30 Years Since "The Unabomber Manifesto"

Ted Kaczynski, also known as The Unabomber, after his arrest in 1996.  His manuscript, Industrial Society and its Future, was published by the Washington Post on September 19, 1995. 

 

He had what you might call an "axe to grind."

Between 1978 and 1995, former child prodigy (with a genius-tier IQ of 167) and Harvard graduate Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski mailed or hand-delivered sixteen homemade package bombs, which altogether killed three people and injured 23 others. 

Over time, the bombs became increasingly sophisticated, better targeted, and more deadly.

His final two bombs, mailed in late 1994 and early 1995, killed a New York City advertising executive and the president of the California Forestry Association.

Uncle Ted was an environmental extremist who felt that he was "getting back" at a technological civilization run amok, which was in the process of destroying what was left of wild nature.

He was the subject of an intense manhunt (the most expensive FBI investigation in its history), and equally intense speculation.  

At one point, FBI profilers thought he might also be the infamous San Francisco Zodiac Killer.  His bombs were carefully crafted to leave no clue as to his identity.

In 1995, he offered to stop his bombing campaign, if the New York Times or Washington Post would print his 35,000-word manuscript, Industrial Society and its Future.

The Washington Post printed it exactly 30 years ago, September 19, 1995.  The above link is an edited version they uploaded three days later.  

They've been kind enough to leave it up all this time, with no paywall.  Definitely click on the link, to read it, and for the Wayback purpose of checking out (or reminding yourself) what the internet looked like in 1995.

Uncle Ted's official US Marshalls Service mugshot, April 1996.

The Man Must Be Crazy

Thee Optimist was already an adult in September 1995 (I know - let's not talk about it).

Thee Optimist's penchant for unusual material was already well-established by then, so he read the so-called "Unabomber Manifesto" as soon as it came out.

Even the name the newspapers gave the document was designed to subtly mock it.  A crazy person was sending people bombs in the mail, and now he wanted a major newspaper to publish his unhinged ravings.

At the suggestion of the Attorney General and Director of the FBI, the Washington Post did so.

It would be hard to overstate the reception it received in the mainstream media of the time.  The manuscript seemed to prove that the mad bomber really was just a simple lunatic, writing some kind of delusional science fiction.

The essay described an emerging technological dystopia in which regular people lost control of their lives and privacy to the demands of machines, and to the tiny corporate or government elite who controlled the machines. 

Thee youthful Optimist, once something of a prodigy himself (tall, good-looking, well-hung, AND smart - doesn't seem quite fair, does it?) couldn't make heads nor tails of the thing.

The only reason the Washington Post agreed to publish it was in the hopes that someone would recognize the writing style and turn the writer in.

Ted's brother David Kaczynski read the manifesto a week after its publication, and did just that - informed on his own brother.  

Brutal.

Then, over the years, something funny started happening.  Some of the events and conditions described in the manuscript began to appear in real life.

As the decades passed, it became clear that Industrial Society and its Future was accurate in its predictions, just far ahead of its time. 

It is widely recognized now as one of the most important written works of the 21st Century - published five years before the century began.

Uncle Ted in prison in 1999.  He spent the rest of his life in custody, mostly at the federal Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado.  He died in June 2023, of suicide, at the age of 81, after a two year bout with cancer.

Let's read some, shall we?

The following excerpt from Industrial Society and its Future, describes a couple of scenarios where machines become more intelligent than humans, and what might be the result.

First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

On the other hand, it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or person computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. 

Uncle Ted's hand-built cabin in rural Montana, where he originally went to escape the modern world.  He lived here from 1971 until his arrest in 1996.  A census taker in 1990 described the inside as "a bed, two chairs, storage trunks, a gas stove, and lots of books." 

Words of Wisdom

"Never lose hope, be persistent and stubborn and never give up.  There are many instances in history where apparent losers suddenly turn out to be winners..." 

- Ted Kaczynski