this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
Whelp, looking at where we are now - 30 years later - I can't say he didn't have a point...
The problem is capitalism, not technology. Technology and the concentration of capital are both advancing, but that's just because of the passage of time. If technology had stagnated, but capital accumulation had advanced, life would probably be even worse. (Maybe, I'm ignoring global warming here)
He goes in much deeper than simply critizising capitalism, from his viewpoint technology is unnatural and intervenes with the natural development of humans. IIRC, He for example thinks technology allows people with diabetes / other illnesses to keep living and reproducing, thus not allowing evolution to get rid of said issues.
His critique of technology is so much more than just "capitalism bad", its more about his thoughts on human nature and how technology effects the effort and satisfaction from different activities
I can't agree with what comes close to euthanizing people by not treating illnesses.
I you try to see it from his supposed point of view, you could argue that even ill people can make worthwhile contributions to society and advance humankind.
Developing tools (or even technology in the case of humans) is known from the animal kingdom to be a form of "survival of the fittest" hence in line with evolution.
You don't have to be perfect to be good enough. The movie Gattaca comes to mind...
I say both can cause problems.
Technology carries the risk of communities falling apart, because people do rely less on one another; technology makes peoples' lives and working more independently possible. Have a look at how many people were needed to plant and harvest crops per acre a hundred years ago vs. now.
I'm not saying this was a world I'd like to live in. I'm just saying that technology alone can have an impact on society, which should be considered and mitigated.
If you add widely unregulated capitalism into the mix, all is on overdrive and I agree that the current predominant form of capitalism is the bigger of the two problems.
The centralizing forces of turbo-capitalism would pose the bigger threat to society even without technology, because it puts too much power that can't be voted away easily in the hands of too few.
I mean… he's certainly wrong about many things such as leftism in general being incompatible with nature (cooperation and empathy is everywhere in nature, we just chose to ignore it for quite a while - not saying all left movements include those tho'…) or technology inherently bad. But when it comes to how the tech is used against people, how people are manipulated into fitting the system instead of the other way around and how it makes life worse… yeah, he surely got a point.
I can't say I agree with all I read about him, but this paragraph I quoted got me thinking and I recognized it as a warning.
I wouldn't say that I'm in favour of a Luddite way of living or want to join the Amish.
I would like having a SWOT analysis of technology though instead of blindly adopting it and dealing with fallout later if ever.
The realist in me realizes that there's money to be made and that's why technology gets shoved down our throats by oligarchs whether we want it or not.