Really? I would completely disagree.

Reading his manifesto at 14 after seeing endless newspaper descriptions of it as incoherent, rambling, crazy, etc. was an eye-opening moment for me:

I found the manifesto to be lucid and well-argued.

In a moment of shock I realized you can't trust the newspapers, at all -- a judgement I hold even more strongly today, with a few decades more of experience.

I'd encourage anyone who hasn't to read it themselves and form their own opinion!

> I found the manifesto to be lucid and well-argued.

> For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

To paraphrase 'ole ted "You see, affirmative action makes white people feel bad and mad at black people which is the real secret goal of leftists".

Do you, or have you ever, felt mad a black person because of affirmative action? I can even grant that you think affirmative action was a bad idea for any reason you like, that's not the question. The question is, did it make you or anyone you know mad at black people? My guess is anyone mad at a black person because of affirmative action would still be mad at them without it.

This is what people mean when they say it's incoherent. He rambles for several paragraphs offering no evidence for his position (after all, he was pooping in a bucket in the middle of the woods... so not much opportunity to cross reference things). The examples he comes up with are laughably dumb.

I don't mean this too harshly, but maybe you reread the manifesto with a more critical eye. 14 is too young to be reading stuff like this critically. You simply weren't old enough to spot the bullshit.

Not to mention, this is sloppy:

>To the extent that it is defined at all, our conception of leftism is defined by the discussion of it that we have given in this article, and we can only advise the reader to use his own judgment in deciding who is a leftist.

"You'll know one when you see it" is lazy handwaving for a guy who spent this much time blaming leftism, and it conveniently sets up the reader to rely on their own prejudice when determining who belongs to his problem group. Pass.

This sort of rhetoric is SUPER old and really common in conspiratorial thinking/circles.

It has it's roots in antisemitism and is likely older than that. We've been having pogroms for centuries because of the fear of what outsiders might be doing behind closed doors. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews_during_the...

Yep. I read this last year after watching some Unabomber related show. And there are interesting ideas in there about technology and society, but a lot of it is just dumb shit.

> I think the point is that activists don't care about collateral damage.

I disagree mainly because of this:

> Helping black people is not their real goal.

It's a weakening of Kaczynski's argument to say it's about activists not caring about collateral. His point is more that "leftist crave power and hate themselves so they'll push policies to punish their race and social class using a moral justification. These policies actively hurt those they are supposed to help"

He absolutely mixes in there insinuations that this is all by some secret design. He spends ungodly amounts of paper writing secret about the motives of the leftist.

> It's a weakening of Kaczynski's argument to say it's about activists not caring about collateral.

Maybe, but what you say here isn't supported by the bit you quoted.

That bit actually seemed completely level headed and well written. He defined his terms (leftist) and admitted it's a sloppy term, and then he wrote something I feel is true about most political ideologues - that they care more about their arguments and winning than the correctness of the arguments or value of their opinions.

> He absolutely mixes in there insinuations that this is all by some secret design.

Again, maybe in the overall manifesto, but not there. In the quote provided he just says "Xs works for the goals of X, even if their message is 'Save the Ys'"

That's not hard to believe, it's something we all need to try to avoid in our own thinking.

> ungodly amounts of paper writing about the motives of the leftist.

:D Have you ever read what leftists themselves write? You could fill libraries just with analyses of Marx.

I think the scary thing is that Ted is very well read and could be writing for the New Yorker ... and he justifies violence.

But not because he's the only one doing so, he's just the one who decided to take it into his own hands instead of the acceptable ways to call for violence - to advocate using our military to do it, or hoping that someone 'punches' them for 'being a nazi'.

He's scary because he disproves the narrative of a barely literate, ignorant, conservative-adjacent, god-fearing, terrorist who hates us because of our freedoms, or whatever. He is us, one of the best of us at one time, and we can be vicious.

'Reading a manifesto at 14' explains so much of Twitter

He can't even define who the leftists are and even admits it.

> Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It is still far from clear what we mean by the word “leftist.” There doesn’t seem to be much we can do about this. To- day leftism is fragmented into a whole spectrum of activist movements ...

> To the extent that it is defined at all, our conception of leftism is defined by the discussion of it that we have given in this article, and we can only advise the reader to use his own judg- ment in deciding who is a leftist.

So yeah, just pick whoever you want as leftist. Some characteristics of the leftists:

> He tends to be for gun control, for sex education and other psychologically “en- lightened” educational methods, for social planning, for affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims.

Wow, sounds like those leftists are pretty cool, actually intelligent people!

Seriously, I could make fun of this shit all day, but perhaps I'll do something more productive.

Sounds like he gives a prettier clear cut definition of the demographic. You even admit to being apart of it at the end of your comment.