Opinion Piece: Kaczynski and the Cosmos- Reconciling the Unabomber with the future of humanity and how that relates to Dune

Dan Pasfield-

Editor’s Note: This is the first instalment in what I hope will be a long and life-changing series of articles. Opinion pieces are designed to be more casual essays that don’t require academic referencing. I hope that this provides an easier path in for people looking to share their thoughts. However, a lack of academic style should not mean a lack of rigour in argument. So, if you have any questions about the following piece, please comment them down below.

Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, has an infamous legacy. He has cemented himself as the epitome of the once-in-a-generation mind gone mad, leading him to declare a personal war on industrialised society. From his hut in Oregon he mailed improvised explosives to retaliate and enact punishment on those he saw as accelerating the development of industrial society. The manhunt and eventual capture of the Unabomber, however, led to one of the most important developments of Kaczynski’s legacy, the publishing of his manifesto; Industrial Society and its Consequences. The 35,000-word manifesto outlines his arguments on the nature of human development and his fear of the future development of industrial society, along with the manner in which to oppose it. It was his magnum-opus that led to his identification and death. 

He would spend the rest of his life in prison, retribution for the three deaths and 23 injuries he caused in his terrorist actions. He would die in June of 2023, a sobering tale of once hopeful and impressive genius turned into death and imprisonment. This essay is not going to be an exoneration of Ted Kaczinski. I am not going to argue for violent anti-technological agitation or action, it would be disrespectful to the lives that were tragically affected in the Unabomber’s campaign of terror. I will however, be exploring his philosophy in detail, and tying in influences from other sources try and arrive at a hopeful outcome for humanity. 

Ultimately, Ted Kaczynski and his manifesto have generally been written off as radical and extremist. The campaign of domestic terrorism, although the act which propelled the manifesto into prominence, also insured that for many the manifesto would remain unapproachable and taboo; the work of a madman. The story now goes that, embittered by his younger life and experience in education, Kaczynski chose to wreak his vengeance on the society which he had abandoned. Due to this, many are inclined to reject the ideas presented in the manifesto, dismissing any rational basis for his arguments. The consequence being that Kaczynski’s views, whilst being an infamous subject, are often simplified and ignored. However, many have commented on the manifesto as a serious, legitimate, and intellectually sane document; in a New Yorks Times op-ed, James Q. Wilson wrote: “If it is the work of a madman, then the writings of many political philosophers—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Karl Marx—are scarcely more sane.” 

I read Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto in preparation for a presentation I would be attending on the Unabomber. Upon reading it, I found myself entirely impressed. A number of the arguments presented and the conclusions drawn in the work made sense to me, accurately (in my view) outlining trends in society and technological development. I found his discussion on the nature of revolutions very interesting, his discussion on the nature of ‘leftists’ and socialisation left me bemused, and his writing on the nature of surrogate activities is something I still think about. His analysis on the nature of technological civilisation and the industrial corporate system is disturbingly accurate, noting that the system naturally deprives individuals of freedoms and meaningful connection. This is not necessarily a result of some malevolent plan by certain actors, but simply as a consequence of the actions of self-interested individuals at all levels of modern society. The most pressing conclusion in the manifesto was that the nature of industrial society and technological advancement would ultimately see the infringement upon and destruction of human freedom and dignity. Incidentally, he also believed that the nature of the development of AI and its implementation into industrial society would further ensure humanity’s domination by the system. 

This placed me in an interesting conundrum. I joked with my friends about how I would become a neo-luddite and oppose industrial society as a result of my reading, but ultimately decided not to embark on that quest. Nonetheless, I did have to deal with Kaczynski’s conclusion that the continuation of technological development and industrial society will lead to mankind losing any semblance of the freedom we enjoy. In this context, Luddism becomes a noble crusade against the enslaving force that is industrial society. We must rage against the machine. One small problem though; I kind of like industrialised society… 

I write this essay sitting in a car, in the car park of a hospital where lives are, no doubt, saved daily thanks to medicine and methods afforded by industrial society. The car I sit in alone allows me to travel across the country in relative comfort and speed unimaginable to the pre-industrial man. Billions of people live across the world, sustained by advances in agriculture that are the result of industrial chemical processes. Whilst Kaczynski fires many complaints at how industrial society makes us miserable and subservient, industrial society has its benefits. 

Furthermore, I have an issue with Kaczynski’s antidote to industrial society. Whilst he deliberately keeps the detail of his ideal outcome of an anti-industrial revolution vague, many have applied his writings to a Green-Anarchist/anarcho-primitivist ideology (many other variations exist such as neo-conservative or Eco-fascist, but ironically, Kaczynski slates most of these in the essay from which they take inspiration). Due to his lifestyle as a remote hermit, many have taken his message to be one of returning man to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Now, he does not advocate for this in his writing and he makes it a point not to ascribe a certain ideal society to arise from his luddite revolution. At its simplest, he ascribes a revolution to destroy industrialised society, with a society free of technology emerging from the aftermath. This will not preserve humanity. For millennia humanity has existed as almost any other animal on the planet, living and dying within the framework of evolutionary competition with little protection against the ravages of natural disaster. It’s a common claim to say that humanity now stands near the brink of extinction thanks to industrial society, but in a sense, we have stood there since time immemorial. The dinosaurs were wiped out by volcanic activity and a meteor, the Permian extinction killed the vast majority of life. Humanity in a pre-industrial state was really no less vulnerable. Whilst the continuation of industrial and technological development seems likely to end meaningful human existence, we are no more secure in the long-term in an alternative Kaczynski future. In this dilemma there is really no attractive option.

We shouldn’t abandon industrial society; its benefits have been discussed and we need it for our future. Technological development, however, is its own bag of fish. For the last 200 years technological progress has built a near divine hype. So many achievements have been attributed to it and so many future hopes placed on it. Humanity looks to technology for solutions to the millions of problems we have. Ted Kaczynski was correct to attribute many of the ills we face in society are to technology. However, in the face of this widely observable truth, there is no apparent pause in the development of technology as millions of tech-bro’s excitedly rush forward with this bizarre belief that each new innovation will have a wholly positive impact. Whilst I try not to be cliché, Jurassic Park hit it on the head with their “you were so excited that you could do something, you didn’t stop to thing if you should.” AI is a blindingly obvious example of this. In our cultural conscience we already have a belief that AI is a Pandora’s box that we should be careful to open, but we still blindly pursue it for seemingly no real reason other than it’s become a goal for the technological community. For an avenue of development with the serious risk of dire consequences for humanity, only the most superficial and paltry attempts have seemingly been made to apply the brakes. Serious control and caution should be placed on further technological development, we need to halt and begin taking stock of what we have. Obscene bounties granted by technology have already been deposited on humanity, billions of lives can be improved without further technological development simply by taking a moment to properly apply what we already have on the rest of society. In this, we both halt the further charge towards technologies that could seriously and irreversibly affect the human condition, and we allow society to adapt to the huge shifts in the nature of human existence that we have yet to properly understand the implications of. 

This is where Dune by Frank Herbert comes in. Technological development and industrial society should continue, but, it needs a focus. I don’t think its overly controversial to say the survival of humanity is a good thing, and, nor do I think that we need the help of AI or transhuman technological development to achieve this goal. Dune gives us a blueprint for some version of interstellar human advancement. Whilst we obviously can’t rely on the existence of some super-hallucinogenic “spice” or other paranormal factors, that is not where one of the strengths of Dune’s world lies. The development of human potential is one of the unique features found in the novel. The individuals known as Mentats, or the combat schools found in the narrative, certainly lean into the fantasy of that setting but are an example of how humanity could keep up with the technology needed to explore the cosmos. In this vision, human capacity and technological capabilities stay in tandem with one another, hopefully meaning that we are neither at risk of extinction in a primitive state of development or of the domination and destruction of our spirits under overwhelming technology. We can take the time to properly integrate technology and allow for natural social development as a result, allowing us to use such technology responsibly. Furthermore, we ensure the vitality of human decision making and autonomy at the centre actions taken in society. We should also specialise further, ensuring humanity as a whole can maintain a grip on any new technology and ensure that we are never dominated or destroyed.  

I admit I have gotten a bit idealistic and rosy near the end here, however, I really do hope that our future is something similar to that. For the rest of it, those were my thoughts on the nature of Ted Kaczynski’s writings and their continued importance, along with a possible resolution to the conundrum they pose. Kaczynski presents a dilemma between neo-luddite revolution or technological enslavement, but I sincerely hope a balance can be struck between those two, allowing us to push forwards.