The Unabomber’s Warning—and the Moral Line He Crossed

I recently watched the Netflix movie about Theodore Kaczynski and then went back and read his manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future. I had not thought seriously about Kaczynski for many years. What struck me most was that, whatever else one thinks of him, he was not simply some lunatic living in a cabin in the woods. He was an extraordinarily intelligent man who developed a coherent, if deeply disturbing, philosophical critique of modern civilization.

I do not agree with the methods he used to usher in the world he wanted. In fact, I consider the murder of innocent people morally indefensible. But I find myself agreeing with many of his ideas about technology, human autonomy, and the direction of modern society.

What interests me most about Kaczynski today, however, is not simply his critique of technology. It is the dangerous step he took from believing that he had identified a profound problem to believing that violence was justified in confronting it. That distinction has become particularly relevant in an age of artificial intelligence, when Kaczynski’s warnings about technological dependence seem less like the product of an eccentric mind and more like questions we are increasingly forced to confront. At the same time, recent acts of political violence raise an even broader question: What happens when people become so convinced that another person or institution is harming society that they conclude killing that person is morally justified? The murders of Charlie Kirk and Brian Johnson, and the deification of their murderers by members of our society make evident that America is heading down a dangerous path.

To me, that is Kaczynski’s central lesson. We can recognize that someone has identified a genuine problem without accepting his proposed solution. We can even agree with part of his diagnosis while completely rejecting the idea that the people he considers responsible become legitimate targets. Kaczynski’s ideas about technology deserve examination; his justification for violence does not.

That realization becomes especially interesting when considering artificial intelligence.

Kaczynski’s fundamental concern was not that every individual piece of technology was evil. He argued that technological society gradually creates a system upon which human beings become dependent. The more sophisticated the system becomes, the harder it becomes for an individual to live outside it. What begins as a collection of tools eventually becomes an environment that determines how people work, communicate, obtain information, entertain themselves, and even understand the world.

AI could represent the culmination of that process.

For the first time, we are developing machines capable not merely of performing physical tasks but of activities traditionally regarded as distinctly human: writing, composing music, analyzing information, solving problems, tutoring, creating images, conducting research, and helping people make decisions. The attraction is obvious. AI can make people more productive and give individuals access to capabilities that once belonged exclusively to highly trained specialists.

But Kaczynski would ask a different question: What happens to human beings when they no longer need to develop those capabilities themselves?

This connects directly with his concept of the “power process.” Kaczynski believed that human beings need to set goals, overcome obstacles, exercise their abilities, and experience the satisfaction of accomplishing something through their own efforts. If an artificial intelligence system can write the essay, create the photograph, compose the song, solve the mathematical problem, conduct the research, and eventually make the decision, we may gain enormous convenience while losing something less measurable: the experience of doing these things ourselves.

Another problem that concerns Kaczynski is the concentration of power. The most sophisticated AI systems require enormous amounts of computing power, data, infrastructure, and capital. Consequently, much of AI development happens within enormous corporations and institutions. Individuals may use the technology, but generally do not control the system that makes it possible.

That is precisely the sort of dependency Kaczynski warned about.

But a second part of Kaczynski’s story cannot be separated from his ideas about technology. His argument did not remain an intellectual critique of modern society. He eventually concluded that the problem was so fundamental, and the consequences so serious, that ordinary political debate and reform could not address it. In his mind, the technological system had become an existential threat to human freedom, and that conclusion changed the nature of the question he was asking. He was no longer asking, “Is this system harming us?” He was asking, “What are people justified in doing to stop it?”

That is the point where a critique of technology becomes a question about political violence.

Kaczynski crossed a moral boundary when he decided that his conviction about the dangers of industrial society justified deliberately using violence against human beings. His bombing campaign killed three people and injured many others. Whatever merit there may be in some of his observations about technology, those observations cannot provide a moral justification for murder.

What interests me, however, is not simply that Kaczynski crossed that boundary, but how familiar the underlying reasoning can become when people are convinced that they are confronting a profound threat to society.

The reasoning can take a deceptively simple form: if a person or institution is believed to be causing serious harm, and if ordinary political mechanisms are believed to be incapable of stopping that harm, then the person who commits violence can begin to see himself not as a murderer, but as someone taking extraordinary action against an extraordinary threat.

That is the connection I see between Kaczynski’s story and contemporary political violence. The ideologies can be completely different. The targets can be completely different. The grievances can even be legitimate. But the moral leap can be remarkably similar: moving from “this person or institution is doing something harmful” to “therefore violence against that person is justified.”

That distinction matters enormously when thinking about the recent killings of public figures such as Brian Thompson and Charlie Kirk. The circumstances and alleged motives in those cases differ, and it would be irresponsible to assume every act of political violence rests on the same ideology or reasoning. But they force us to confront the same underlying question: Can hatred of what someone represents eventually become a justification for killing the person who represents it?

For me, that is one of the most important questions I take away from reading Kaczynski today.

You can believe a system is profoundly harmful without believing the people operating within it are legitimate targets. You can believe corporations have too much power without believing executives deserve to die. You can believe a political movement is dangerous without believing its supporters have forfeited their right to live.

And it is possible to agree with parts of Kaczynski’s diagnosis while completely rejecting the moral conclusion he drew from it.

In fact, that may be the most important reason to take his ideas seriously rather than dismissing him as merely a lunatic. If we reduce Kaczynski to “the Unabomber,” we can dismiss the uncomfortable questions he raised. If we examine his arguments honestly, we can consider whether some of his criticisms of technological society have merit while also examining the catastrophic consequences of believing that having the right diagnosis gives someone the right to use violence.

That is where AI brings the entire issue back into the present. The more powerful technology becomes, the more important it is to debate what it is doing to human autonomy. But the more passionately we believe that technology, corporations, governments, or political movements are threatening society, the more important it becomes to maintain the moral distinction between opposing an idea and destroying the people who hold it.

Kaczynski’s warning about technology may deserve debate.

His justification of violence does not follow from it.

Perhaps that is the ultimate lesson I take from reading his manifesto. We should be willing to listen even to an individual whose conclusions we find profoundly disturbing when he raises questions that deserve serious consideration. But intellectual brilliance does not confer moral authority, and identifying a genuine problem does not give someone the right to decide that another human being has become expendable.

The challenge for us, particularly as artificial intelligence becomes more powerful, is to preserve both sides of that principle: We should never be afraid to question where technology is taking us, but we should also never become so convinced that we possess the answer that we believe violence against those who disagree with us is justified.

The first danger is losing human autonomy.

The second is losing our humanity.