Overview

Industrial Society and Its Future, also called the Unabomber Manifesto, is a 35,000 word essay by Ted Kaczynski contending that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of technology destroying nature, while forcing humans to adapt to machines, and creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human freedom and potential. The manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society.

Background

Between 1978 and 1995, Ted Kaczynski engaged in a mail bomb campaign^[3] against people involved with modern technology.[citation needed] His targets were universities and airlines, which the FBI shortened as UNABOM. In June 1995, Kaczynski offered to end his campaign if one of several publications (the Washington Post, New York Times, or Penthouse) would publish his critique of technology, titled Industrial Society and Its Future, which became widely known as the "Unabomber Manifesto".

Kaczynski had drafted an essay of the ideas that would become the manifesto in 1971: that technological progress would extinguish individual liberty and that proselytizing libertarian philosophy would be insufficient without direct action. The original, handwritten manifesto sold for $20,053 in a 2011 auction of Kaczynski's assets, along with typewritten editions and their typewriters, to raise restitution for his victims.^[1] (shown below)

While Americans abhorred Kaczynski's violence, his manifesto expressed ideas that continue to be commonly shared among the American public. A 2017 Rolling Stone article stated that Kaczynski was an early adopter of the concept that.

"We give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to conform to society’s standards. That, and we’re too plugged in. We’re letting technology take over our lives, willingly."

The Labadie Collection of the University of Michigan houses a copy of Industrial Society and its Future, which has been translated into French, remains on college reading lists, and was updated in Kaczynski's 2016 Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, which defends his political philosophy in greater depth.

Developments

At 35,000 words, Industrial Society and Its Future lays very detailed blame on technology for destroying human-scale communities. Kaczynski contends that the Industrial Revolution harmed the human race by developing into a sociopolitical order that subjugates human needs beneath its own. This system, he wrote, destroys nature and suppresses individual freedom. In short, humans adapt to machines rather than vice versa, resulting in a society hostile to human potential.

Kaczynski indicts technological progress with the destruction of small human communities and rise of uninhabitable cities controlled by an unaccountable state. He contends that this relentless technological progress will not dissipate on its own because individual technological advancements are seen as good despite the sum effects of this progress. Kaczynski describes modern society as defending this order against dissent, in which individuals are adjusted to fit the system and those outside it are seen as bad. This tendency, he says, gives rise to expansive police powers, mind-numbing mass media, and indiscriminate promotion of drugs. He criticizes both big government and big business as the ineluctable result of industrialization and holds scientists and "technophiles" responsible for recklessly pursuing power through technological advancements.

On December 16 2018, YouTuber ^[2] Philosophy and Esoterica posted a voice over of Angustus Sol Invictus reading the book (shown below.) The video hit 100,000 in 2 years.

In 1997, Theodore Kaczynski got arrested and took a photo ^[3] (shown below.)

Theodore Kaczynski's Book

Feral House republished the manifesto in Kaczynski's first book, the 2010 Technological Slavery, alongside correspondence and an interview.^[26][27] Kaczynski was unsatisfied with the book and his lack of control in its publication.^[28] Kaczynski's 2016 Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How updates his 1995 manifesto with more relevant references and defends his political philosophy in greater depth.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References