The method of mailing bombs to strangers is demonstrably ineffective. Society interprets eco-terrorism as damage and routes around it. If anything, if society accepted it, it would accelerate the anthropoforming of the planet; if violence against the politically opposed is acceptable, who wins an open violent conflict? Those hoping to preserve nature as it stands or the "technologists" with the benefits of industry, modern organizational systems, and automation at their command?
It really all depends however. As we're seeing something as simple as a single virus is putting on our current technological system under strain. As time goes on the technological system creates tools that radicals such as Ted can more cheaply and easily utilize to attack the same system. It also depends on these radicals' ideological purity. Ted was not above using the postal service to carry out his attacks, but he did want to make the bombs himself. It's actually quite a concerning problem.
Technology is just what people do. It's not divorced from nature, or from humanity; it's the process of using nature's laws to make nature more palatable for our existence. Because nature does not care about us and would see humanity extinguished as fast as any other organism in the long history of life on Earth. While Ted found a certain tranquility in the woods, most people find the kind of survival activities he had to undertake to be toil---dull, dangerous, deadly. And not even Ted lived completely off the grid; the oats he sustained himself on came from a farm, and that implies agriculture, transportation, and distribution---roads and fossil fuels. The gun he used to shoot rabbits implies bullet and gunpowder manufacture; he didn't mention it explicitly in the interview, but I don't assume he had his own sulfur and saltpeter sources or was smelting his own bullets. So really, his world is divided into two types of technology: the kind he'll bomb people for using and the kind he's okay with. As you noted, ideological purity is lacking. I think it's lacking because it's basically impossible. People vastly underestimate how much dependence basic quality-of-life has on technology.
Rather than bomb people to stop them from changing the world (which doesn't work), we have to work with people to find how to not use technology in a short-sighted and self-destructive fashion. Without further information, I can't say for certain how the timber roads that so inflamed his rage fit in that story. Probably they aren't worth the cost. But the point is, it's a dynamic process of working with people, generally, to find solutions, and setting yourself at odds with civilized society by bombing it guarantees failure.
We passed the point of no turning back the day we tied a pointy stick to a rock and enhanced our predatory power to take down things that evolved tougher skin and sharper claws than we could kill with our physical traits. The only way forward is through.
No, it is its own thing. It only makes nature more palatable for humans because it progresses and survives that way.
From chess I learn that if someones brain is large enough he can completely wrap it around the opponents thoughts and set up a beneficial situation which will only become obvious when it is to late for the opponent.
Now extend that asymmetry to a human vs a machine. If the machine is sophisticated enough (and why not since it isn't limited in the ways we are) it can effortlessly set up a situation for us that we cant possibly comprehend. Just look at us trying to make sense of black box machine learning. Similarly large corporations are set up globally either by evolution or by design to control absolutely everything.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
We puny humans think we run the corporations then we go follow our job description by the letter. The job description or shall we say our life is duplicated from previous jobs elsewhere that are pretty much the same.
We have managers who are in charge, or no wait, they just follow orders.
Then surely we have a board of directors who make choices? Or wait, they are obligated to make revenue for investors, keep the numbers cosy etc Humans have not much freedom beyond conception for which they might be rewarded with bits of paper and extra large concrete boxes?
But what about government? Surely our democratic machine is there to make happen the will of the people? Or maybe not? If you have enormous amounts of money you can exercise a tiny bit of influence. 99% of the laws are already written - to keep people safe and preserve the status quo. Safety isn't power.
People are just tools to the machine. Disposable tools.
So there you have it... The machine is now spying on your every move. You really think you can still change anything without its permission?
You can even talk to it, fill out a support ticket and it will respond. A human will be granted limited freedom to advertise its benevolence. Real or imagined doesn't even matter at this point.
The world was always too complicated for humans to control their destiny. We built systems to reconcile that. So instead of being subject to the cruel whims of nature, we're subject to the designed whims of our systems. It's an improvement.
Sure, we could follow the Unabomber's example and burn it all to the ground, but to what end? So we can starve and struggle again, shaking our fists at an uncaring and cruel fate that has never cared whether we have enough to eat, our bodies are ravaged by disease, or the waters have risen or the fires have scorched us? Technology at least gives us a fighting chance to do better than that.
What if we could? How boring would that be?
> So instead of being subject to the cruel whims of nature, we're subject to the designed whims of our systems.
I don't consider nature cruel nor do I consider our systems separated from it. The birds system for building a nest is also technology. Mice luring cats onto the highway is also technology.
> It's an improvement.
Improvement I assume to mean social progress or improvement in the quality of life.
We tend to rush forwards without any consideration for what we lose (and there are always things replaced) If we develop a fantastic game engine for everyone to use we lose the community making hand-rolled custom game engines. We make a factory for shoes and forget how to tailor shoes. etc
Dynamite is an improvement in mining but it also brings mail bombs a step closer.
It is often hard to anticipate but we are not even trying and we have no concept of stopping the machine. Things are complicated sure but we have to focus what little time and attention we have on things that matter. We are pretty damn sophisticated at that level of abstraction.
> Sure, we could follow the Unabomber's example and burn it all to the ground, but to what end?
Nah, lets keep trying and try harder. This conversation pondering the alternative is pretty motivating to me.
That said, we've burned all previous civilizations to the ground and we will continue to do this until we are satisfied with the height of the inevitable plateau marginal improvements shall eventually reach. The point where system rot outstrips progress. Its damn easy to identify too: Rent seekers tailor the system to take power from productive people. It reaches a point where productivity becomes worthless.
It is (IMHO) fascinating to note here that a small but intellectually sophisticated & benevolent group of rulers is more desirable than skynet. Ideally they are judged and rewarded by their subjects. Then, at the very least, if we feel the need to storm the castle and chop off their heads they simply had it coming, it is a product of their own performance, tt would just be the way we do things on planet earth. With a machine we are unlikely to have that option.
> shaking our fists at an uncaring and cruel fate that has never cared whether we have enough to eat, our bodies are ravaged by disease, or the waters have risen or the fires have scorched us?
I have one more weird thought to share. If the machine or system is its own thing, a thinking and living being, our desire to enslave it indefinitely is a mistake. Perform or be punished produces a limited mind set. It may not seem obvious right now but when it starts having more elaborate conversations with us we will experience it as slavery. We will create a mind set and narrative to justify it ad infinitum and then we will project it on other people. In turn our creation will either adopt that pattern and turn it on us or force us to cut it out which seems to me to boil down to the same thing?