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The Unabomber is dead

equationgirl said:
He fired his trial lawyers because he didn't want to follow their strategy of pleading not guilty due to insanity. He was very prickly around any suggestion of mental health issues. I'm not denying he had mental health issues of some kind, not that he was in a dark place.

He's written about the impact of technology on society, decades before some of it ever existed, that's what I think he had a point about. I don't agree with his methods, he was a domestic terrorist before the FBI even thought of the term. I don't agree with him killing people.

And I don't think having compassion for someone who was experimented on by a psychiatrist when he was vulnerable makes me a fool.
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Having compassion for him doesn't make you a fool, having any sympathy with his political objectives does.
 
equationgirl said:
He fired his trial lawyers because he didn't want to follow their strategy of pleading not guilty due to insanity. He was very prickly around any suggestion of mental health issues.
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yes exactly. he fired his lawyers and got one who would not use the insanity defense. I remember reading quite a detailed article on just this at the time but can't for the life of me remember where - NYRB perhaps but again I don't know.
 
NoXion said:
Kaczynski may have been an unreliable narrator, but that doesn't mean he necessarily had any long-standing mental issues that contributed to his bombing campaign. I've just tried Googling to find out if there was any kind of mental assessment done of the man during or around his trial, but I've been unable to find anything relevant. Lots of guff unfortunately.
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He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by a court appointed psychologist.
 
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tim said:
Having compassion for him doesn't make you a fool, having any sympathy with his political objectives does.
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I don't think anyone would be surprised that I have some sympathies for his conclusions about technology (but not his biases). Those ideas are not new or exclusive to the Unibomber. What I'd like to see is a wiser approach to the use of technology, that limits environmental damage and suburban sprawl. As I understand it, he started his bombing campaign after his favorite hiking place was cut down for a highway. I've had that same experience (multiple times). To see a forest cut down and replaced with car noise, 3,500 sq foot houses, strip malls, and payday lending storefronts, all named after they place they cut down is maddening. It still doesn't excuse his methods. His unhinged response wasn't the way forward and actively damaged environmental activism as a whole. It made it so corporations could write any kind of activism off as "eco-terrorism."
 
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tim said:
I read the first few pages of his "Manifesto". Anyone who sees any merit in his "claims" is a fool.
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So you haven't actually read it all? So you don't know what's in it, yet anyone thinking he might have some points is a fool? And why "claims" not claims? They are actually political positions and criticisms, even if you disagree with them. Some of his positions on technology and the structure of modern capitalist society are not even fringe tbh.
 
Elpenor said:
He knew his brother was doing something illegal.
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His brother is an interesting guy as well. In the way of some relatives of famous murders, he's tried to make his life the polar opposite:

Prior to turning his brother Ted in to [the] authorities, David Kaczynski worked as an assistant director of a shelter for runaway and homeless youth in Albany, New York, where he counseled and advocated for troubled, neglected, and abused youth. His brother's confrontation with the death penalty later motivated David Kaczynski to become an anti-death-penalty activist. In 2001, Kaczynski was named executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty (as of 2008, New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty). While the mission of NYADP originally focused only on ending the death penalty, under Kaczynski's guidance in 2008, it broadened its mission to address the unmet needs of all those affected by violence, including victims and their families. After leaving the NYADP, Kaczynski served as executive director of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery located in Woodstock, New York.
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en.wikipedia.org

David Kaczynski - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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tim said:
I read the first few pages of his "Manifesto". Anyone who sees any merit in his "claims" is a fool.
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I think it's foolish to be so convinced you know where right ends and wrong begins, not that I believe you could read the whole thing and honestly say that none of it has merit.
You're engaging in a process that is often exhibited here, that of willfully misjudging and attempting to discredit the output of a writer simply because you regard him/her as a cunt.

I'd say the manifesto or whatever you'd like to call his piece has many valid points on the negative aspects of technology but they all seem hugely coloured by his ...lets say, personality disorder.
As someone else mentioned there is a definite Incel aspect to him
 
How did he survive all those years in the wilderness? It doesn't seem to be something that's come up in anything I've seen about him, not that I've read all that much. Even he was able to be self-sufficient in providing himself with food and fuel and clothing, he must have needed cash for postage at the very least. But probably other things as well. And he'd only worked a few years as a teacher, so couldn't have saved up all that much, even as someone who was unlikely to have expensive tastes.
 
ouirdeaux said:
How did he survive all those years in the wilderness? It doesn't seem to be something that's come up in anything I've seen about him, not that I've read all that much. Even he was able to be self-sufficient in providing himself with food and fuel and clothing, he must have needed cash for postage at the very least. But probably other things as well. And he'd only worked a few years as a teacher, so couldn't have saved up all that much, even as someone who was unlikely to have expensive tastes.
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Mostly foraging and petty crime I think. Well, if burglary can be considered petty.
 
ouirdeaux said:
How did he survive all those years in the wilderness? It doesn't seem to be something that's come up in anything I've seen about him, not that I've read all that much. Even he was able to be self-sufficient in providing himself with food and fuel and clothing, he must have needed cash for postage at the very least. But probably other things as well. And he'd only worked a few years as a teacher, so couldn't have saved up all that much, even as someone who was unlikely to have expensive tastes.
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He had some survival skills - his cabin had no electricity or running water, and I believe he had a single woodburning stove. This article goes into some details about his life in Montana PRISONER OF RAGE -- A special report.;From a Child of Promise to the Unabom Suspect

He received significant financial support from his family.

He only worked for two years teaching after his PhD, becoming disillusioned with mathematics and university life (not a surprise).
 
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One can visit his actual cabin in an FBI museum. It's not very big apparently.

ETA: this is a review when it was at a different museum

www.atlasobscura.com

The Unabomber's Cabin

It was once the base for a series of domestic terror attacks.
www.atlasobscura.com www.atlasobscura.com
 
LDC said:
So you haven't actually read it all? So you don't know what's in it, yet anyone thinking he might have some points is a fool? And why "claims" not claims? They are actually political positions and criticisms, even if you disagree with them. Some of his positions on technology and the structure of modern capitalist society are not even fringe tbh.
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Why would I need to read it all? The first 15% was turgid,derivative, racist misogynistic dross. He had nothing original to say and half of what he did say was cribbed from Desmond Morris. Can you give examples of what genuine new insights he had to offer?
 
tim said:
Why would I need to read it all? The first 15% was turgid,derivative, racist misogynistic dross. He had nothing original to say and half of what he did say was cribbed from Desmond Morris. Can you give examples of what genuine new insights he had to offer?
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Just as an aside, I think it's in the introduction to 'kropotkin's revolutionary pamphlets' that the intro author mentions kropotkin's belief that much of what marx's works had been plagiarised and the great anarchist's quest to reveal this
 
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tim said:
Why would I need to read it all? The first 15% was turgid,derivative, racist misogynistic dross. He had nothing original to say and half of what he did say was cribbed from Desmond Morris. Can you give examples of what genuine new insights he had to offer?
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I didn't say it was full of stunning new insights, and he definitely had some reactionary views (although I can't recall anything racist the manifesto at all) but his positions on technology shared some common ground with plenty of others who are well respected so they're hardly completely off-base. I've never heard anyone say his writing was nicked from Desmond Morris tbh, I'd be surprised if Ted had even heard of him. Some of his criticisms of 'the left' were clunky, but I think had some merit tbh.
 
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