Unabomber

[[File:Young theodore kaczynski.jpeg|thumb|right|165px|Before: Kaczynski, 1968.]]{{crimenav|1}}
[[File:Theodore Kaczynski.jpg|thumb|right|165px|And after: Kaczynski, 1996.]]
{{cquote|The first time I received a letter from the Unabomber, I had my wife open it.|||Gary Greenberg<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.garygreenbergonline.com/media/unabomber_letter.pdf |title=In The Kingdom of the Unabomber |author=Gary Greenberg}}</ref>}}
The '''Unabomber''' was a media-popularized term for '''Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski''' Ph.D. {{lived|1942|2023}}, a former [[mathematics]] professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who quit his teaching position in 1969 to live in a cabin in [[Montana]].  Starting in 1978, he engaged in a mail-bombing campaign which killed 3 people and wounded 23, ending in 1995 when  ''[[The New York Times]]'' and ''[[The Washington Post]]'' agreed to publish his rambling manifesto, ''Industrial Society and Its Future''.<REF>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/unabomber/29229.stm Unabomber Timeline]</ref><ref>[http://articles.courant.com/1995-07-02/news/9507010436_1_sacramento-bomb-graduate-student-injured The Unabomber Case: Chronology of a Terrorist]</ref>

His sister-in-law and brother ratted him out after recognizing the writing style in his manifesto.<ref>Dave Davies (August 22, 2017). [https://www.npr.org/2017/08/22/545122205/fbi-profiler-says-linguistic-work-was-pivotal-in-capture-of-unabomber "FBI Profiler Says Linguistic Work Was Pivotal In Capture Of Unabomber"]. ''Fresh Air''. NPR.</ref> Ted had been sitting in prison from that point until his death in June 2023. He published a few books while in prison, expanding on his ideology: ''The Road to Revolution'' (2008), ''Technological Slavery'' (2010), and ''Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How'' (2016). He also sent out occasional replies to snail-mail he received, which may offer some additional insight into his views.<ref>(January 26, 2016). [https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2016/01/26/report-details-unabombers-handwritten-prison-correspondence/79343702/ "Report details Unabomber's handwritten prison correspondence"]. ''Coloradoan''. The Associated Press.</ref> He consistently forwarded this mail correspondence to the University of Michigan Library, where it has been archived for decades in its own collection.<ref>Holly Bailey (January 25, 2016). [https://news.yahoo.com/letters-from-a-serial-killer--inside-the-unabomber-archive-234543736.html "Letters from a serial killer: Inside the Unabomber archive"]. ''Yahoo! News''.</ref><ref>[https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-scl-kaczynski "Ted Kaczynski Papers, 1996-2014, (Majority of material found within 1996-2005)"]. University of Michigan Library.</ref>

He was moved to a prison medical facility in December 2021. By March 2022, it was rumored (and later confirmed) that he had terminal [[cancer]], based on mail correspondence that was circulated online around the time of the ward transfer.<ref>Amanda Watts and Kay Jones (December 23, 2021). [https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/23/us/unabomber-ted-kaczynski-medical-facility/index.html "'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski transferred to a prison medical facility in North Carolina"]. CNN.</ref><ref>Brad Woodhouse (March 16, 2022). [https://medium.com/@bradwoodhouse/ted-kaczynski-may-well-be-dead-in-less-than-a-year-e7c1bcb44dae "'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski 'May Well Be Dead In Less Than A Year'"]. Medium.</ref><ref name="APSuicidePlusCancer/> Ultimately, he died in June 2023 by suicide, aged 81.<ref name="APSuicidePlusCancer>[https://apnews.com/article/ted-kaczynski-unabomber-1197f597364b36e56bdbcaca9837bdc4 ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski died by suicide in prison medical center, AP sources say], Michael R. Sisal, Mike Balsamo and Jame Offenhartz, ''AP News'' 11 June 2023</ref>

==Harvard University==
Kaczynski began his undergraduate studies in mathematics at Harvard University at the young age of 15 in 1958. When he was 17, he was among the students who volunteered for what were described to them as [[psychological]] testing experiments by Harvard Professor of Psychology {{wpl|Henry Murray||.}} The experiments were what Murray himself elsewhere described as "vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive" attacks on the subjects.<ref name=chase>[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/ Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber: A series of purposely brutalizing psychological experiments may have confirmed Theodore Kaczynski’s still-forming belief in the evil of science while he was in college.] by Alston Chase (June 2000) ''The Atlantic''.</ref> The experiments were plausibly funded by or part of the [[CIA]] [[MKULTRA]] research program into [[mind control]], particularly because during [[World War II]], Murray had been employed by the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. It has been suggested that the experiments may have motivated Kaczynski,<ref name=chase/> but Kaczynski himself denied this.<ref>''Dostoyevsky's Stalker and Other Essays on Psychopathology and the Arts'' by Michael Sperber (2010) Thomas Nelson.ISBN 9780718092344.</ref>{{rp|41}}

==Ideology==
The premise of Kaczynski's ideology was fundamentally [[Luddite|primitivist]], stating that modern technology and industry were responsible for the cultural decadence, loss of [[freedom]], social ills, and out-of-control government power that he felt plagued [[Western civilization]], and that they were subjugating humanity to an unnatural ideal that went against thousands of years of evolution. If left unchecked, he argued, the advance of technology and the civilization it supported would result in the annihilation of traditional cultures and ways of life, culminating in the total enslavement of humanity as the [[Singularity]] arrives and [[artificial intelligence]]s are placed in charge of the increasingly all-powerful government and bureaucracy. He was also a [[Social Darwinism|social Darwinist]] who maintained that modern living was having a [[De-evolution|dysgenic effect]] on human beings, favoring maladaptive traits and allowing genetic diseases that, in the wild, would've been weeded out by [[natural selection]] to instead be repressed via medical treatment and the guardrails of modernity such that people suffering from them could safely reproduce and pass them on. To him, the only two solutions to this problem were either [[eugenics]], which [[Stopped clock|he dismissed]] as an invitation to even more totalitarian control, or [[Appeal to nature|returning humanity to a "state of nature"]].

He was vehemently anti-[[leftist]], [[Argument from assertion|asserting]] that leftism in general was inherently [[totalitarian]]. However, he also felt that mainstream [[conservative]]s were deluding themselves by opposing leftism yet continuing to support technological and industrial development instead of recognizing the role that he felt they played in leftism's advance. In his mind, [[cultural relativism]], [[political correctness]], [[Social class|class warfare]], [[identity politics]], and other aspects of modern leftism were all merely symptoms of the problems created by industrial civilization, the end result of taking away people's connection to the subsistence lifestyle they evolved for and leaving them with only "trivial" matters to focus their attention on. He argued that humanity should overturn industrial civilization and return to a primitive hunter-gatherer society, rejecting the idea that the technology of the modern world could be reformed in any way. This shift should come sooner rather than later, so as to reduce the pain caused by its collapse — if we wait any longer, he argued, we'd enable technological civilization to enslave and murder even more people than such a collapse would harm.

While he did dismiss some of the more romanticized views held towards hunter-gatherer societies,<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-truth-about-primitive-life-a-critique-of-anarchoprimitivism The Truth About Primitive Life: A Critique of Anarcho-Primitivism], Ted Kaczynski.</ref> he did still idealize the idea of the [[noble savage]], though in a markedly different manner from many [[Hard green#Anarcho-primitivism|anarcho-primitivists]]. He viewed the primitive world not as a place free of work and want, but rather, as a place where people were free from "non-productive" work, which he defined as anything that doesn't directly support subsistence living (such as shopping, filing [[tax]] forms, taking the car in for repairs, and wage labor in general). Back in the old days, in his view, people had to pull their weight in procuring food, water, and shelter in order to survive, and since that was their first and foremost preoccupation, they had no need for the decadent leisure activities and stressful, non-productive labors of modern society. Likewise, he argued, without the technology and infrastructure of modern society, there was no need to engage in coercion and forced dependence to maintain it, allowing relationships to emerge on the basis of mutual need, friendship, and desire.

===Summary===
In short, Kaczynski blamed the advance of technology and industry for driving the forces behind the destruction of [[traditional values]] and the rise of statist [[tyranny]]. His ideas bear a number of similarities to the militant anti-modernism of [[radical traditionalism]], though he tended more towards [[anarchism]] versus [[Roman Empire|classical]] or [[Middle Ages|medieval]] social structures; the similarities between the two are most likely a case of [[convergent evolution]] based on shared anti-industrial and anti-liberal views. There's probably more to it than that, but like most [[Anders Behring Breivik|hare-brained]] [[Mein Kampf|political]] [[Christchurch terrorist attacks|treatises]], ''Industrial Society and Its Future'' is ''really'' fucking long, and most of it is just banging on the same points over and over. So forgive us if we kind of just skimmed through it. There's a reason why Kaczynski forms the defining stereotypical image of the "crazy mountain man who writes a 300-page manifesto about all his problems with society before going on a rampage."<ref>Compare [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/08/rogue-l-a-cop-s-facebook-manifesto-you-will-now-live-the-life-of-prey.html the rant] of the ex-LAPD cop [[Christopher Dorner]] for an example from the other side of the political spectrum.</ref>

===Ignorance of history===
Kaczynski's analysis of non-industrial and non-agricultural societies being superior to the modern world rests on a fundamental ignorance of human history. While he rightly criticized the idealized view of primitive hunter-gatherer societies as being communal [[utopia]]s of equality, cooperation, and [[pacifism]], he simultaneously indulged in the equally [[fallacious]] view that they were ''[[Libertarianism|libertarian]]'' utopias where freedom and [[rugged individualism]] reigned. Even if one ignores questions over standards of living, child mortality, and [[disease]], both viewpoints fly in the face of the actual history of ancient [[empire]]s, which used brutal coercion to crush the nomadic hunter-gatherers and consolidate the power of their leaders. None of these early empires came out of nowhere; rather, they grew out of hunter-gatherer tribes who discovered some good land with food in enough abundance that it was worthwhile to settle down there permanently, start cultivating the land to maximize the food they were able to hunt and gather (inventing agriculture and animal husbandry in the process), and kick off any interlopers who tried to take "their" food and land (inventing armies and [[war]] in the process). A return to primitive society would soon entail a return to primitive, tyrannical forms of governance as a result, not a new age of liberty. In the long term, particularly with (going by his scenario) a past industrial civilization to recall (even if dimly) along with its artifacts, they might well just recreate that all over again.

Likewise, his analysis glosses over the fact that a mass die-off would be the guaranteed end result of abandoning industrial civilization. Earth's population is supported almost entirely by agriculture, even before the [[Norman Borlaug|Green Revolution]] of the 20th century and its resultant population explosion. If industrial civilization were to collapse, billions of people would starve to death, but not before turning against each other for food and resources, potentially killing billions more. All this comes before the prospect of [[nuclear weapons]], be they controlled by governments or in the hands of terrorists, enters the mix, with the potential to finish the job of humanity's self-destruction. Of course, for those of a [[hard green]] and/or [[Thomas Malthus|Malthusian]] persuasion who believe that Earth is already [[Overpopulation|overpopulated]], or [[Social Darwinism|social Darwinists]] who believe that modern society prevents [[natural selection]] from [[Eugenics|"doing its job"]], the death of most of humanity would not necessarily be seen as a bad thing.

===An ecoterrorist?===
At the height of his bombing campaign and after his arrest, Kaczynski was often called an [[ecoterrorism|ecoterrorist]] in the media and elsewhere, most notably by the [[Anti-environmentalism|anti-environmental movement]] of the '90s. Many of these allegations can be traced to Barry Clausen, who had been retained by the Washington Contract Loggers Association to investigate radical environmentalists, and attempted to connect Kaczynski to [[Earth First!]] using largely circumstantial evidence and hearsay.<ref>Ortega, Bob. [http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/ag-forst/1999-March/013233.html "Clausen's 'Eco-Probes' Draw Suspicion, But He Still Turns Up on TV, in Papers."] ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', 2 March 1999.</ref>

In his writings, Kaczynski mainly based his arguments in [[psychology]] and self-esteem. The content of the manifesto is drawn from several mainstream, non-environmental critiques of technology, most notably [[Eric Hoffer]]'s writings on sociology and self-esteem and Jacques Ellul's writings about modern technology being a threat to human freedom and [[religion]]. While he did give mention to [[Ecology|ecological]] concerns as well, he otherwise had little time for the mainstream [[Environmentalism|environmental movement]], viewing it as having sold out to the leftism that he hated. His anti-modernity was less [[Edward Abbey]] and more Tyler Durden, the visionary [[terrorist]] from Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 novel (and later 1999 film) ''[[Fight Club]]'' who sees the modern world and consumer culture as repressing men's natural instincts.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=lXwvBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA203&lpg=PA203&dq=fight+club+unabomber&source=bl&ots=MY7lUaBHVo&sig=SUIpQjbt8yzSk5CVykTFzIV4WJE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjB0JP6o7XQAhVfVWMKHdU0CsgQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=fight%20club%20unabomber&f=false ''You Do Not Talk About Fight Club: I Am Jack's Completely Unauthorized Essay Collection''.] p. 203-205.</ref> For him, a cleaner natural world was just a pleasant side-effect of freedom from industrial "slavery".

==Activities==
The name Unabomber comes from UNABOM, the [[FBI]] name for the case which stands for universities and airlines bomber, because his earliest bombs were directed at airlines and university [[science]] professors. He later also targeted a [[computer]] store, a timber industry lobbyist, and the head of a [[public relations]] firm.  The common theme of his mail bomb attacks was they were all directed at people associated in one way or the other with science, technology, or industry, and at people whose positions and activities would most likely be known to somebody who is or was an insider in academia or the hard sciences.  Hence, FBI behavioral scientists initially (and correctly) profiled him as a former university professor who had turned anti-technology, but they later abandoned that profile based on analysis of the contents of his homemade bombs (and, perhaps, on the then-fashionable "angry white male" meme and [[Militia movement|militia hysteria]]) in favor of profiling him as a blue-collar airline mechanic.

He also used the initials F.C. during his bombing campaign, initially thought to stand for "Fuck Computers" until he wrote an anonymous letter clarifying that it stood for "Freedom Club."  His manifesto was published as F.C. before he had been identified by his real name.  Kaczynski's estranged brother David and sister-in-law Linda recognized his writing style from letters he'd written to newspapers, and hired a private investigator and notified the authorities in order to prevent him from striking again.<ref name="avclub">Vago, Mike. [http://www.avclub.com/article/1996-saw-capture-one-americas-most-notorious-domes-240812 "1996 saw the capture of one of America's most notorious domestic terrorists."] ''The A.V. Club'', 14 August 2016 (recovered 14 August 2016).</ref>

Some have suspected Kaczynski to be the {{wpl|Zodiac killer}}, a notorious serial killer who was active in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1968 and '69, and was never caught. The allegations come down largely to the fact that Kaczynski lived and worked in the Bay Area at the time of the murders, and that they both demanded that the news media publish their writings or else more people would die. Beyond that, however, no hard evidence has ever linked Kaczynski to the murders.<ref>[http://www.unazod.com/essay.html "Was Theodore Kaczynski the Zodiac Killer?"]</ref> The majority consensus is that such claims are bullshit conspiracy theories not to be taken seriously.

==Fate==


[[File:Kaczynski_cabin_newseum_(2772148526).jpg|thumb|left|165px|Kaczynski's cabin on display at the 'Newseum']]
[[File:ADX.CELL.DESIGN.svg|thumb|right|165px|Kaczynski cabin after conviction]]
Kaczynski was imprisoned for life at a federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. 

He was housed near to and spent some of his outdoor recreation time early on in his imprisonment with Ramzi Yousef and Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, respectively.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bailey |first=Holly |date=January 29, 2016 |title=The Unabomber's not-so-lonely prison life |url=https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-life-210559693.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011022315/https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-life-210559693.html |archive-date=October 11, 2017 |publisher=[[Yahoo!]] |language=en-US}}</ref>  Kaczynski stated about Timothy McVeigh: "On a personal level I like McVeigh."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ted Kaczynski's Comments on Timothy McVeigh |url=https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-s-comments-on-timothy-mcveigh |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230612103059/https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-s-comments-on-timothy-mcveigh |archive-date=June 12, 2023 |access-date=June 12, 2023 |website=Appendix B, pages 398 - 402 of the book American Terrorist. Republished on The Ted K Archive. |language=en}}</ref> Kaczynski also wrote to his book publisher that: "Timothy McVeigh, who has the cell two doors down the hall from mine, called out to me that there was going to be something about me on Channel 6. I don’t watch TV for entertainment, but I’m willing to turn the damn thing on if there’s a practical need for it. So I turned on Channel 6 ..."<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/beau-context-books-correspondence |title=Context Books Correspondence |location=University of Michigan special collections library, republished on The Ted K Archive. |language=en}}</ref>

In March 2021 Kaczynski was diagnosed with rectal cancer,<ref name="rectalcancer">{{cite web |last1=Ortiz |first1=Erik |last2=Kosnar |first2=Michael |title='Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski had late-stage rectal cancer and was 'depressed' before prison suicide, autopsy says |date=April 17, 2024 |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/unabomber-ted-kaczynski-late-stage-rectal-cancer-was-depressed-prison-rcna147819 |publisher=NBC News |access-date=April 18, 2024}}</ref> whereupon he was transferred to a medical centre in North Carolina.<ref>{{cite news |last=Zapotosky |first=Matt |date=December 23, 2021 |title=Ted Kaczynski, the 79-year-old Unabomber, transferred to prison medical facility |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/unabomber-kaczynski-hospital-ill/2021/12/22/4f773f82-6367-11ec-8ce3-9454d0b46d42_story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211222222821/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/unabomber-kaczynski-hospital-ill/2021/12/22/4f773f82-6367-11ec-8ce3-9454d0b46d42_story.html |archive-date=December 22, 2021 |access-date=December 23, 2021 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref>  On June 10, 2023, Kaczynski was found dead after hanging himself from a handicap rail with a shoelace.<ref name="rectalcancer" /> His heart was briefly resuscitated with chest compressions, but his blood pressure remained low until he was pronounced dead a few hours later.<ref name="rectalcancer" />

==Followers==
Like any high-profile, politically motivated criminal, Kaczynski had his share of defenders [[Horseshoe theory|on both sides of the political spectrum]], as well as by more apolitical neo-[[Luddites]]. On the far left, a fair number of anarchists and [[hard green]]s have embraced him as a kindred spirit — quite [[ironically]], given what Kaczynski himself thought of such groups. The anarchist collective [[CrimethInc.]], for example, has an extended hagiography declaring Kaczynski "a hero for our time", claiming that the actions of his targets against people and the environment made his bombing campaign justified.<ref>[http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/days/unabomber.php "The Unabomber: A Hero For Our Time."] ''CrimethInc.''</ref>

On the other side of the spectrum, [[Keith Ablow]] has defended Kaczynski's ideology. While he took great pains to state that he thought Kaczynski's actions were wrong, he went on to state that his ideas "are increasingly important" and "cannot be dismissed", saying that ''Industrial Society and Its Future'' deserved a place alongside ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' and ''Brave New World''.<ref>Bishop, Thomas. [http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/06/26/fox-news-keith-ablow-unabomber-was-right-that-l/194638 "Fox News' Keith Ablow: Unabomber Was Right That Liberals Are 'Psychologically Disordered'."] ''[[Media Matters for America]]'', 26 June 2013.</ref><ref>[http://respecttheblankie.com/2013/06/28/does-dr-keith-ablow-suffer-from-a-reading-comprehension-disorder/ "Dr. Keith Ablow's Political Hero, the Unabomber."] ''Respect the Blankie'', 28 June 2013.</ref> According to Ablow's logic, since the [[NSA]] is spying on us and [[Barack Obama]] heavily employed the internet as a key campaign and outreach tool, that means that the internet is totally rotten to the core and that Kaczynski was right about technology. Noted [[manosphere]] ideologue [[Roosh V]] has also endorsed Kaczynski (though again, quick to distance himself from his actions), expanding on his manifesto by combining it with [[men's rights]]/[[MGTOW]] jargon. He claims that modern technological society forces men to forsake their families and become playboys in order to experience any fulfillment ([[Hypocrisy|pretty rich]] coming from a man who made his name as a ''[[pick-up artist]]''), and that without the internet, [[Social justice warrior|the great menace of 'outrage culture']] wouldn't exist.<ref>[https://archive.is/2htVM An archived link] to the essay, so as not to give him any hits.</ref><ref name="avclub">Vago, Mike. [http://www.avclub.com/article/1996-saw-capture-one-americas-most-notorious-domes-240812 "1996 saw the capture of one of America's most notorious domestic terrorists."] ''The A.V. Club'', 14 August 2016 (recovered 14 August 2016).</ref>

More apolitically, his ideas have also been rediscovered by critics of modern tech culture, who see him as having predicted the rise of Web 2.0 and its perceived deleterious effects on society, while also viewing him as a dark mirror of utopian [[Futurism|futurists]] like [[Ray Kurzweil]] and [[Michio Kaku]] whose vision of a tech-dominated future looks more like ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'', ''The Terminator'', or ''[[Charlie Brooker|Black Mirror]]'' than anything. (To their credit, they're a bit more conflicted about the fact that they're endorsing the manifesto of a terrorist.)<ref>[http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2012/05/unabombers-trojan-horse.html "The Unabomber's Trojan Horse."] ''Histories of Things to Come'', 27 May 2012 (recovered 4 January 2016).</ref> David Skrbina, a University of Michigan professor who teaches about the philosophy of technology, regularly corresponds with Kaczynski and uses these discussions in his course material, and later compiled them into a 2010 book, ''Technological Slavery''.<ref>Young, Jeffrey R. [http://chronicle.com/article/The-Unabombers-Pen-Pal/131892/ "The Unabomber's Pen Pal."] ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', 20 May 2012 (recovered 5 January 2016).</ref> At least one group of neo-Luddite activists in [[Mexico]] has also taken to citing Kaczynski as an inspiration in carrying out bombings against [[nanotechnology]] research.<ref>Lloyd, Marion and Jeffrey R. Young. [http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/128764/ "Nanotechnologists Are Targets of Unabomber Copycat, Alarming Universities."] ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', 21 August 2011 (recovered 4 January 2016).</ref>

[[Anders Behring Breivik]], another aficionado of rambling manifestos, was found to have [[Plagiarism|plagiarized]] parts of ''Industrial Society and Its Future'' for his own "treatise", ''2083: A European Declaration of Independence''.<ref>Hough, Andrew. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8658269/Norway-shooting-Anders-Behring-Breivik-plagiarised-Unabomber.html "Norway shooting: Anders Behring Breivik plagiarized 'Unabomber'."] ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'', 24 July 2011.</ref> Despite this, and Kaczynski's deification among [[Ecofascism|ecofascists]],<ref>Tom Bennett (April 10, 2019). [https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbw55j/understanding-the-alt-rights-growing-fascination-with-eco-fascism "Understanding the Alt-Right's Growing Fascination with 'Eco-Fascism'"]. VICE News.</ref> Ted severely denounced ecofascism in a September 2020 letter as an "aberrant branch of leftism". In the same letter, he denounces [[racism]], on the grounds that it obstructs his anti-technology goals; one race could always use tech to get ahead of another, after all, and then the anti-tech revolution would be sullied. Actually, he even went as far as to say that "as a matter of strategy, racial and cultural blending must be promoted."<ref>Ted Kaczynski (September 29, 2020). [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-ecofascism-an-aberrant-branch-of-leftism "Ecofascism: An Aberrant Branch of Leftism"] — via the Anarchist Library. [https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ecofascism-an-aberrant-branch-of-leftism Also hosted at The Ted K Archive.]</ref>

===''Manhunt: Unabomber''===
In 2017, the [[Discovery Channel]] aired an eight-episode miniseries titled ''Manhunt: Unabomber'' about the hunt for Kaczynski, starring Paul Bettany as Kaczynski and Sam Worthington as Jim "Fitz" Fitzgerald, the FBI agent who led the investigation.<ref>IMDb: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5618256/ ''Manhunt: Unabomber'' (2017)]</ref> Predictably, especially given the fairly sympathetic tone it took towards Kaczynski, the miniseries sparked a rediscovery of his manifesto and ideas. Ironically, much of this community has emerged on the internet, where it engages in [[meme]]s and trolling in order to promote its worldview, in a manner not unlike the [[alt-right]] before it. Such isn't the only point of overlap between Kaczynski's online followers and the trolls of [[4chan]]; "Prim Twitter" or "Pine Tree Twitter" also has a vocal contingent of far-right or "eco-nationalist" activists who see a return to nature as a return to "traditional" hierarchies,<ref>Redux. [https://medium.com/@punisheddeath/why-eco-nationalism-will-win-f889ca3a91a3 "Why Eco-Nationalism will win."] ''Medium'', 29 August 2018 (recovered 28 February 2019).</ref> such that one of the founders of the movement, whose politics trended more towards left-wing [[anarchism]], eventually abandoned it in disgust.<ref>Hanrahan, Jake. [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/unabomber-netflix-tv-series-ted-kaczynski "Inside the Unabomber's odd and furious online revival."] ''Wired'', 1 August 2018 (recovered 26 February 2019).</ref>

==See also==
*[[Luddite]]
*[[Radical traditionalism]]
*[[Terrorism]]
*[[Timothy McVeigh]]
*[[2018 United States mail bombing attempts]]
*[[John Zerzan]] — formed a close friendship after Ted's arrest, though they later fell out over Ted disagreeing with Zerzan's left-wing views<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fleming |first=Sean |date=2022-05-04 |title=The Unabomber and the origins of anti-tech radicalism |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2021.1921940 |journal=Journal of Political Ideologies |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=207–225 |doi=10.1080/13569317.2021.1921940 |issn=1356-9317}}</ref>

==External links==
* [https://archive.org/details/eb.-published-political-books-by-ted-kaczynski/EBA3.%20Industrial%20Society%20and%20Its%20Future%20%E2%80%93%20Washington%20Post%20published%20version ''Industrial Society and Its Future''] (aka "the Unabomber Manifesto"; photo-scan of how it appeared in ''[[The Washington Post]]'')
* [https://thetedkarchive.com/library/industrial-society-and-its-future ''Industrial Society and Its Future (Latest Edition)''] (updated version from Kaczynski's 2011 book, [https://books.google.ca/books/about/Technological_Slavery.html?id=rFrH-GVbtIkC&hl=en ''Technological Slavery''])
* [https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/ted-kaczynski-ted-kaczynski-s-1979-autobiography ''Ted Kaczynski's 1979 Autobiography''] (extracts from a document produced by the FBI called ''[https://archive.org/details/ac.-teds-autobiographies/AC3.%20Ted%20Kaczynski%E2%80%99s%201979%20Autobiography%20-%20Source%20-%20A%20Review%20and%20Compilation%20of%20the%20Writings%20of%20Ted%20Kaczynski/ A Review and Compilation of the Writings of Ted Kaczynski]'' for the main court case)
* [http://www.garygreenbergonline.com/media/unabomber_letter.pdf ''In the kingdom of the Unabomber''] is Gary Greenberg's account of corresponding with Kaczynski. Also [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BurUfcV0GR4 made into a short film].
* [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/ted-kaczynski Works by Kaczynski], at ''The Anarchist Library''

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Anarchists]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:Convicted felons]]
[[Category:Hard green]]
[[Category:Survivalism]]
[[Category:Terrorists]]

Categories: Anarchists, California, Convicted felons, Hard green, Survivalism, Terrorists