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Comment by snikeris | Hacker News Reader

This is one of the problems with technology that Ted Kaczynski wrote about. You can't opt out.

> Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: 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.)

Your problem is the same as the walker's. The walker has opted out of the automobile, but still has to breathe its pollution and risk being hit by it.

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We're quoting the Unabomber now? Certainly you can choose good quotes from non-serial killers.

Why not? It is a good and relevant point.

Because it justifies their actions. Would we be quoting him if he didn't murder innocent people?

I don't think his murders invalidate his manifesto. Luditeism has been very popular since the industrial revolution, I think it's reasonably likely we would be talking about Industrial Society and its Future or something similar if he hadn't killed people.

> I don't think his murders invalidate his manifesto

That's not my point though, my point is that quoting his manifesto validates his violence. If his ideas are valid, there should be other sources to quote/promote.

>If his ideas are valid, there should be other sources to quote/promote.

Why is that so sure? Do you have an equivalent quote to substitute?

Absolutely his murders invalidate his manifesto. The ideas that he expressed in the manifesto are the same ideas that moved him to murder people. His opposition to technology is why he was bombing computer stores and the University of Utah Engineering Building.

This is why saying "but he's a murderer" isn't an ad hominem. His murders are the working-out of his ideas; his ideas are worth rejecting just on that basis.

That doesn't mean they are wrong in part or in whole.

>His murders are the working-out of his ideas; his ideas are worth rejecting just on that basis.

This is simply saying "if he is right, I would rather be wrong". It also completely ignores that arguments can be valid in part, but not in combination.

Most of us consider murder to be self-evidently wrong. The intersection of "right, and causing murder" is very close to empty for most definitions of "right".

Your question makes me wonder what your definition of "right" is.

Murder is typically defined as unjustifiable or wrong, so you would expect the set to be empty.

Replace "murder" with 'killing" and most people will have the opposite reaction.

>>>> I don't think his murders invalidate his manifesto.

- colinmhayes (the original post I responded to).

And, for your point to be relevant to this discussion, you would have to claim that what the Unabomber did was "killing" rather than "murder". If you claim that, I'd like to see your definitions and where you think the line between killing and murder is.

And if that isn't your claim, it looks like you're just arguing in order to argue.

I have no interest in defending the actions of the Unabomber.

I did feel that you were using the tautology of murder to ignore my actual point.

>You: His murders are the working-out of his ideas; his ideas are worth rejecting just on that basis.

>Me: That doesn't mean they are wrong in part or in whole.

If the unabomber said as part of the manifesto that the sky is blue, would you now reject that the sky is blue?

There is nothing about murder that invalidates the logic, truth, or accuracy of an argument, and especially not the individual components of an argument.

It is fine and fair if you don't personally want to learn or engage with an argument that has lead to violence. But that does not mean that it is internally inconsistent, or devoid of accurate observations about the world (e.g. new technologies can impose externalities on the unwilling).

Whether the sky is blue has no moral component. The Unabomber was saying 1) what he thought was wrong with society, and 2) how we should make a better society.

These judgments ("wrong" and "better") presuppose some definition of "good". But the guy was deliberately killing people. Am I supposed to believe his definition of what "good" is? No, I'm supposed to suspect that it's seriously skewed. (In fact, he's giving me evidence that it's seriously skewed.)

There's something about murder that invalidates the moral truth of an argument.

Could his argument still be internally consistent? Sure. Could it have accurate observations? Also sure. But should his manifesto be regarded as having any overall validity? No. (Recall that the original point I was replying to was whether his murders invalidated his manifesto.)

I think we might just have to agree to disagree.

I feel that you view his acts of murder as inseparably linked to the manifesto, and that people can not accept manifesto to be true, while condemning the murders.

This ignores the possibility of a completely pacifist implementation of the manifesto's ideals.

My understanding is that a significant portion of it is not necessarily a call to violence, as much as a call to action. It states the technology and collectivism should be rejected, and this could be either a violent or non-violent process.

You need to learn to separate the ideas from the author. A work either has ideological merit or it does not. If he wrote the paper, it had merit, and then he murdered people, that does not change the writing at all. It has the same merit that it had before. Your learning information about the man who wrote the ideas should not have any effect on your assessment of its validity.

Nearly every great thinker and writer you can name from before a certain year owned slaves or wanted to.

I think he ultimately suffered mental illness, and it is reflected in both the fact that he murdered and the ideas in his manifesto. It's hard to separate them.

There may be similar ideas expressed by those who don't share his pathology, but his version of it is extreme and fringe.

As someone who likes to walk in an urban environment, I'd say it's not good and relevant. It's rather detached from the actual experience of the urban walker.

There's simple road design concepts that mitigate danger, as well.

The point is simply that that one person's choice can have impact on others. This is pretty basic and true if you like like urban walking or not.

No, i think this was just part of the author's delusional narrative that technological adoption is a form of violence.

If it is not actually that, and if there are safety measures that can be taken, he doesn't care.

I'm not a pro car person actually. And that's the vibe I'm getting from Kaczynski in this instance. Words of an out of touch person.

The fact that someone did something terrible does not imply that everything they ever said or did was wrong. That's dangerous thinking. The Unabomber's short manifesto makes a number of salient points about the negative interplay between technology and the human condition, and offers a neat potential explanation for why so many people are unhappy despite being surrounded by modern conveniences.

Fwiw, at the time and after, there were quite a few conferences and analysis of his manifesto.

This is an example of "ad hominem", a logical fallacy where you attack a person's character or attributes rather than the point being made.

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