone who is bullied becomes a killer. What I am saying is that the vast majority of bullies were victims of bullying themselves at an earlier stage of their development.

The other subjects in Murray's experiment were in their early 20s. Kaczynski was 17 and socially awkward already. It's been suggested he may even be on the autistm spectrum. Given that and his age the way Kaczynski was abused likely fuelled his rage against the system he blamed.

But my question isn't about his actions. Clearly they are abhorrent and he deserves the sentence he's serving. My question is about what the current state of Western society has become - a near perfect model of what he clearly feared it had already become by 1993. Today we depend on the internet and social media so much that when Facebook's servers went down causing the WhatsApp network to be offline globally recently, virtually the whole planet was reportedly traumatised by it.

[DJB72]

2/2
We've just seen how misinformation and bluster about Covid and vaccine safety can be disproportionately affecting the population, with most of the antivax crap on Facebook and other networks being traced back to just 12 people who would never have been given airtime by a responsible media 30 years ago to disseminate their irrational beliefs and cause the current state where so many people would rather believe social media than the WHO or CDC about how to halt the pandemic.

Trump's behaviour would have seen him removed from the possibility of being a viable candidate, never mind actually becoming President not that long ago, but the way social media works, pushing "suggested" articles of a "similar nature" that gradually drift farther away from the centre to extreme leftist or right wing lunatic voices bolstered his message to the point where bragging about committing sexual assaults or claiming randomly shooting people on 5th Avenue wouldn't cost him votes actually saw his numbers increase.

Society is seriously damaged. It's alarming that a sociopath/psychopath like Kaczynski was the one who saw it first, and as a result his statements are disregarded

[OlderAndWiser]

Yes, I think bullying in the schools is a major issue and I think the wokeness of educational administrators is a big problem. But, as you acknowledged, not everyone who is bullied becomes a school shooter or other kind of villain.

[OlderAndWiser]

Thanks for MHO!