"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race."
— The book's opening line, along with its most central claim in a nutshell.
The infamous work published by extortion from Theodore John Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. It's often called the "Unabomber Manifesto" because of this. Kaczynski offered to stop his bombings in 1995 if it was printed. With approval from Attorney General Janet Reno, The New York Times and Washington Post agreed, publishing this as supplements. Originally, it ran about 56 pages.
The publication led to Kaczynski's arrest, since his brother David recognized his style from the manifesto, alerting the FBI. Although there have been commentators who've seen merit in his work, at least certain points which are worth considering, (including the fringe radical anarchists/environmentalists who embraced this wholeheartedly) reception is also obviously colored by the means of publication plus Kaczynski's crimes.
Kaczynski argues industrialization and technology resulting from this has harmed the human race along with the environment deeply. He believes this created a very oppressive social order that has psychologically damaged human beings, and warns of further threats from emerging technological developments. Kaczynski believes this cannot be reformed in any lasting way, and thus has to be destroyed with a pre-industrial lifestyle taking its place.
It was republished in 2010 as part of Technological Slavery, alongside his correspondence and an interview he did. Kaczynski was unsatisfied with the book, plus his lack of copyright over it. In 2016 he published an updated version as a sequel, Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, which defends his philosophy at greater length.
Examples:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Kaczynski expresses fear of artificial intelligence growing into a powerful, malignant entity which will enslave humanity.
- Big Brother Is Watching You: Kaczynski discusses surveillance growing as another means of controlling people increasingly possible with technology.
- Bioaugmentation: Kaczynski believes that, while this can be used to help people (such as gene therapy curing genetic diseases), it's incredibly dangerous as such techniques might alter people so they serve and obey the system, cementing its oppression.
- Book Burning: One of the measures Kaczynski suggests for a revolution against industrial society is burning all “technical books” so the system can't be reestablished.
- Brainwashed: Kaczynski expresses deep fear that through drugs, propaganda and other means people's minds can be manipulated to support the system.
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Kaczynski expresses fear that with more refined drugs or genetic treatments people could be made happy with the system against their will.
- Green Aesop: Kaczynski naturally cites environmental damage and problems among the many diverse reasons he gives to end industrial society, though it's not a focus as he notes that many groups have raised such issues into awareness already.
- Hypocrite: As part of his extended attack on leftism, Kaczynski says leftists are hypocrites for protesting the US intervention in Vietnam while mostly remaining silent on similar actions like the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Kaczynski only briefly mentions his bombings, saying he did them for attention so people would become aware of how industrial society oppresses humanity and must be destroyed, or else we all may turn into complete slaves of our technology. Getting the manifesto published turns out to have been Kaczynski's goal with them. He claims otherwise if it was published very few would have ever read his work.
- Internalized Categorism: Kaczynski claims modern leftism is greatly motivated by deep feelings of inferiority in many people, which come out as (for instance) a tendency toward Everything Is Racist attitudes by minority rights activists. He claims feminists at heart doubt women's worth themselves, and that this motivates much defensive attitudes from them and activism.
- Ludd Was Right: Kaczynski argues that modern technology is inherently oppressive and thus there must be a revolution against this before it grows too powerful to change. He is fine however with the technology a small community could maintain, just not anything depending on larger organizations.
- Meet the New Boss: One of the reasons which Kaczynski cites for opposing leftists getting to play any part in his proposed revolution is that past left-wing revolutions have only created regimes as bad or worse than the ones they overthrew, plus betraying any allies which they had later.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Discussed by Kaczynski as due to desires, feeling etc being things which can be physically affected this opens up an ability to manipulate our behavior using drugs or other means. He fears too this will only increase into total control.
- The Needs of the Many: Kaczynski admits that overthrowing industrial society would result in mass death and suffering. However, he claims it's all for the best, to prevent even more death and suffering but also creating a better existence for humanity overall.
- No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: Kaczynski claims industrial society disrupts what he's called the “power process”, which is goal, effort, attainment of goal and autonomy roughly. He says that having basic needs secure leads to boredom, frustration and decadence. Because one desires goals, even the most leisured group comes up with what he calls “substitute activities” which fill the gap. This can be anything from fighting to science, in his view. He terms these as artificial goals, since they don't relate to any need that's natural. In his view, they cause further problems however since he claims they don't leave people ultimately satisfied and are often also harmful on a far larger scale (e.g. science just for the sake of knowledge that can create technology which hurts people) and often impede the last part, autonomy, greatly.
- Overpopulation Crisis: This is one of many modern problems that Kaczynski blames on the system.
- Propaganda Machine: Kaczynski argues all advertising, education and news media amounts to this, saying people only call this “propaganda” when they disagree with its messages.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Kaczynski says a revolution against industrial society could be done using peaceful means, but he's still more than willing to use violence assuming it's necessary (this is not at all surprising given his real mail-bombing campaign).
- Science Is Bad: Kaczynski believes science is at least more bad than good, since it creates technologies which he believes simply further oppress humanity, even where well-intentioned.
- The Social Darwinist: Kaczynski's ideology has shades of this. One objection he has to modern medicine for instance is that it might keep alive people who have "bad" genes, thus spreading them in the human population rather than them being weeded out by natural selection over time. However, he rejects using eugenics against this, saying it would only increase the power of the “system” which in his view only oppresses humanity. Instead, he wants pre-industrial living again where people who have such genes will die out over time.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Kaczynski's at pains to point out he doesn't think various groups (e.g. Black people, women, the disabled) are really inferior personally while claiming many leftist activists do at heart, he's just noting this as a psychological phenomenon. So often does Kaczynski say this one might well suspect that it's really the opposite, given his attack on leftism and Social Darwinist leanings.
- Technophobia: This was Kaczynski's reason for condemning all modern technology, arguing it was now damaging human beings since it's so different from the environment we evolved in originally, and was gradually enslaving us. He thought that if not stopped, we might end up in a dystopia like Nineteen Eighty-Four or Brave New World because of emerging technology such as artificial intelligence or genetic engineering.
- Thoughtcrime: One of the things Kaczynski attacks modern leftism over is seeking to rid people of even bad (e.g. racist or sexist) thoughts through education or propaganda, going beyond simply getting equal rights for minorities etc which he agrees with.
- Ye Goode Olde Days: Kaczynski thinks life really was better before the Industrial Revolution, and is opposed to all technology beyond the things an artisan could create (e.g. a water wheel). Given that however, he admits those times also had their problems, but feels they were far less than now, asserting that as humans evolved in pre-industrial times we're maladapted to the modern industrial society, which deeply harms us along with the whole environment, while also threatening our future freedom as in his view technology increasingly enslaves us.
