An interesting piece of critical analysis of Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and his manifesto can be found at The Technium. Much time has been dedicated to the pathological aspects of Kaczynski and his violent acts. But perhaps not so much energy has been expended on whether or not his writings made any sense in any context.
… the Unabomber is right that choices which begin as optional can over time become less so. First, there are certain technologies (say sewage treatment, vaccinations, traffic lights) that were once matters of choice but that are now mandated and enforced by the system. Then, there are other systematic technologies, like automobiles, which are self-reinforcing. Thousands of other technologies are intertwined into these systemic ones, making it hard for a human to avoid. The more that participate, the more essential it becomes. Living without these embedded technologies requires more effort, or at least more deliberate alternatives.
The author points out that Kaczynski was concerned about the spread of what Jim Kunstler might call “technological triumphalism” and the lack of options we have in participation. Kaczynski was so concerned that he spent much of his life in a one room shack in the mountains of Montana. But he did not live like a cave man. There was a certain minimum level of technology he was comfortable with.
Another person might have fashioned these ideas into the core of a brilliant academic or writing career. But for reasons or illness unique to Kaczynski, he followed a darker path by choosing to lob grenades from the margins. No matter how compelling the logic, we need to have social intelligence to temper the indulgence of violence in persuasion.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Isn’t the enforced use of certain technologies a form of violence? Second hand suicide is never considered.
A man writes a law…a million people suffer. Had he not written that law, only he would have suffered.
Happens every day. I’m sure the new US budget will destroy many.
I hope that you are wrong, applesauce.
New York has 26400 bodies/mi^2, a 32-foot square/person. Cairo has 31,727 bodies/km^2, an 18-foot square/person. That cannot be sustained without drastic imposition – voluntary or imposed. Stack ’em up! In 1929 folks were mostly polite and the public dole non-existent. In 2009 folks are bestial, the State imposes order, and 20-30% of large cities’ populations are fed by fiat.
When the center of mass is elevated high above a narrow footprint the construct is not stable against spontaneous toppling. Kaczynski lacked patience.
As usual, the Germans are way ahead of the states in the coercion by violence business.
http://tinyurl.com/ccomd9
In the next ten years both Germany and Japan will re-arm. We won’t have the money to protect them.
Are you ready???
Most of the hate of technology goes back to Rousseau,Thoreau and one of the first anarchists, Protopkine : the idea that there once was a perfect marriage between man and nature. These are three beautiful writers, but if you travel to any third world country, you will know that it is not true: people who live free in nature live with superstition, typhoid, polluted water and a lack of roads that makes them helpless in times of crisis.
It is true that the more science we have, the less freedom we have: fifty years ago, people smoked without fear of cancer, and made love without fear of AIDS and drank without knowing that their brain became mushy, and took marijuana without knowing that their memory was impaired, and ate too much without fearing diabetes, and went out without tornado warning and in many countries did not need a driver’s license. Do I resent having less freedom? Yes I often do; do I want to live without progress? Sorry, that, I do not: I have traveled enough to know better.
I enjoy and benefit from a great many advantages afforded by technology. What I find disturbing is the extent to which corporations and government use technology to herd people into behaviors and circumstances convenient only to them. Increasingly, the internet is used to guide people into modes of inquiry or action that is preset by the website. Queries and actions are channeled through information chutes that exclude scenarios unforeseen by the website designer. If you have ever visited a stockyard, you can see the same kind of structure for manipulating herds into single-file flows of livestock.
As government and corporate institutions get larger and more sophisticated through computer technology, the degrees of freedom available to individuals diminish. Soon, the legs that once afforded pushback become vestigal appendages like legs on a dolphin.
It is very true. The city here in Savannah GA decides what the architects may do, what color you can paint your house, when you get the garbage can out and at what time, what animals you can keep in your yard and how many inches of grass you can grow. there is a municipal employee measuring mine regularly. It was worse in Europe. It is obviously worse in gated communities. We keep an illusion of freedom by refusing to have and identity card (which makes little sense as they ask you your drivers’licence everywhere). The famous internet freedom just allows rich firms and government to herd you in. With no money, you are just free to be ignored.
The common good has always hidden lost of sins. I think it is all due to surpopulation more than techno.