this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

his manifesto is poorly articulated and his best ideas are mostly copy-pasta from better thinkers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future#Influences

^ better to read the people who influenced him than his manifesto in particular, just because he struggled with mental health issues and bombed people doesn't make his articulation of these ideas particularly worthwhile

particularly it is better to read Eullel's The Technological Society than bother yourself with Industrial Society and Its Future

EDIT: also, this meme is somewhat inaccurate:

With its initial publication in 1995, the manifesto was received as intellectually deep and sane.[8] Writers described the manifesto's sentiment as familiar. To Kirkpatrick Sale, the Unabomber was "a rational man" with reasonable beliefs about technology. He recommended the manifesto's opening sentence for the forefront of American politics. Cynthia Ozick likened the work to an American Raskolnikov (of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment), as a "philosophical criminal of exceptional intelligence and humanitarian purpose ... driven to commit murder out of an uncompromising idealism".[8] Numerous websites engaging with the manifesto's message appeared online.[8]

Kaczynski's effort to publish his manifesto brought him into the American news more than the bombings themselves.[23] The manifesto was widely spread via newspapers, book reprints, and the Internet. Ultimately, the ideas in the manifesto were eclipsed by reaction to the violence of the bombings, and did not spark the serious public consideration he was looking for.[23][24]

tl;dr his manifesto was taken seriously when it was initially published, and its publication received more news reporting than the bombings; ultimately the reaction to the bombings led to dismissal of his ideas, not because the ideas themselves were poorly received at the time