Unabomber Manifesto - ouroboros ponderosa

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99. Think of history as being the sum of two components: an erraticcomponent that consists of unpredictable events that follow nodiscernible pattern, and a regular component that consists of longtermhistorical trends. Here we are concerned with the long-termtrends.First principle100. If a small change is made that affects a long-term historicaltrend, then the effect of that change will almost always be transitory -the trend will soon revert to its original state. (Example: A reformmovement designed to clean up political corruption in a society rarelyhas more than a short-term effect; sooner or later the reformers relaxand corruption creeps back in. The level of political corruption in agiven society tends to remain constant, or to change only slowly withthe evolution of the society. Normally, a political cleanup will bepermanent only if accompanied by widespread social changes; asmall change in the society won't be enough.) If a small change in along-term historical trend appears to be permanent, it is only becausethe change acts in the direction in which the trend is already moving,so that the trend is not altered but only pushed a step ahead.101. The first principle is almost a tautology. If a trend were not stablewith respect to small changes, it would wander at random rather thanfollowing a definite direction; in other words it would not be a longtermtrend at all.Second principle102. If a change is made that is sufficiently large to alter permanentlya long-term historical trend, then it will alter the society as a whole. Inother words, a society is a system in which all parts are interrelated,and you can't permanently change any important part withoutchanging all the other parts as well.Third principle103. If a change is made that is large enough to alter permanently along-term trend, then the consequences for the society as a wholecannot be predicted in advance. (Unless various other societies havepassed through the same change and have all experienced the sameconsequences, in which case one can predict on empirical groundsthat another society that passes through the same change will belikely to experience similar consequences.)Fourth principle104. A new kind of society cannot be designed on paper. That is, youcannot plan out a new form of society in advance, then set it up anddignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physicalpain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better todie fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but emptyand purposeless life.169. In the third place, it is not all certain that the survival of thesystem will lead to less suffering than the breakdown of the systemwould. The system has already caused, and is continuing to cause,immense suffering all over the world. Ancient cultures, that forhundreds of years gave people a satisfactory relationship with eachother and their environment, have been shattered by contact withindustrial society, and the result has been a whole catalogue ofeconomic, environmental, social and psychological problems. One ofthe effects of the intrusion of industrial society has been that overmuch of the world traditional controls on population have beenthrown out of balance. Hence the population explosion, with all that itimplies. Then there is the psychological suffering that is widespreadthroughout the supposedly fortunate countries of the West (seeparagraphs 44, 45). No one knows what will happen as a result ofozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmentalproblems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferationhas shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands ofdictators and irresponsible Third World nations. Would you like tospeculate about what Iraq or North Korea will do with geneticengineering?170. "Oh!" say the technophiles, "Science is going to fix all that! Wewill conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, makeeverybody healthy and happy!" Yeah, sure. That's what they said 200years ago. The Industrial Revolution was supposed to eliminatepoverty, make everybody happy, etc. The actual result has been quitedifferent. The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) intheir understanding of social problems. They are unaware of (orchoose to ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seeminglybeneficial ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a longsequence of other changes, most of which are impossible to predict(paragraph 103). The result is disruption of the society. So it is veryprobable that in their attempt to end poverty and disease, engineerdocile, happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will createsocial systems that are terribly troubled, even more so than thepresent one. For example, the scientists boast that they will endfamine by creating new, genetically engineered food plants. But thiswill allow the human population to keep expanding indefinitely, and itis well known that crowding leads to increased stress andaggression. This is merely one example of the predictable problemsthat will arise. We emphasize that, as past experience has shown,technical progress will lead to other new problems for society farmore rapidly that it has been solving old ones. Thus it will take a longdifficult period of trial and error for the technophiles to work the bugsout of their Brave New World (if they ever do). In the meantime there
those that history has recorded at various epochs in the past. It isimpossible to predict what would emerge from such a time oftroubles, but at any rate the human race would be given a newchance. The greatest danger is that industrial society may begin toreconstitute itself within the first few years after the breakdown.Certainly there will be many people (power-hungry types especially)who will be anxious to get the factories running again.166. Therefore two tasks confront those who hate the servitude towhich the industrial system is reducing the human race. First, wemust work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as toincrease the likelihood that it will break down or be weakenedsufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. Second,it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that opposestechnology and the industrial society if and when the systembecomes sufficiently weakened. And such an ideology will help toassure that, if and when industrial society breaks down, its remnantswill be smashed beyond repair, so that the system cannot bereconstituted. The factories should be destroyed, technical booksburned, etc.Human suffering167. The industrial system will not break down purely as a result ofrevolutionary action. It will not be vulnerable to revolutionary attackunless its own internal problems of development lead it into veryserious difficulties. So if the system breaks down it will do so eitherspontaneously, or through a process that is in part spontaneous buthelped along by revolutionaries. If the breakdown is sudden, manypeople will die, since the world's population has become sooverblown that it cannot even feed itself any longer without advancedtechnology. Even if the breakdown is gradual enough so thatreduction of the population can occur more through lowering of thebirth rate than through elevation of the death rate, the process of deindustrializationprobably will be very chaotic and involve muchsuffering. It is naive to think it likely that technology can be phasedout in a smoothly managed orderly way, especially since thetechnophiles will fight stubbornly at every step. Is it therefore cruel towork for the breakdown of the system? Maybe, but maybe not. In thefirst place, revolutionaries will not be able to break the system downunless it is already in deep trouble so that there would be a goodchance of its eventually breaking down by itself anyway; and thebigger the system grows, the more disastrous the consequences ofits breakdown will be; so it may be that revolutionaries, by hasteningthe onset of the breakdown will be reducing the extent of the disaster.168. In the second place, one has to balance the struggle and deathagainst the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom andexpect it to function as it was designed to.105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity ofhuman societies. A change in human behavior will affect theeconomy of a society and its physical environment; the economy willaffect the environment and vice versa, and the changes in theeconomy and the environment will affect human behavior in complex,unpredictable ways; and so forth. The network of causes and effectsis far too complex to be untangled and understood.Fifth principle106. People do not consciously and rationally choose the form oftheir society. Societies develop through processes of social evolutionthat are not under rational human control.107. The fifth principle is a consequence of the other four.108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally speaking an attemptat social reform either acts in the direction in which the society isdeveloping anyway (so that it merely accelerates a change thatwould have occurred in any case) or else it only has a transitoryeffect, so that the society soon slips back into its old groove. To makea lasting change in the direction of development of any importantaspect of a society, reform is insufficient and revolution is required. (Arevolution does not necessarily involve an armed uprising or theoverthrow of a government.) By the second principle, a revolutionnever changes only one aspect of a society; and by the third principlechanges occur that were never expected or desired by therevolutionaries. By the fourth principle, when revolutionaries orutopians set up a new kind of society, it never works out as planned.109. The American Revolution does not provide a counterexample.The American "Revolution" was not a revolution in our sense of theword, but a war of independence followed by a rather far-reachingpolitical reform. The Founding Fathers did not change the direction ofdevelopment of American society, nor did they aspire to do so. Theyonly freed the development of American society from the retardingeffect of British rule. Their political reform did not change any basictrend, but only pushed American political culture along its naturaldirection of development. British society, of which American societywas an off-shoot, had been moving for a long time in the direction ofrepresentative democracy. And prior to the War of Independence theAmericans were already practicing a significant degree ofrepresentative democracy in the colonial assemblies. The politicalsystem established by the Constitution was modeled on the Britishsystem and on the colonial assemblies. With major alteration, to besure—there is no doubt that the Founding Fathers took a veryimportant step. But it was a step along the road the English-speakingworld was already traveling. The proof is that Britain and all of its
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Unabomber Manifesto - ouroboros ponderosa

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