Technological Slavery: Enhanced Edition: 1

Technological Slavery is an amazing follow up to anyone who enjoyed “Industrial Society and Its Future” (ISAIF) or wanted more anti-tech ideas from someone as original and profound as Kaczynski is. In Technological Slavery, the author addresses questions left unanswered in ISAIF as well as laying down rules and principles regarding the nature of industrial society. He covers a vast array of topics including the reason for the pervasiveness of democracy, the motives of scientists, problems with reform and why it would fail, and what he calls “the systems’s neatest trick”As Kaczynski clearly lays out, the existence of democracy as a dominant political structure in the 20th and 21st century is no coincidence, but rather a result of processes of natural selection among competing social systems in an industrial environment. To any degree it was “chosen,” it was a choice carried out by the west to ensure the stability industrial society requires, as opposed to the volatile nature of undemocratic regimes which could lead to industrial and economic disruption or collapse. Furthermore democracy works to release tension and social instability by giving the illusion of choice, making people believe they are making great changes in society by participating when the truth is they make no important change, the only deliberate change is superficial; vanity. The real changes are determined by technical necessity beyond human control or foresight.In a world of cold reason and numbers, where the only messiah is a computer, the author does the unthinkable and criticises the scientific nobility. A fictitiously infallible class of society, the top strata in the modern caste of STEM-educated technophiles. This is a perfect follow-up to the author’s description of the “power process” as mentioned in “Industrial Society and Its Future”. This brave challenging of the unchallengeable is what made the author so renowned… amongst other things.His response to readers who believe in reform, including Dr Skrbina, is a frightening, cold shock. The hard hitting truth (consistent with all of Kaczynski’s work) is the argument that far simpler tasks than reform have proven impossible to solve, and it is futile to attempt to reform an innately broken system. This is perhaps one of his most uncomfortable views, and largely controversial especially in the anti tech community. Something as daunting as asserting the necessity of complete societal collapse is certainly something that raises heads, and not always in a positive way. However Kaczynski is already incredibly polarising and he needn’t worry about publicity nor opinion. He is left to speak only the truth.His essay, “The System’s Neatest Trick’” (now somewhat famous in many radical circles), explains that the system is not only built to survive small scale protests in the pursuit of “social justice,” but actual thrives on it: they work as a kind of stress-relief valve such that they reduce social tension while maintaining the values and structure of industrial society, allowing self proclaimed “revolutionary” or leftist types a way to vent frustration and hostility towards the system without the system suffering the consequences of such dissatisfaction. This ties in perfectly to the prior topic of reform and how the idea of reform is not only implausible, but also counterproductive, serving only to maintain the societal glue. It also matches the themes of the tendencies (including masochistic tendencies) of leftists and others with an impulse to rebel from Industrial society. The leftists being in a large part, the group with the most rebellious or hostile tendencies in regard to the political state of the system.Overall, this book is a perfect continuation of the topics mentioned in “Industrial Society and Its Future” serving to greatly expand on topics only mentioned briefly or that deserve further explanation. I highly recommend it to anyone that has read the manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future” and is looking for a continuation of the themes and ideas covered in that piece. But even for those who haven’t read the manifesto, this book is surely worth a read, and it contains an updated version of the manifesto as one of the first sections.

This book does not suffer from the cheap paper and endless spelling errors that plague some of the books published by or about the Unabomber. In that respect, it's very good. The author does make some pertinent points about how technology makes modern life deeply unsatisfying for many people. Where he's weak is in providing any clear vision of what society would look like if his revolution was carried out. He was a mathematician and there is a lack of the human touch about his attitude.

This is by far the best version of "Industrial Society and it's future" that I have owned and I recommend it over the many poorly printed copies that are available.

I would highly suggest this book for anyone who feels there is something missing in the techno-industrial society-- the media and most talking heads continuously remind us we are lucky to live-- as well as those who may be curious why an incredibly promising and brilliant UC Berkeley professor dropped out of his academic position, severed most contacts with his family and friends, and conducted an almost two-decade-long terror campaign from his little wooden cabin in Lincoln, Montana.For any of you who think that only a madman could do what Kaczynski did, you'd be well advised to read of the greatness of peril he believed he's been trying to avert.

The more I read this book...the more I find myself agreeing with the author on various points surrounding technology being a bad idea for humanity. Although, I don't agree on all points...it does get you thinking.

Definitely readable & the story does flow, despite being a challenging subject. Recommended for it's thougher analysis of the western ( an now global) techno- industrial military complex.Good insight into politics and history.

1 of 3 books purchased for a friend who doesn't have access to Amazon, so I can't personally review it.

This book contains problems that I think we do need to address as a modern society. While I think TJK's methods were abhorrent and do not endorse them at all, there is certainly some academic worth in his writing that I feel must be engaged with.