Hi ahhaha; The unabomber was a special case, that's for sure. He targeted (conservative) university researchers, timber and airline industry executives, if I recall.
There is no question in my mind that he is quite sane. The primary error in his logic is the assumption that in industrial society it is not possible for the majority of people to have satisfying lives. The fact that he was a loner is probably a good part of that, but in addition, he really didn't have any hobbies. The struggle that he feels that humans have to exert can be achieved by the simple expedient of picking some random stupid activity, and maximizing it. For example, try to collect a full set of Barbie Dolls, then you will know what struggle is... But he didn't have any hobbies, (except trying to begin the civil war that would destroy most of mankind).
I don't know if Gore would have been as dangerous as what would be indicated by what he wrote in his book. The problem with that variety of pseudo intellectual is that they are so convinced that they understand the intensely complex world, but at the same time their understanding of the real world is simplified to a child-like level.
Glad you enjoyed the Manifesto. When I opened up a paper back copy of it when it came out, I had to buy it, as it does captivate.
-- Carl
P.S. And yes, the Unabomber was a mathematician. Sometimes I force myself to connect to my fellow humans in a (so far successful) attempt to avoid travelling down the roads to madness that are specially attractive to mathematicians. A great read along this line would be:
A Beautiful Mind, A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, 1994
search.borders.com
Nash was a quite brilliant mathematician. He became schizophrenic, but eventually hauled himself out of that pit of madness. His biography is fascinating. |
