bombs in bottles
I recently learned that The Youths are so into reading Ted Kaczynski's manifesto that they have a term for it: "getting Tedpilled."
New York Times Magazine: The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber
My parents did not have Internet or subscribe to newspapers in 1995, so I did not get to read "Industrial Society and Its Future" when it was published. So I set aside some time today and took the Tedpill myself.
Ted Kaczynski, "Industrial Society and Its Future"
One thing I find weird about that NYT Mag article is its insistence that so many people "get Tedpilled," aka embrace Kaczynski's comments if not his conclusions, because they ring true to the "younger than the iPhone" generation. Yet I had a different response to this paragraph in particular:
174. On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elites - just as it is today, but with two differences.
I can't argue with his grim view of reality once the mass of humanity is rendered superfluous (Ted thinks we will either be killed off or kept as pets). But I love the 1990s techno-optimism of
In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer,
This was, essentially, the same thing that tickled me on re-watching the X-Files episode "Kill Switch": Nobody, but nobody, in the 1990s imagined a world where we did not have control over our own devices.
The X-FIles' "Kill Switch" is still horror, but in a completely different way
Today, we do not control our cars or personal computers. We can scarcely be said to "own" them at all, given that their manufacturers can and will brick them if we do something they don't like. The "something" doesn't even have to be illegal.
Tesla Motors Club: Did Tesla brick my car?
Kaczynski does note, in an earlier paragraph, that the extent of tech-based surveillance is extensive and likely to continue invading our lives - and he was absolutely right about that. Yet not even "Uncle Ted" managed to be right about exactly how much ground we would lose in the surveillance fight. He imagined a future where our cars! or personal devices! were still under our control!
What a utopia. Best of all possible worlds. The impossible dream. The unreachable star. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to fight an AI for my right to eat.
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