Counter-Currents
Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 536
David Skrbina on Ted Kaczynski,
Part 1
Counter-Currents Radio
Ted Kaczsynski
267 words / 1:38:00
Greg Johnson welcomed David Skrbina, Ph.D. to the latest broadcast of Counter-Currents Radio to talk about the life and ideas of Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber. Dr. Skrbina is the editor of Kaczynski’s book Technological Slavery, which includes excerpts from their correspondence, and recently penned an obituary and memoir about their relationship that was published here at Counter-Currents, “A Great Passing: Reflections on 20 Years with the Unabomber.” This is the first part; the second part of the interview is here.
Topics discussed include:
00:01:33 Dr. Skrbina’s background
00:08:44 When did Dr. Skrbina start corresponding with Ted?
00:12:55 What does Dr. Skrbina think of Ted’s manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future?
00:16:46 Limitations of the manifesto
00:18:07 Ted’s anthropocentrisim
24:08 Ted was concerned with human happiness, but wouldn’t crashing the system create unhappiness?
27:53 Can technology be harnassed in a good way?
39:01 How regulating tech would require a global government
44:58 What level of tech did Ted accepting?
46:37 Do people want to destroy tech to conquer white people?
49:58 What about the experiments performed on Ted at Harvard?
56:26 On uploading your brain and living forever
1:00:50 Ted’s critique of nationalism
1:07:59 Can our solution to tech be a sophisticated, mixed approach?
1:15:05 Did you ever talk to Ted about Savitri Devi?
1:16:05 Which thinkers on tech influenced Ted?
1:17:39 Was Ted influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche?
1:19:12 Did Ted ever read Frank Herbert’s Dune?
1:21:34 Will Ted be thought of as a prophet?
1:28:47 Did Dr. Skrbina maintain contact with Ted?
1:30:18 Will Dr. Skrbina ever publish his correspondence with Ted?
1:35:11 How can we follow Dr. Skrbina’s work?
To listen in a player, click here. To download, right-click the link and click “save as.”
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7 comments
This was a wonderful episode of CCR in which Drs Johnson and Skrbina were appropriately acknowledged for the learning which they both eminently display. However it was disappointing not to hear Dr Kaczsynki being similarly referred to, instead getting the infantilising, abbreviated Christian name treatment, which is all too common across our society in recent decades. The loss of the family name is a forerunner to the loss of the family.
In September 1968, Kaczynski was appointed as an assistant professor at Berkeley, a sign that he was on track for tenure. Without any explanation, Kaczynski resigned on June 30, 1969. In a 1970 letter written by John W. Addison Jr., the chairman of the mathematics department, to Kaczynski’s doctoral advisor Shields, Addison referred to the resignation as “quite out of the blue” (source – Wikipedia).
During the interesting podcast, David stated that Kaczynski suddenly lost interest in mathematics. Not only that, but even many years later, he didn’t want to discuss anything about the subject.
I think there is a logical explanation for these facts. It is possible that he realized that any progress in science and technology is rooted in mathematics. It doesn’t matter if it’s physics, chemistry, biology, information technology, AI, you name it, mathematics represents the foundation of any scientific and technological discovery, it has been true in the past and it is true today. “Mathematics is the language of the universe ” – Galileo Galilei.
I speculate that in the brilliant, but unconventional mind (to say the least) of Ted Kaczynski, he decided that he couldn’t have anything to do with that thing that makes the existence of technology possible, and breathes life into it, that is mathematics. Based on historical data related to Kaczynski ‘s life, and the extra information provided by David, I think this is a reasonable explanation of what happened in Kaczynski ‘s mind at that moment in time. Of course, other factors could have influenced his decision to end his brilliant career and become a domestic terrorist .
Excellent comment!! I didn’t know that Galileo said that. But it sounds like something he would say. I read his book “Dialogues Concerning the Two World Systems” and it is one of the greatest books I have ever read.
Ok that’s interesting. An assistant professor doesn’t have tenure, right? He was having trouble teaching. I bet his criminal collapse had something to do with anger at “the system” because he was not going to receive tenure.
Enjoyed the podcast, as always. Kacynski remains a fascinating figure. I wouldn’t admire him too much. I know he read interesting literature in a number of languages. Does anyone know which or how many languages he was able to read?
Why was he put in supermax? I realize it’s difficult to feel sympathy for someone like this, but the choice seems vindictive. I think supermax is used as a vindictive weapon against whites that the system doesn’t like, Matt hale being a more sympathetic example, who was basically convicted for being a poddy mouth. The system was created as a pragmatic device to isolate high level Latin drug dealers who could order hits on the outside, but like most things it’s morphed into a weapon against whites.
I am grateful to Counter-Currents for hosting this interview with Dr. Skrbina. I missed the live version because I was listening to the Mike Enoch of TRS vs. PhD student Matt Cockerill debate on the Holocaust, which I would encourage people to watch. However, after hearing the Skrbina interview, I still find zero merit in Ted Kaczynski’s work.
A good way to get blackballed in academia is to not be very popular with your students. The Administrators really do take note of those student surveys. You are there to teach and to care about your pupils as much as to be a brilliant mathematician or whatever.
Now, Ted of course would have chalked it all up to suppression of his ideas, not that he ─ with his limited social skills ─ was just not a very good teacher and never gained tenure.
I’ve had professors (who hasn’t) that mumbled incoherently like a zombie version of the now-banned Apu from the Simpsons and I just could not literally understand their words in endless meaningless lectures. Normally I don’t have any trouble understanding accented English. Hopefully you drop those kinds of classes while you can rather than take the F.
As far as whether Ted deserved to be in Federal Supermax, well I would say that he deserved the freaking Death Penalty.
The Unabomber killed and maimed several people including some professors, and he planted a bomb on an airliner that exploded and injured several people, but fortunately the aircraft did not crash.
If we went back to the liberal use of the Death Penalty, say like in the 1930s or 1940s, there would not be so many troublesome Lifers to deal with.
I don’t think Ted would have done well in General Population. Like Lee Harvey Oswald, he was not capable of making friends.
I remember the 1980 state prison riot in New Mexico where the inmates took over and took hostages ─ and they found a cutting torch to open up the other cells. They tortured every “snitch” they could find including those with minor offenses.
Maricopa County, Arizona is larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, and almost the same in population. Not long ago, the Maricopa County Jail was run as a severely overcrowded shithole by “Sheriff Joe” Arpaio, who talked a good game in the media as “America’s toughest Sheriff” on illegal immigration and getting tough on crime. His message resonated with elderly retirees from places like Chicago.
But mostly it was hot air. Many of the people in the Maricopa County Jail are in there waiting for their trial dates (which can take a couple of years or longer) and they just did not have a relative with a million-dollar home or something to use as collateral to swing a deal with the bail bondsman. People tell me that the Arizona State Prison was far more decent than the County Jail, and their final sentencing was a relief.
Our state prison in Florence still has a functional and newly-refurbished lethal gas chamber in case Antifa activists hijack the supply of hard-to-get medical grade lethal-injection chemicals.
Sheriff Joe was lauded in Rightwing circles but he was mostly a shameless media whore who ran a bad jail that had to alleviate overcrowding by using Army tents.
Most MCSO inmates actually preferred to be out in the tents in 110 F degree heat rather than in the tiny overcrowded cells. They were given “sleeping ice rations” like in the prison episode of Lost in Space with Dr. Smith, Major West, and the gorilla man. County prisoners were allowed to volunteer for Arpaio’s famous chain gangs. Liberals, however, did not like to see inmates wearing striped uniforms and pink underwear picking up trash along the side of the Arizona highways.
In their famous immigration sweep clashes that kicked off the modern border control movement, I certainly liked Sheriff Arpaio far better than the Leftist Police Chief George Gascon, who is now the controversial “Soros DA” of Los Angeles.
Anyway, the bail system definitely needs some work ─ and if it were up to me I would racially segregate the jails and prisons. Nothing worked better against Negro crime than locking up Negroes. And not setting bail for Negroes makes about as much sense as not even charging them with a crime for thefts under $900.
The Federal Supermax prisons were supposedly designed to alleviate the control and segregtion problems like what happened at the New Mexico State Prison in 1980 ─ but I’m sorry, I have zero sympathy for the Unabomber. At least the Oklahoma City Bomber, Tim McVeigh took his medicine like a man and did not fight capital punishment.
I am not sure that I agree that these Supermax prison punishments are really designed to harass White people since with the exception of a few ─ like James Fields, who wrecked his car at a rally protesting the removal of a statue of the venerable Gen. Robert E. Lee after having tweeted some Hitler memes and other cardinal sins ─ most of these hard time people are just guilty AF.
I reiterate that if I had been given the opportunity I would have gladly volunteered for Ted’s firing squad.
🙂
But Matt Hale was not guilty of really anything in a criminal sense. He seems to have been convicted for his beliefs. You seem to eschew that for some reason.
James Fields was guilty of something, at least manslaughter perhaps, but he was painted as some sort of terrorist, which he wasn’t, and there are a lot of mitigating circumstances around his mental condition.
Kacinski was probably the most evil criminal I’ve heard of for his degree of intellect and accomplished crime. But I consider supermax worse than the death penalty. Life without parole seems worse than the death penalty to me.
I don’t know anything about the Matt Hale case but I do agree with all of your points.
There is definitely something badly broken with the system. I watched the entire Derek Chauvin trial and can’t see that he did anything wrong. One forensic expert lady testified that if Saint Floyd had a heart attack and overdosed in front of the TV instead of (being filmed) after resisting arrest with Officer Chauvin, that it would not have been deemed murder, which indicates Reasonable Doubt to me.
I also don’t think that the McMichaels and Roddie Bryan (who filmed their neighborhood encounter) did anything wrong besides maybe being busybodies. If Saint Arbery had just waited for the police to arrive when challenged instead of trying to grab Travis McMichaels’ shotgun, he would have been arrested alive. The (((corporate news media))) has been pretending that there is a national epidemic of Redneck lynchings since the Saint Trayvon case.
I have had a lot of idiots claiming to be “neighborhood watch” challenge me while street hiking, and the worst that happened is that I produced some ID for a cop and went on my way. Of course, I am not a Numinous Negro but I still got challenged, mostly unreasonably.
The system definitely needs fixing. I agree that the Supermax situation needs review. I agree that Life in prison without parole is worse than the Death Penalty. And I also think eschewing the Death Penalty defeats the goals of penology. In Canada, they don’t have the Death Penalty and they say that Lifers will “get no parole until 25 years” but then they are out for rape-murder(s) in 17 years. And they will harass an “anti-Semitic” publisher like Ernst Zündel to his dying day. (At least the USA nominally has a 1st Amendment.)
I knew a serial killer, rapist in Idaho who used to come into the convenience store and 2-way radio shop where I worked and closed up late. This Guy would camp his fat ass in front of the dirty books and stay for at least an hour before leaving with a pack of smokes or a few beers. The man never gave me any trouble and barely said a word and he looked like he might be a light-skin-ded Injun ─ but most of the staff actually knew him as he lived just around the corner. His parents and siblings were otherwise nice people.
Weirdo did a murder and rape crime spree in early 1987 that panicked the community. My Dad was in Ohio investigating a jet engine design failure that downed a DC-10 and my Mom used to carry a .380 on her lap in the truck or if she went to check the rural mailbox.
I used to carry a .380 in my pocket and a 9mm elsewhere while in the store and watching like a hawk because in stealing some cartons of cigarettes, the mystery perpetrator shot a clerk with a .38 snub nose at a nearby convenience store and stuffed his crippled body into the walk-in cooler where he took hours to die. A popular special-needs school teacher was then abducted in the Albertsons parking lot early one morning, raped and murdered and dumped in the lava fields ─ and that incident is what finally raised the hue and cry. (Nobody noticed convenience store clerks being kidnapped and killed.) The County Sheriff was a clueless Democrat who had opposed concealed-carry gun laws. Long story short, the criminal was apprehended while causing drunken mischief in Nevada with suspicious cartons of Idaho-taxed cigarettes and ultimately executed in Idaho in 2011.
Another guy a few years later kidnapped, raped and murdered the paper girl who was the niece of the local weatherman at the TV station where I worked. This one was also sentenced to death, but he died of poor health before it could be carried out.
The point is that in those days I had confidence that the State of Idaho, for example, would be aggressive enough to not forget about executing their capital sentences one day, or for the Governor to forgo playing humanitarian weasel. Nowadays I have little faith in the system to follow through with justice. State prisons can’t or won’t even get the drugs for executions. And the Feds, well, Hoover was at least a decade past his prime when he died in 1972, and they ain’t been sending their best.
🙂
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