Unabomber Manifesto - ouroboros ponderosa

Thus there is a religious vacuum in our society that could perhaps be filledby a religion focused on nature in opposition to technology. But it would be amistake to try to concoct artificially a religion to fill this role. Such aninvented religion would probably be a failure. Take the "Gaia" religion forexample. Do its adherents really believe in it or are they just play-acting? Ifthey are just play-acting their religion will be a flop in the end.It is probably best not to try to introduce religion into the conflict of nature vs.technology unless you really believe in that religion yourself and find that itarouses a deep, strong, genuine response in many other people.31. Assuming that such a final push occurs. Conceivably the industrialsystem might be eliminated in a somewhat gradual or piecemeal fashion(see paragraphs 4, 167 and Note 4).32. It is even conceivable (remotely) that the revolution might consist onlyof a massive change of attitudes toward technology resulting in a relativelygradual and painless disintegration of the industrial system. But if thishappens we'll be very lucky. It's far more probably that the transition to anontechnological society will be very difficult and full of conflicts anddisasters.33. The economic and technological structure of a society are far moreimportant than its political structure in determining the way the average manlives (see paragraphs 95, 119 and Notes 16, 18).34. This statement refers to our particular brand of anarchism. A widevariety of social attitudes have been called "anarchist," and it may be thatmany who consider themselves anarchists would not accept our statementof paragraph 215. It should be noted, by the way, that there is a nonviolentanarchist movement whose members probably would not accept FC asanarchist and certainly would not approve of FC's violent methods.35. Many leftists are motivated also by hostility, but the hostility probablyresults in part from a frustrated need for power.36. It is important to understand that we mean someone who sympathizeswith these movements as they exist today in our society. One who believesthat women, homosexuals, etc., should have equal rights is not necessarilya leftist. The feminist, gay rights, etc., movements that exist in our societyhave the particular ideological tone that characterizes leftism, and if onebelieves, for example, that women should have equal rights it does notnecessarily follow that one must sympathize with the feminist movement asit exists today.Introduction1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been adisaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the lifeexpectancyof those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but theyhave destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjectedhuman beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychologicalsuffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and haveinflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continueddevelopment of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainlysubject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greaterdamage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater socialdisruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increasedphysical suffering—even in "advanced" countries.2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may breakdown. If it survives, it may eventually achieve a low level of physicaland psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long andvery painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanentlyreducing human beings and many other living organisms toengineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will beinevitable: there is no way of reforming or modifying the system so asto prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be verypainful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous theresults of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had bestbreak down sooner rather than later.4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system.This revolution may or may not make use of violence: it may besudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a fewdecades. We can't predict any of that. But we do outline in a verygeneral way the measures that those who hate the industrial systemshould take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against thatform of society. This is not to be a political revolution. Its object will beto overthrow not governments but the economic and technologicalbasis of the present society.5. In this article we give attention to only some of the negativedevelopments that have grown out of the industrial-technologicalsystem. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignorealtogether. This does not mean that we regard these otherdevelopments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have toconfine our discussion to areas that have received insufficient publicattention or in which we have something new to say. For example,since there are well-developed environmental and wildernessmovements, we have written very little about environmental