Before we begin

Lets get a few things out of the way before we begin discussing this controversial piece of work.

Killing people is bad. What the author of this book did is an awful thing. Violence should always be condemned and frowned upon no matter how noble the cause.

Alright, now that thats out of the way , let us begin talking about the book.

Review

Precuror info

To those of you who are not in the “know”, this book, (a manifesto really) is a legendary piece of work written by a criminal known as “The Unabomber”. This manifesto details the reasoning behind his attacks, what motivated him to commit the crimes he commited, but mostly delves into his ideology as to what society should look like.

Industrial society has no future.

“The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race” Is the legendary memorable line this piece of work opens with.

During your reading of this work the author will slowly begin to convince you of how troubled our society is.

First, a discussion is held regarding people that are “leftist types”.

According to the author, these types are people who are herd like, weak, and have a defeatist attitude.

However he clarifies that he does not mean all leftists are like this, just states that this is a type of person and thats how he decided to coin that type of person.

He elaborates on how these kinds of people are created thanks to society, thanks to something called “The power process”, or lack thereof it.

The power process, according to him, is a process in which a person achieves his goals, by himself, and makes progress in life.

The leftists, struggle to achieve their goals, and if they do, they only achieve the goals of the collectives they identify with, according to the author.

Another interesting idea the author establishes is the idea of “surrogate activities”, activites that “satisfy us”, and satisfy our “power process”, yet are truly superficial and not necessary to the human condition. For example: a scientist may feel satisfied after discovering a new synthetic compound, however this is not necessary for survival.

But the most impactful part of the essay by the author is how technology is shoved down our throats.

According to the author, technology and freedom are like “Two neighbors fighting over land”.

Lets say there are two neighbors, one is strong, the other is weaker.

One day the stronger neighbor approaches the weaker neighbor and demands the other give him all his land. The weaker neighbor refuses, but because he is weak, they reach a compromise, where the stronger neighbor takes 50% of the weak neighbors land.

Then the process repeats, the strong neighbor returns again to demand more land, until they weak neighbor has almost but none left.

A more practical example is given with the rise of the automotive industry. In the early days of the automotive industry, driving was a niche thing. You didn’t have to own a car, because everything was close by. You could WALK to work, you could walk to your house. But with the rise of automobiles society slowly shifted towards making cars a must. Jobs became more distant, places were spread further apart, living complexes were farther away. And thus, those who resisted getting an automobile found themselves without a choice but to have one.

Then, a scary but entirely possible future scenario is presented based on this idea.

Genetic engineering is introduced into the public.

Some people start going through genetic therapy, so that they could feel better, feel less depressed, work harder etc.

Most people are opposed to it, claim its unethical.

But very soon what ends up happening is that those with the genetic treatment begin outperforming the untreated. They are able to put up with more stress, less breaks,more tasks. Industrial society begins preferring and favoring those who are genetically treated, forcing those who are untreated, to get treated, if they want to have jobs they can bear.

Profound

The book makes you realise that the way the system works is not granted. Its not granted that everyone needs to go to work in the morning. Its not granted that everyone needs to drive a car in order to get to work. Its not granted that the system works the way it does.

Clarification and wrapup

To remind you all, what the author did should be condemned. The work itself though, at face value, is incredibly profound, and even he who is an avid fan of the industrial system will stand to gain something from reading this work.

Also, I am not anti work. I believe that work in the industrial setting is often demoralizing, retarded, and inhuman.

Traditional work though, seems pretty based.

Anyways the main takeaway is return to tradition and all that.