A review by chess6
Technological Slavery by Theodore John Kaczynski

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5.0

Technological Slavery is an insightful expansion on Ted Kaczynski's manifesto which neatly ties together any loose ends, delves into the intricacies and nuances of his arguments, and manages to cohesively introduce seemingly disparate pieces of his correspondences to form a clearer picture of anti-tech philosophy.

One of the most important essays in this book is "The System's Neatest Trick," in which Ted clarifies what the System is not and how the System exploits people's rebellious urges to uphold its own values. He emphasizes that individuals in positions of power, such as CEOs, the president, and scientists, etc., do not constitute the System. In fact, an individual's personal beliefs and opinions may not even be compatible with the values of the System. He argues that due to the widespread frustrations inflicted by the System, and the need for the System to preserve its security, the System acts to prevent people from identifying it as the root cause of their frustrations by instead redirecting focus on issues that the System wants people to rebel against. Most of these substitute—or, “counterfeit”—issues are currently those that leftists today are most fixated on and which fall under the category of "social justice," such as racism, homophobia, and sexism, etc. In other words, the System tricks people into diverting their frustrations away from the true cause of these frustrations (the System itself) towards irrelevant issues that do not harm the System, but in many cases actually help the functioning of the System.

Kaczynski is well aware of the stipulations, limitations, and defects in his work and does not pretend to be right about everything he says. He addresses rebuttals from his correspondents carefully and either provides a valid counterargument or admits to his mistakes and revises accordingly. One of his correspondents, Dr. David Skrbina, misinterpreted his purpose for introducing the power process as "exalting the will to power;" Kaczynski corrects him by pointing out that the topic of the power process is necessary for analyzing leftist psychology and demonstrating how the frustrations and dissatisfactions caused by the technological society manifest themselves. Aside from refuting others' attempts to critique his manifesto, he also admits to some of his mistakes (albeit minor), such as mistakenly letting his personal bias towards individualistic preferences affect his thoughts on revolutionary strategy.

Kaczynski also references some relevant external works which help supplement his main points in his manifesto. The section on the power process is greatly enhanced by an explanation of the experiments described in the book The Human Zoo, in which zoologist Desmond Morris describes strange behavior from wild animals confined in cages and compares it to abnormal human behavior, such as child abuse and sexual perversion. He also references Martin Seligman's concept of learned helplessness, a phenomenon in which animals will learn to eventually give up to avoid their predicament of being electrically shocked after being punished repeatedly through electrical shocks, which mirrors the learned helplessness and widespread frustration and depression among people living under the techno-system in modernity.

In conclusion, Technological Slavery expands upon the arguments outlined in his previous work "Industrial Society and its Future" by showcasing several essays and multiple pieces of letters he subsequently wrote to others, suitable for those who have accepted a majority of Kaczynski's arguments and are interested in a deeper dive into his works and anti-tech philosophy in general.