Industrial Society and Its Future
AKA: Una-Bomber Manifesto
Author:Theodore Kaczynski

My analysis is incomplete but at least it gets the discussion going.

MDS: He seems to be trying to impose reptile brain behavior on a large group without acknowledging the existence of a intertwined reasoning side. Although as the french pyschologist said. "the reptile brain always wins."

8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn't seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th century.

MDS: All this labeling. Trying to freeze a changing continuum of reality with ideas.
He would have benefited from the peace of eastern philosophy.

12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-class families.


MDS: Strongest signal yet of a disturbed person. This is quite an assumption.

13. ...They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).


MDS: Without taking the time to read further (Sorry) I am going to make the following assumptions and recommendations:

Kaczynski had a point but was so disturbed that he could not make a positive recommendation for workable change. I think that possible answers to some of the issues he raised can found at www.redefiningprogress.org

On this website is information on the Genuine Progress Indicator. I heard about this recently because Bobby Kennedy gave speeches along the lines of defining another metric for progress. Since the movie "Bobby" came out there is some talk about this again.

... Simon Kuznets, the Nobel Prize–winning economist who was the chief architect
of what is now the GDP, made this clear in his very first report to the U.S.
Congress. “The welfare of a nation,” Kuznets wrote, “[can] scarcely be inferred
from a measurement of national income as defined [by the GDP].” Throughout
his life Kuznets emphasized the need for better and more inclusive measures to
assess a national economy.

But no one listened. The GDP became precisely what Kuznets said it isn’t: a
kind of all-purpose index of economic performance, a shorthand for the economy
itself. To the media and politicians the GDP was irresistible.

... By this reasoning the nation’s economic hero is the terminal cancer patient going through an expensive divorce, whose car is totaled in a twenty-car pile-up. The economic villain is the healthy person in a solid marriage who cooks at home, walks to work, and doesn’t smoke or gamble.

...it is possible to do a lot better than the GDP.

Google the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)

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For statistics on ourselves and how selfish we've become take the Ecological Footprint quiz at this website:

www.redefiningprogress.org/index.shtml

See selfishness boiled down to a single score for each of us. Find out whether our lifestyle negates our charity.

I scored a not so good eleven despite that fact that starting in April 2003 I have given away most of my possessions so that everything I own can fit into my 2000 Honda CRV. I rent a room in a residence in Hawthorne, CA. I have had a great time and continue to enjoy this lifestyle.