The issue with kascynski is that people have disconnected from the reality of the man and instead projected some kind of cultural symbolism onto his image, largely because he’s become known as the crazy guy who hates technology.
He’s become a symbol for that feeling you get when you hear of some deranged and dystopian new technology that’s being researched. I remember a couple years ago reading about an idea to use psychedelics to augment prisoners’ sense of time so that they can serve thousands of years of multiple life sentences in a couple of months. Or that feeling of dread you get when news breaks that a meat packing plant has been employing hundreds of literal children to clean for them. There are definitely some things in our society where a normal person looks at it and thinks that things are going a bit off the rails.
Weirdly, or perhaps not, Kascynski has become more known for the title of his deranged paper than the actual content or the real impact his bombing spree had. He’s been turned into a cultural symbol for “they were so focused on if they could, that they never stopped to think if they should”. As we advance technologically each year, and as corporations continue to get away with abusing the general public and the planet as a whole for the sake of profits, I think it’s only natural that some people look at it and think “maybe this isn’t going in the right direction”
It’s a stretch to think that any of these people actually condone or encourage being a deranged incel that mails bombs to random professors or computer stores. They’re just expressing the gnawing dread that many feel about the hostile takeover of our society by huge corporations that are designed to do nothing but extract huge amounts of money from us in exchange for ever less reliable technologies and a planet that will become more and more uninhabitable as time wears on.
So yes he has become a symbol but use a better one.
It’s a stretch to think that any of these people actually condone or encourage being a deranged incel that mails bombs to random professors or computer stores
I am not that confident, this is how spaces and people get radicalised. Like years back 4Chan was just edgy idiots making Nazi jokes sometimes to be shocking, but actual Nazis see that as acceptance and get stronger and bolder in their views. Then they say horrible things, fence sitters see it as an acceptable joke and it slightly normalises it in their mind. Eventually 8Chan exists and we know how that goes.
If you hold up murderers then you normalise redeeming them, and you signal you’re receptive to their methods and ideas to people who support them already. You also normalise viewing them positively in vulnerable or lost people. Some of which are literal children.
The issue with kascynski is that people have disconnected from the reality of the man and instead projected some kind of cultural symbolism onto his image, largely because he’s become known as the crazy guy who hates technology.
He’s become a symbol for that feeling you get when you hear of some deranged and dystopian new technology that’s being researched. I remember a couple years ago reading about an idea to use psychedelics to augment prisoners’ sense of time so that they can serve thousands of years of multiple life sentences in a couple of months. Or that feeling of dread you get when news breaks that a meat packing plant has been employing hundreds of literal children to clean for them. There are definitely some things in our society where a normal person looks at it and thinks that things are going a bit off the rails.
Weirdly, or perhaps not, Kascynski has become more known for the title of his deranged paper than the actual content or the real impact his bombing spree had. He’s been turned into a cultural symbol for “they were so focused on if they could, that they never stopped to think if they should”. As we advance technologically each year, and as corporations continue to get away with abusing the general public and the planet as a whole for the sake of profits, I think it’s only natural that some people look at it and think “maybe this isn’t going in the right direction”
It’s a stretch to think that any of these people actually condone or encourage being a deranged incel that mails bombs to random professors or computer stores. They’re just expressing the gnawing dread that many feel about the hostile takeover of our society by huge corporations that are designed to do nothing but extract huge amounts of money from us in exchange for ever less reliable technologies and a planet that will become more and more uninhabitable as time wears on.
So yes he has become a symbol but use a better one.
I am not that confident, this is how spaces and people get radicalised. Like years back 4Chan was just edgy idiots making Nazi jokes sometimes to be shocking, but actual Nazis see that as acceptance and get stronger and bolder in their views. Then they say horrible things, fence sitters see it as an acceptable joke and it slightly normalises it in their mind. Eventually 8Chan exists and we know how that goes.
If you hold up murderers then you normalise redeeming them, and you signal you’re receptive to their methods and ideas to people who support them already. You also normalise viewing them positively in vulnerable or lost people. Some of which are literal children.