Feel free to delete if this is still not allowed, but there is a website to help people research the utility of Ted's ideas, and to ideally help people positively re-evaluate anarchist philosophy, as there are still a lot of people who associate anarchism with Kaczynski, even though he later disavowed anarchism and acknowledged he didn't ever know much about it:
I think given the large number of people who were able to correctly predict many of the problems that would go along with tech evolution under capitalism means that Kaczynski's analysis isn't actually that unique or novel of an achievement to write home about.
Ted predicted in the manifesto that the worldwide technological system could collapse at as early a date as 2035, which he provided no good evidence for, then in a later letter claimed this was just a guess and that he wouldn't attempt to defend it.
He also briefly predicted the US wars in Vietnam and Iraq would have a
net good impact on the world, which we can see how well those turned out.
The articles and books Ted bought into or misinterpreted is notable too.
He saved onto an article from Esquire called
The Human Race Has, Maybe, Thirty-five Years Left which predicted that agricultural production couldn't keep increasing, so we'd have to be eating plankton or each other in 2022.
He was also briefly
suckered in by some some scientific sounding evidence for a spoon bending magician's paranormal beliefs, and so briefly feared that "thirty years from now, we may have government-employed psychics wandering around checking up on our thoughts to make sure we aren't planning to do anything illegal."
Finally, Ted's manifesto is to a large extent a condensed American vernacular version of Ellul's
The Technological Society which Ted zealously re-read and loved, but this book was meant to be read in tandem with
Autopsy of Revolution which Ted really didn't like. He wrote to Ellul about the latter book in a way that I think showed he didn't fully understand how Ellul's arguments all tied together. As I think he simply read into the text what he wanted to be there and not what was actually written.
Quoting Ted:
In the section Aims of Revolution you say, "the issue is not technology per see, but the present structure of society." In the section Focus of Revolution, you say that the revolution must be "against the technological society not against technology)." Further on, you indicate that we must "master technology". This seems to suggest the notion that we can have an advanced technology and still avoid the bad aspects of the technological society. If this is what you meant, then the idea is probably incorrect, and very dangerous.
--
Ted Kaczynski's Letter to Ellul
Also, quoting Sean Fleming, a political science research fellow:
I think what's interesting about the relationship between Kaczynski and Ellul is not just that Ellul influenced Kaczynski, but also that Ellul anticipated a lot of Kaczynski's arguments and tried to pre-empt them. He anticipated that someone much like Kaczynski would eventually come along and try to use his arguments to justify a violent revolution against technology. He tried to head that off in advance.
--
Kaczynski, Ellul, and the Future of Anti-Tech Radicalism with Sean Fleming
So, I think Ellul is a great person to read for both a critique of technological overconsumption and an antidote to the rigid position of Kaczynski:
If we see technique as nothing but objects that can be useful (and we need to check whether they are indeed useful); and if we stop believing in technique for its own sake or that of society; and if we stop fearing technique, and treat it as one thing among many others, then we destroy the basis for the power technique has over humanity.
--
Perspectives on Our Age by Jacques Ellul & Willem H. Vanderburg
Finally, I'd recommend David Charles's blog, which has some great ideas for how to practice living a low-impact lifestyle:
