ted kaczynski – Poor Roger's Almanac

I have been reading Ted Kaczynski’s book¹, Technological Slavery, over the last few weeks and thinking about his assertion that the techno-industrial society and system spawned by the Industrial Revolution which broke out a few hundred years ago are destroying humanity and the freedoms we take for granted. Uncle Ted, as he is affectionately known by his admirers, claims that another revolution is necessary to break mankind free from the technological “chains” which are increasingly binding us into a System which will eventually control everything we do and say, perhaps even think. A disaster, as he repeatedly calls it. Sounds like an AI driven narrative, doesn’t it, and judging by what we see happening today, it would be reasonable to say that he was not far wrong in his predictions.

Technology and the modern machine-powered society we live in today is unavoidable. Unless you live in the most remote parts of the Amazon rain forest in a hunter-gatherer mode of survival, there is no place on Earth where it does not reach. For nearly everyone, modern life is a necessity, not just a convenience. Even if we were to revert back to the days before the digital modernization, to the days of analog life (remember that black box on the wall which had to be “hung up” to break the connection?), the invention and production of machines, methods, and patterns to make life more tolerable would still be with us and still demanding our attention to maintain, repair, and keep up. Just because we abandoned digitization (computers, cell phones, surveillance systems, self-driving cars, credit cards, etc.) does not mean we would have broken the hold which the technology of the Industrial Revolution imposed on us.

How far back should we go? How far would we go? For myself, if the entire world was suddenly removed to the early 19th century, without electricity, internal combustion engines, and all kinds of labor-saving devices, I wouldn’t have a problem living with that. I would have been eager to cross the prairie from the East to the Rocky Mountains or beyond with nothing more than what I could carry on my back or my pony. I might have even become a mountain man after the manner of Jim Bridger or Joe Meek. Nevertheless, there would always be the temptation to improve my life by adopting and using new ideas and inventions, perhaps even creating some myself.

This is nothing more than human nature and, like matter, it cannot be destroyed, only changed. The desire to improve one’s life and world is built into us and has been part of what we are since the days of Adam and Eve. We naturally gravitate in that direction.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion…” — Genesis 1:26a

It is not the technology which we should be opposed to. Technology, like everything else which has been created and used by man, is only a tool and, like every other tool, can be used for both good and evil. A hammer can be used to drive nails in the construction of a house or it can be used to kill someone by smashing in their head. It is not the tool which is evil, but the manner in which it is used. To fight against modern technology on the grounds that we are becoming enslaved to it has some appeal, much like the Luddites who destroyed looms and steam engines because they were perceived as dangerous to one’s livelihood. If the Luddites were around today, they would be going after the manufacturer of Roomba, on their way to the factories of Tesla and Microsoft. Or, maybe they are, just not in a physical sense. Destructive hacking is on the rise and there is no telling what might happen when AI data centers scarf up all the electricity and water of local regions.

Nevertheless, Uncle Ted had a point…to a point. We actively engage in the technological marvels which accompany modern life and become disturbed whenever that interaction is threatened, yet we know, deep down, that it only drives us deeper and deeper into the depths of dependency on our machines and systems. We have forgotten (or never learned) how to live without them. We simply cannot live without what exists today and are (usually) more than willing to give up our “rights” and freedoms so long as we are, more or less, left alone. Unfortunately, we are never left alone, not completely, and the trend is toward greater and greater immersion and incorporation into the web of the spider from which there is no escape.

“Come into my parlor”, said the spider to the fly.

Most definitely unfortunately, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, went about proclaiming his message the wrong way, sending bombs through the mail in packages which exploded when they were opened. He wounded many people and actually killed three over a multi-year spree of terror until found out, arrested, and incarcerated in a super-max prison in Colorado. At least, that’s what we’re told. At any rate, the bombings ended. We are also told that he committed suicide by tying shoelaces around his neck and hanging himself off a safety grab bar three feet off the floor, in a super-max prison where inmates are not allowed shoelaces, but that’s another matter entirely. A conspiracy theory, if you will, which may or may not be proven true at some future date.

“At 12:23 a.m. on June 10, 2023, Kaczynski was found in his cell unresponsive, with no pulse, after hanging himself from a handicap rail with a shoelace.”²

Technology is not going to go away. If it was destroyed completely, sending us back to the Stone Age, or destroyed partially, sending us back to the Middle Ages, the desire would always be there to improve our lives by inventing items which break us out of the Hobbesian model of “nasty, brutish, and short.” Obviously, the answer to our current dilemma does not lie in outright prohibition. We couldn’t do that anyway. Human society will not tolerate that and anyone who tried would not even get a first hearing, let alone build a movement. Blind denial of the problem, burying one’s head in the sand and hoping the threat will go away, will not work either. That strategy has never succeeded in the past and is a conscious, deliberate refusal to engage in the controversy. Neither can we simply (and passively) allow “advancement” without making some sort of effort to bring it under control. How, then, is this to be accomplished?

I’ll be honest. I can’t recommend a ten-step program or a government initiative. I have no simple solutions to an increasingly complex problem, but I suspect that, eventually, an answer will arise which incorporates the practice of love, Christ-like love as its beginning point. When Google actually practices its erstwhile motto instead of using it as a sentimental touchy-feely slogan, then we will be on the right track and headed in the right direction.

“Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.”

Even if we forgo some short term gains. This is the sticking point. Getting beyond the drive for corporate quarterly profits is going to be difficult.

“When the power of love becomes greater than the love of power, then the world will know peace.” — Jimi Hendrix

When the power of love, real love, becomes the abiding principle of the general pool of mankind, then technology which concentrates power into the hands of a few well-connected oligarchs and the system they own will no longer be used to hold people hostage to it. Perhaps. It is a real stretch to even imagine such a system, however, there may come a time when data entered into a website is NOT used in an offensive manner against the person who has logged into the system. There is absolutely no reason why this cannot be done except that the love of money (and everything which accompanies it) is still the dominant paradigm, the root of all evil. When people stop trying to use money and power over others to benefit themselves and start using money and power to help others within the context of sacrificial love, then we have a shot at resolving this issue.

Technology is not the problem. Human nature is and, if the message of Christianity is valid, then we have a King Who specializes in correcting human nature. The length of time it takes to bring this about is irrelevant because He has all eternity to work with.

Notice that even here, we are bound under the spell of the dilemma. It is so easy to go to Amazon to buy a book which attempts to explain the reason why we shouldn’t go to Amazon to buy a book. Yet, it might be similar to the principle of jiu jitsu: Use your opponent’s strength against him. I’ve got no better explanation. ↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski ↩︎

It’s been relatively quiet this week on the news front. The war in Ukraine seems to have settled into a slow advance and retreat with most of the action coming by way of long-range drones. The war on Iran by US/Israel has become like a boxing match with the combatants ducking, bobbing, and weaving while only an occasional punch is thrown, with the damage loudly disputed. “Did too!” “Did not!” At this point, I’m not sure what to believe, except that the price of gasoline keeps going up, in my area now at about $4.50/gallon for regular.

How long this will continue is unknown. Iran is supposed to be controlling passage of ships in the Strait of Hormuz, allowing some in and out, while denying others. The US is supposed to be blockading the southern end of the Strait to prevent any Iran/China affiliated tankers from moving into the open ocean, but, once again, everything about these moves is questionable. Perhaps by design.

The warnings are piling up along with the timelines. Iran will have to shut down its functioning wells due to a lack of storage space next week…or is it next month? The world economy is going to descend into chaos and financial recession (depression) unless the Strait is opened immediately…or will it? Supply chains, fertilizer shipments, and LPG tankers are at risk to countries which need them. It’s likely that some version of these will manifest quite soon, almost certainly before the end of summer, and none of it is looking good for the average person regardless where they live in the world.

But life goes on.

I’ve just finished reading Immanuel Velikovsky’s book, Worlds in Collision¹. It was quite a slog and toward the end, I started skipping over the repetitive parts. Still and all, it was an interesting read which sought to explain many of the unexplainable things which “regular” science has not been able to. Mammoths in Siberia flash frozen with fresh flowers and grass still in their mouths. Extreme floods all over the world at the same time. Solar and lunar movement stopped as described in the book of Joshua. The plagues of Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea at the time of the exodus by the Hebrews. Sodom and Gomorrah. The annihilation of Sennacherib’s army of 185, 000 soldiers in a single night. And more, a lot more.

Some of his assertions seem plausible, others are completely outlandish and raise an eyebrow. Or two. For instance, the theory that the planet Venus was once a comet which almost collided with Earth could be correct. His extensive research and footnotes posit that Venus was not counted among the planets until late in the B.C. era, but showed up suddenly everywhere around the world in extremely diverse cultures. I mean, it is quite possible that this could have happened. Yet, the claim that Venus came so close to the earth that their atmospheres actually touched and created huge electrical sparks and storms does seem a little far-fetched. Further, the position that during this “close encounter”, Venus dripped naphtha and petroleum in such great quantities that it seeped into the earth and produced our current oil fields also is questionable. At the same time, the manna from heaven, ambrosia, also was a product of Venus, but in a highly edible, nutritious, and tasty form, completely unlike the naphtha which destroyed.

Call me open to the potential but quite skeptical about the claims. Nevertheless, Velikovsky, who had been consistent with his treatment of science, archaeology, and religion throughout the book, all at once veered off into a philosophical thought at the very end, in fact, the next-to-last page before the epilogue.

“The average man is no longer afraid of the end of the world. Man clings to his earthly possessions, registers his landholdings and fences them in; peoples carry on wars to preserve and to enlarge their historical frontiers.” — Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, pg. 356

The average man alive today carries on because the events he described happened as much as 3000 years ago and no longer pose a threat to life on Earth, but he is wrong in one respect. Many people are increasingly afraid that we are living on the brink at the end of the world and that life as we know it (knew it) is going to end in a cataclysmic catastrophe of some sort or another: all-out nuclear war. The imminent return of Jesus Christ² with its attendant “rapture” and appearance of Anti-Christ. Climate change which has apparently changed now that the Big Boys have seen the need for massive amounts of electricity to power their AI data centers. Extensive famines. Unheard of diseases, like the “newly mortal lethal, and deadly” hantavirus which is being prepped as the New Covid Dampanic, er, pandemic. And on and on and on.

But life goes on and I’m planning to live until I die. In the meantime, a friend gave me a book to read, Technological Slavery, by none other than Ted Kaczynski. Yes, that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Oh, dear, from Velikovsky to Revelation to Kaczynski. Who knows what I might pick up next? Nostradamus? Or a virus caught by accidentally swallowing a mouse turd which can only be cured by subsequently swallowing rat poison?

Oh, dear!

Download a free copy here. ↩︎
See my recent article on the meaning of the Mark of the Beast. ↩︎

Poor Roger's Almanac

"Sapere Aude!" Have the courage to use your own reason.

Tag: ted kaczynski

The Unabomber’s Dilemma

The Future (and Past) of an Uncertain World