Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has claimed that Iran's enemies are behind a wave of violent protests sweeping the country. I'll be joined by author, academic and political analyst Kevin Barrett to discuss the protests and whether they are indeed being manipulated by agents of the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
David Skrbina is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. David has been corresponding with Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber) since 2003. He even compiled a book of Kaczynski's writings, called Technological Slavery, released in 2010. Before his capture in 1996, Kaczynski penned a 35,000 word manifesto, entitled "Industrial Society and Its Future." The paper argued that modern technology has restricted freedom, ruined the environment, and has caused untold human suffering, while people have become over-stressed and over-socialized. Kaczynski has been called a genius and a madman. I'll be discussing the relevance of the manifesto in 2018, with Dr. David Skrbina. Support this show by donating at www.paypal.me/richieallen
RICHIE: Now, if you're old enough, you'll remember Ted Kaczynski, who was known as the Unabomber, a genius, an American mathematician who went to Harvard University. A prodigy and between 18 excuse me between 1978 and 1995 he targeted people involved. With modern technology through letter bombs through mail bombs, he killed 3 people and injured more than twenty others. He was eventually. Caught after he issued a manifesto. A remarkable document, if you've read it. If you haven't read it, I recommend you take a look at it. Whatever you might think about Ted Kaczynski and what he did is an extraordinary document. We talked about it earlier on entitled Industrial Society and its future, and it argues that modern technology. As restricted freedom ruined the environment and it's called untold, caused even untold human suffering, Remi. Remarkable now Netflix is currently airing a docudrama called Manhunt Unabomber. I know there are one or two glaring inaccuracies in it, but it's a remarkable look at the events that led up to the capture of Ted, and I don't think it's entirely unsympathetic to. Ted Kaczynski and some of the things he went through as a younger man, particularly at Harvard University. We might talk about that with our guest. Our guest is Doctor David Skrbina. He's a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Born and David has been corresponding with Ted for many, many years. In fact, among other books, David compiled a book of Ted Kaczynski's writings called technological slavery. That book, released in 2010. I'm thrilled that Doctor David Skrbina has joined us live. This afternoon, David, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for your time. How are you?
DAVID: Hi Richie, very good thanks glad to.
RICHIE: Be here you're a gentleman for doing it over the holiday period. David, we're thrilled that you're doing it. What have you made of the I? I presume you've seen Manhunt Unabomber on Netflix. What have you made of the, UM, the way that was filmed the way it was produced? You know whether it's accurate or not. It seems to me to be a pretty fair, if not entirely accurate, portrayal of Ted, and what happened? What do you think?
DAVID: Well, actually I have to say I haven't really seen much of it. I’ve seen just bits and pieces and I’ve heard accounts from other people, but I spend so little time watching TV, I'm afraid I haven't. I haven't kept up on that one yet, but. But I hear it I hear it's a sympathetic portrayal, I think. It's I hear. From what I hear, it's fairly realistic and fairly accurate.
RICHIE: Yeah, and it's your credit, not patronize. It's your credit. You don't watch much television. I think if most of the rest of us took your lead, it might be in a better place and spiritually as well as intellectually. Right?
RICHIE: Why did you begin? Fighting to take back in 2003. What was it that motivated? You to do that.
DAVID: Well, I've been a technology critic for a long time for many years going back to my early college days. And so I was. I was following the Unabomber story, as it was developing in the in the early 1990s. I was really quite interested in the whole in the whole process and sort of, kind of surprised that there was this anti technology ideology that was going on beyond behind these bombings that were that were going on so I was always really kind of fascinated by the by the process, by the ideas that were there. It was. It was a tantalizing sort of thing because they never really told you very much. What was in the manifesto? And you'd only get little bits and pieces, little small sentences or two, or a paragraph or two, and little bits would come out. And so I was really sort of surprised, when, when the whole manifesto was published in late 1995 and it was. Kind of fascinated to read the whole thing. I saw a lot of ideas that were relatively familiar to me. I'd been doing some research at even before then on problems with technology. And so it was. It was really kind of a fascinating study for me, I was sort of doubly surprised, when six months later, when they when they caught Ted Kaczynski and he turned out he be he was a graduate of my own university. He came from the. University of Michigand he was a mathematics PhD there and so really had this kind of close connection sort of right off the bat. When I started teaching in philosophy, one of the courses I wanted to teach was philosophy of technology. And they have no cars like that the campus that I was at. So I developed my own cars and new cars, which I still teach called philosophy of technology. And so I was compiling material from various writers and critics and thinkers many throughout history. But even to the current day and I wanted to include, of course, the manifesto, or at least parts of it. And I also wanted to know what the latest thinking of Kaczynski was. Because when I was doing this in 2000. Three, he'd been in jail at that point for six or seven years and really nothing had been said about him. So it was kind of a mystery what was going on, what he was doing, what he was thinking and so forth. So I just decided I had to write to him personally. And ask ask him a bunch of questions so I just wrote off a sent off a letter one day and had a list of about a dozen questions and before long I got a nice 20 page handwritten letter. Just answering all my questions. It was really, really kind of a great surprise for me.
RICHIE: And he's obviously incredibly intelligent, and he's incredibly articulate. And, it sounds a very patronizing thing to say because I don't have that sort of brain. He's amazingly bright. If you were to sum up for the lay person, David. If you're to sum up. What the ideas? Were in the manifesto. What was it? Ted Kaczynski was trying to say how could you sum that up? The kind of Cliff note easy to understand version.
DAVID: Yeah, well Kaczynski does a pretty good job even right at the beginning. Of the manifesto, he kind of outlines the process. You know. Basically, he's saying that a modern technological society. Is continually pressing upon human beings. It's encroaching on our freedom. It's forcing us into undignified modes of existence and it's causing a. The idea of psychological and physical ailments and it's destroying nature, so technology is growing in power. It’s causing damage to humans and to. The natural world. And it's such that the system cannot. Be reformed or fixed to avoid these negative outcomes. It seems to have its own logic and its own momentum that presses it ahead no matter what we want so. Kaczynski's argument and it goes. It's older than him, but he put it very concisely you. Know, he says. Because of the nature of a modern technology that we cannot avoid these these terrible outcomes and it's only going to get worse in. The future. Really, the only logical option is to try to end the system so he's arguing. Or a revolutionary stance rather than a reform stance because he has. He makes a good case and he says there's very little evidence that we can actually fix these problems in any fundamental. Level so if we want to avoid this disastrous outcome, we have to. Yeah, do some kind of revolt against the system, undermine it, bring it down, bring it to an end now sooner rather than later, and that's our best hope for long term survival.
RICHIE: Now a Doctor of philosophy at Michigan. Dearborn University doesn't deserve my next question, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. Doctor Skrbina, do you agree? Do you agree with Ted? Is that the only way to slow it down? Does it have to be revolutionary or can it be reformed?
DAVID: I tend to think he's right. I think he. Has a really very strong argument. All evidence that you would try to find for an option of reforming the system really seems to fail. I mean, I pressed him on this point several times in letters over the years, and he challenged me to find some problems that sort of had really been fundamentally fixed by reform. Processes and we really are unable to solve even even simpler problems that we cannot really tackle very well. We just sort of muddle through and we get to kind of. Kind of a weak, kind of a status quo where everything sort of tolerable and we call that a solution. And that works in some areas of society, but it doesn't really seem to work in the case. Of modern. Technology so I suspect that he's right that some kind of radical change, ? There’s a question about what we actually mean by revolution and how that comes about. That's a big question in itself. But I tend to agree with them. A really substantial deconstruction of the system of the technological system will be required, otherwise we will be facing some catastrophic outcomes in.
RICHIE: Future, what do you a read quite a bit about you. It was late last night when I emailed you and I was so I was so delighted when you came back. To me, quickly and then. You've you've had a fantastic career. You know, peer. Reviewed great books and you're obviously a very, very bright and also a very decent guy. I've heard you doing other interviews. David, it's lovely to hear you speak. How do you reconcile what Ted actually did? I mean, he was obviously horrified by the changes he was seeing in the world and society, and the breakdown and everything. And yet I look at. You know, watching the documentary and then reading. More about Ted. How he came to mail those bombs? It doesn't sit well with me. I don't mean now that I, I wouldn't tolerate or I wouldn't speak to or listen to Ted Kaczynski. I'm just confused that a guy with his. Understanding his intelligence, his awareness would go down the road. He did David why did he go down the road? He did.
DAVID: Well, we have to take him at his word for this and he claims that it was required to take drastic action his part in order to achieve the notoriety necessary to force the manifesto into the into the public realm in a substantial way. So I think I and I don't know if this was the original motive, but I suspect at some point it became his primary motive that he would, develop this ability to conduct this bombing campaign without being stopped. You know? I mean, we have to. Remember that he did this over a period of 20 some years and the FBI. The FBI had something like 100 full time agents trying to stop him, and they were they. They could not stop him. They couldn't find him, they couldn't. Stop him. So, so he had a tremendous tremendous power over the system. At some point. And it's it is striking that he volunteered to stop the bombing campaign. I have to assume that he was being honest about this. All he wanted was the manifesto published and he wanted to gain the notoriety to get the to get the ideas out in a in a in a big way. And he knew that this was the way to do it. And he succeeded, he it went all the way up to the president.
RICHIE: Did succeed.
DAVID: He went up to Bill Clinton and they had to approve it and they they agreed to his. His plan to publish the manifesto.
RICHIE: I'd like to think he has remorse for the people he killed and the people he injured, David. You've had this for years. And then I think you deal with it remarkably well. You're a man of science?, you’re a man of academiand Ted Kaczynski's insights are important. They remain very important in light of what's happening in the world today, but there are obviously people alive today who suffered. At his hands, and you wonder about remorse. Has he ever expressed remorse? Has he ever considered that, however, right his ideas might have been about the state of the world and the way? It was going. That hurting people and killing people can. Never be tolerated.
DAVID: Well, we talk very little in our letters about the actual victims or the bombing process. He really had no interest in discussing that all. We strictly talked about the problems of technology. So I have to infer from what little bit he had mentioned to me over the years, but I guess I have to say there was really no remorse I. I think it's a little bit striking, but I mean he doesn't really regret what he did. I think he figures he did the right thing it was. It was in the best long term interest probably of humanity, at least in his opinion and. And I think he said. It was the. Probably just figured it was necessary to, cause this harm. And it was an unfortunate situation. But I suppose if he had better options if he could have pushed the ideas in a different way, I suppose he might. Have but you could imagine there aren't aren't a lot of options. For something like this.
RICHIE: No, you can't. I want to do a quick recap. We've got David for another 15 minutes or thereabouts. I'm delighted he's joined the pro. You know, and you're listening to the Richie Allen show. It's exactly 20 minutes past the hour for Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018. David is a Doctor of Philosophy and he works at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. He's published several books very well received and well reviewed books including and a book of correspondence. And writing from Ted Kaczynski to David called Technological slavery released in 2010. Check all good online retailers for that. It'll be a fascinating read. The Unabomber penned a 35,000 word manifesto called Industrial Society and its future. Many academics have cited it as the. Work of genius. David, I wanted to talk about we talk about thissue on this program a lot. The technology, the advances in it, what it's doing to people, what it's doing to children, what it's doing to our ability to relate to one another. The implications for us in the future in terms of employment and everything is Ted. Where of some of the issues that we hear about? On our news. Now about the biological effects that cell phones are having on children's brains, not actually emotional effects, but actually physical effects. How it's changing people and kind of hard wiring behavior in children is Ted aware of this stuff? Does he keep up with correspondent? I know you correspond with him. Is he aware of just how advanced things have become and how relevant his paper is today?
DAVID: I, I suspect he is. I mean I don't know specifically what what information he's getting, but he is able to access news sources and newspapers and so forth. So and he does a remarkably good job of even keeping up on current research, so I have. I have to believe that he's aware of these problems, but you're absolutely right. I mean, it's particularly in the last 10 years. Many of the things that he talked about have sort of really come come to the fore and it's really striking these problems, whether it's. Yeah, whether it's the physical damage from cell phone radiation or Internet addiction, or Facebook depression and all these social media issues. I mean, it's really astonishing. All these problems that have just arisen in the last 10-15 years and Kaczynski was sort of anticipating these things 20 or 25 years ago. So I I have to believe he's he's thinking he was vindicated by this development.
RICHIE: Yeah, this the point and I mentioned this to you. The e-mail last night. Is what he wrote about 20 years 21 years ago. It's playing out now in the news and it's accelerating at a rate of knots. I mean, he would presumably be unsurprised, but at the same time horrified by people talking about implantable where . Smart technology in the body to tell doctors or to tell authority. You know how you're doing Healthwise and all this sort of stuff. You know, the effects that the smartphones are having on children. Unsurprised, but horrific. Right, no doubt, and this the basis David of a lot of what you talk about at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, you're talking about technology and I'm fascinated by you because you're talking about these issues with the generation of people who just embrace this stuff, don't they? They love it.
DAVID: Well, yeah, exactly right. And I'm so I'm so I'm dealing with my students all the time. Who are, ? They're the right. The forefront of these things, and they've been raised with this stuff. You know, certainly more more so than I have been, because I'm older than them. Honestly, so it's really kind of an interesting sort of dialogue between between myself and some of these ideas and some of the readings, and then the students personal experience because they can. They can tell directly, and they know some things that I don't even know because they keep up on these current trends better than I do. So It’s a. It's a really nice, interesting kind of discussion between between the. Between all of us and in the classroom setting. About these issues.
RICHIE: And are you worried David about about the freedom about individual freedoms with the advancement and the promotion of this sort of technology? I mean, I've been we're getting a lot of tweets on this, and it's not Richie Allen show on Twitter and I'm getting emails on it as well. People are fascinated to be hearing this. And great to have an academic and a pH. D on talking about it. They there are huge implications. I would say not just for our individual freedoms but also for our human rights because. We seem to see. A kind of a growing promotion of what has come to be. All transfer. And we're rushing towards this, David, they're going to roll out 5G very soon. Kind of a space fence, Wi-Fi everywhere and. There's I'm looking at you. Your work is incredible. I'm delighted to have you on, but where else? Where else, in academia, or in? Even in politics, where where are the questions? Where are the? Shall we just stop and hold off just just relax a bit and have a look at what this going to mean? Because going forward, it's a scary time. We don't like to scare people here, but it's a terrifying time transhumanism implantable. You know the space fence that they're talking about? You know, putting the word into into the cloud. I mean, what do? You think of this stuff?
DAVID: Yeah, well, I mean It’s. It's incredibly dangerous stuff. I mean, the more the more powerful the technology gets, the more we have these unanticipated consequences. And they tend to be horrifically bad. And as the system expands and gets more power, these these consequences can only be worse for us and for the planet . So it's it's. It's all in. The wrong direction. It's really striking. Like you say that we're pushing ahead at rapid speed on these things and the voices of restraint or caution are really very minimal. You hear a little bit in recent years about people like Elon Musk, and even Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, I guess right have talked about sort of advanced artificial intelligence and intelligent drones. You know causing problems and they're right, but that's one small piece of the total risk scenario that’s surrounding modern technology. And it's almost deceptive just to pick one one thing like artificial intelligence and say, well, this a danger it is. But there's a million other dangers out there, and you need to look at the whole picture. And if you people really understood the whole the whole ensemble of risks here, I. I think people would really be kind of terrified and they would really kind of demand that we that we stop this process if at all possible.
RICHIE: Yeah, I’ve. Been fascinated I've am. I'm very interested in the work of several writers who would write in what could be called kind of conspiracy research and people like David, like people like Jim Marrs and God, Rest Jim. And those guys in particular talk about the technological wing of the Pentagon, DARPA, which a lot about being involved in the research. And most of course, top secret promoting this sort of stuff, smart dust, and we mentioned implantable already. And when you see. When you see the military involvement in it, David, you've got to consider the possibility that it is about some sort of control of human behavior modifying human behavior, and maybe getting people to act well, yes., more to I don't know the establishment or whatever. It can't be dismissed as conspiracy theory anymore. I don't think. What do you think?
DAVID: Yeah, that's an interesting and complicated issue. I mean, there’s so much power in technologies and social mediand cell phones that it draws people in, and it really does change the way people think about this. And in a sense that even it well, it addicts you to it. So you're sort of you're you can't do without it. On the one hand, and secondly it disrupts your ability to think about things critically. This sort of what I'm what I'm seeing in recent years. And It’s a strange process whereby the technological system changes people to not be able to think critically about technology. And it's almost like it's an intentional process. It's a really a very strange and another frightening sort of aspect here. You know, in my own book I wrote a book related to this called the Metaphysics of technology came out a couple of years ago from Rutledge. And I talked about modern technology as a kind of a mental aids where the technology defeats your ability to think critically about the problems of technology, just like the AIDS virus, right defeats your own immune system that keeps you from attacking the virus. So technology works in the same sort of way and it's kind of it's a way of protecting itself and it's. Keeps people engaged and it draws you in and it addicts you and it keeps you from thinking critically about it. It's really, really an insidious process the way I. See this developing.
RICHIE: Yeah, and I mentioned David and Jim Marrs, who have been dismissed as conspiracy theorists. You know the media tends to do to people that they don't want to be heard and they talked a lot about that. You know about what, what if there is an agenda, who and what is behind, and maybe that's a discussion for them for another day. I was fascinated and David reading about Ted and watching the. Commentary that he underwent this experience. Let me just very quickly, because we've got David for about 5 more minutes. And before we have to let him go, I want to do a quick recap. David, as he mentioned and I was going to mention, as the author of Metaphysics of technology. And he's also the author of the book I mentioned earlier on, relevant to what we're talking about. The. Correspondence between him and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, professor, I should say, Doctor David Skrbina is live on the line to us today talk. About that book was called technological slavery, talking about the Unabomber and his Manifesto, Industrial Society and its future. It's fascinating stuff and it really is Dave. I just wanted to talk briefly. You know, I don't want to make excuses for what Ted did. I would never do. That I would. Never insult the people that he. Injured and hurt, but it seemed that. He was the subject of an MK Ultra Type experiment at Harvard. That's very serious. That, and to be fair to the Netflix. And talk you drama. They don't circle away from that. They basically deal. With this aspect of his life. And it seemed that he went through a horrific 18 month long experiment which has come to be known as kind of MK Ultra. And I wonder how much of a bearing that had on him turning to violence. Later on, I don't know if if you've got anything to say on that.
DAVID: Yeah well again we really didn't touch on that part of his background or his his history so I can't comment directly but. I suspect, and this sort of implicitly from the many letters from him. I suspect that was less important than than it's is portrayed. There's a. There's a strong interest on the part of the people in the status quo to make Kaczynski appear to be deranged or mentally ill because he has these. He is and so they'll use any excuse to try to construct a story in which he was sort of driven out of his mind, whether it was by, the CIA, or I don't know of you, know the stress of the 60s or whatever, or his mother when he was little. I, I, I think it's just an excuse because they're really, they're really driven. To portray him as mentally ill and use that as a way to undermine his ideas, and I suspect that's really not the case because he's not mentally ill. He's very rational. He's very intelligent and his ideas are very solid, so I think that's just sort of an indirect way. To try to. You know, cast dispersions on his his his whole mode of thinking is to say, well, he's an MK ultra victim. But I really suspect that had very little to do with sort of his his whole mindset.
RICHIE: No, it's good. It's good of you to say that, and just before some of our listeners have a meltdown. David is not denying that the CI A conducted these experiments. They did, but it's not necessary. No, no, right?
RICHIE: It's not necessarily true that they had the sort of impact on Ted that maybe I was suggesting and, and I would. I would go along with that, is he? I mean, it's amazing. He's not going to get out David. We know that you and I touched earlier on remorse and. All that despite the fact he doesn't appear to have any guilt or any feelings for his victims, you couldn't imagine Ted Kaczynski representing a, a threat to society. Again, I might get shot down for saying that, how dare I say that? But I can't imagine him being a, a clear and. Prison threat to society. Do you? Do you? Do you go along with that? If Ted came out, could he? Could he just come out after? You know, spending 2530 years in prison? Could he disappear into you, know,, private life again? Or is that completely unlikely? And does he belong where he is? What do you think?
DAVID: Yeah, well, I guess that’s really pure speculation because I guess there's really no chance he'll ever walk free again. You know, I mean, the government really wanted to have him executed and it was only by some kind of strange process of backroom dealing that they avoided the death penalty and managed to keep him alive. But I don't know. I mean, it's an interesting thing. You know. If hypothetically he was somehow set free someday, what he would do, whether he would be active and in the public eye? Or would he just disappeared in the backwoods of Montana? You know, I mean, he's been active now he's been. He's been publishing. He's been writing. He's been contacting people so I guess I have no reason to think he would. He would stop. If he got out and you.
RICHIE: You're still in regular touch with him and that's that's an incredible thing for your own work. Your own work going forward. I was interested to know listening to you on and on a YouTube video and reading more about you. That your students were questioning the. You know whether there was an ethical concern about you speaking to Ted or reading his philosophy. You made a very good point, didn't you said that whether a murderer or whether Mother Teresa wrote the manifesto, the work and the ideas. Expressed in, it should stand alone and should be examined regardless of who did it. You still go along with that. How are your students today about that?
DAVID: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know we really try to make a strong separation between the violent action and the and then the ideas in the manifesto because they really are separate things. I mean, they're tied together through the actions of the same man, but the arguments and the idea is they're completely standalone that are in the manifesto so. So yeah, we we don't have to endorse the actions. The extreme actions we, we acknowledge them. We set them aside and we say that's the problem for the criminal justice system. And they've handled that. And now we'll talk about the manifesto and the ideas. Because it's our future that's at stake. You know it's our own lives and it's our children's lives and it's the it's the life of the planet. That's what matters and we can't let a handful of crimes from two or three decades ago. Stop us from talking about. These very important issues.
RICHIE: And I have one absolute final question for you. David and thanks for coming on today, giving us some of your free time. I really appreciate that. Our audience. Be seated as well. Tell me. Is it checkmate in terms of has technology got us into a kind of a checkmate kind of position? I mean, we're we've all become corralled on Facebook and on Twitter and on YouTube they have a monopoly. Now it's incredible. I mean, it really is they? It basically owns cyberspace. We don't have our own websites. Anymore we're all on there. Children are glued to the phones. You made a magnificent point about how the technology seems to the more it's used restrict the user's ability to actually critically examine the technology. Well, are we in a checkmate situation here? How critical is it? Have we reached critical mass basically?
DAVID: Well, yeah, that's a very good question, I suspect we're very close to that point, I would say, probably not yet, but if we have a little window of activity. It's, free action. It's probably not more than five or ten years and. You know, then. We may. Then we may lose our options to really take action against the system. So I think we need to get the word out. We need to think critically and think hard now while we still have perhaps a little bit of a little bit of time to do something.
RICHIE: Brilliant, doctor David Skrbina's books and there are several books. Metaphysics of technology which David mentioned and available at all good online retailers. I won't mention anyone in particular. I'm sure you can guess. I'm talking about. And of course, we've been speaking about his correspondence with the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski and then David put a book out. Old and well based on the Manifesto Industrial Society and. Future David released a book called Technological Slavery about his correspondence with Kaczynski. It was a real pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you for your time and you're welcome back anytime.
DAVID: Thank you, Ritchie. Thanks for thanks for having me.
RICHIE: It was an honor. Thank you Doctor David Skrbina live on the line to us there from Michigan. Great to have him on the program. Find him on line, find him on YouTube as well those interviews that I mentioned that he's done can be seen on YouTube and his books are available at all good online retailers and they received rave reviews. Terrific to hear that point of view there from David Skrbina. Great stuff. It's exactly 23 minutes to the top of the hour. We'll have a musical break. Why not? Yeah, on Wednesdays, Richie Allen show it is great to be back the 3rd of January 2017. More in a couple of minutes.
[music]
RICHIE: Midnight at the Oasis from the brand new heavies, I can't remember what year that was. I'm thinking 93 or 94. It was good, though I always liked that song. I like the singer ooh, err.
Faisal has been tweeting me on Twitter, where else, how you doing, Faisal? We'll get to Faisal in a second. Good evening, Charlotte. “Not forgetting robots, clearing homeless people off the streets,” says Charlotte, yes! That's right, we came across that story, didn't we? Just before we broke for the Christmas break, that's right.
Faisal tweets “Interesting interview. Ritchie, I've never really looked into the Unabomber. 27 years, not caught. Does not like discussing details of bombing. Is it possible that he took responsibility to publicize these ideas?” It's an interesting question, Faisal. From what I can gather, he was he. It's pretty much open and shut to use that terrible cliche from the from the films from the TV. He definitely did the bombings, and there's no doubt about that.
Now David Skrbina, who I really enjoyed speaking with by the way, really interesting man. David doesn't think that the experimentation. Kaczynski underwent at Harvard, has anything to do with him turning to violence later on. Much later on now I'm not sure about that. David Skrbina is much better place than me to give an opinion that, but we've learned so much over the years about MK. The ultra from various guests on this program that I just wonder about that.
Gojira tweets. “Good evening Sir. Ted sounds like either (a) CIA Creation (b) MK Ultra victim, or (c) Just some angry *******. That's not really a genius at all. If his answer was to send letter bombs, the whole thing sounds like a syop”, says Gojira.
Well, look. I would suggest reading the manifesto, it is 35,000 words long. It's a hefty old manifesto, but the ideas and themes and the opinions and the predictions contained within are startling. I have no look. What do I know. My personal opinion, which is no more valuable than yours. Is that he meant it? He really meant it and he had some social problems. Watch the docudrama on Netflix, . Again, there are some typical artistic licenses taken by the producers. There are some things in there that don't belong there for artistic, merit for. For the sake of. I don't know. For the drama, but by and large it's kept pretty close to what happened in the run up to his capture because he did conduct this campaign over so many years and had stopped for a time before restarting again. It really is fascinating. It's well worth a look on the old Netflix there. Is what I say so have a look at and see what you think yourself. Read more about him. Read the manifesto and I mean I'll definitely bring Doctor David Kabina on the program again in the future.
Again brilliant that he is aware of and has found through his own research that the technology being used is actually changing our ability to be critical of it. That's a fascinating thing for him to understand to realize, and I sound very patronizing now. Because he knows far more than I do, but these are themes again that have been explored by our friends and colleagues in the independent media. The ones I mentioned earlier on over the years, so it's not news to them or to us, but academics are looking at it now and saying Jesus yeah. You know we might be at critical mass or nearly there, and the usage of this stuff is making us less likely to appreciate the problems with it and what it might do to us in the future. Very important stuff, and he was a brilliant guest.
I've just tweeted the link to the Washington Post. An article because what happened was Kaczynski wanted the national press to publish his manifesto right and in return for that he would suspend the bombings. He would stop the bomb. People so industrial society and its future was published in the Washington Post, now the reason it was published. In the post. Was the FBI guys who were chasing Kaczynski? They were certain that he was living in San Francisco in the Bay Area and in the mid 1990s there was only one place in the Bay Area where you could get the Washington Post and they were pretty sure that Kaczynski would want to get the Washington Post on the day that his manifesto was published. Within because of vanity and all of that and that they would watch everybody with loads of undercover agents and they would find the Unabomber. It didn't work out like that, but it was published in the post. I've tweeted it. It is 30. 5000 words it's a long long read I've had a good read today and I have to say, I find it pretty brilliant. I mean, I really do. I was aware of the manifesto going back years. I was aware of the Unabomber story and the fact that he had written this philosophy. This take on the future and the world, but I didn't have much use for it way back when and then I forgot all about it to be honest with you, so I've been reading it really.
And today, I had a good read of it today. Spent a couple of hours reading it this morning and it is a terrifically. Challenging and thought provoking read written back in 1995 nineteen 96 so it's on Twitter. If you are so inclined and you want to have a look at it and make your own mind up as to it's authenticity. But I'm pretty convinced that Kaczynski wrote it. That he believed it, and I'm convinced that Kaczynski did do the bombing tragically. Because it is a real tragedy for the people that died and the. People that were maimed. That a guy with that sort of insight. Into the problems with the ever increasing pace, the development and advancements in technology that a guy like that could be a murderer and he is a murderer.
Watch the docudrama if you can. On Netflix, if you can't afford to watch it, there are other ways of watching it, though I'm not supposed to endorse doing that sort of thing. But It’s really, really good stuff.
Just a couple of quick words. Then on 2018 I’ve had a few nice emails from people asking questions about the program on going and one of the things that you want to see is a little bit more by the way of phones, and I am going to accommodate that. I'm going to try and go for at least. One show a month at least. One show a month where it'll be thrown. Open Skype and phone to you, the listener and you can take over the program and talk about whatever it is you want to talk about, but also express opinions on the subjects covered by the program as we go along, so I'm really keen to do that. And I've been very honest and very forthcoming. In the past about why I didn't. Do more of them and I talked about how dependent the programme had become on YouTube and on monetization through YouTube and the live phones are brilliant when they're live and people like listening to them live. People are not so inclined to listen to live phones on repeat or on a podcast or on YouTube. That's whether it's right or wrong. That's just the way it is. And I was always reluctant to do too many of them a month. You know this because I mentioned this before. I've preferred to have guests on talking about issues and. And that was better for the show. In terms of, . How do I say it in terms of monetizing the program long term? And that's no longer an issue anyway with YouTube so ongoing. I'm just getting an e-mail there. I've lost Internet here, but I'm still streaming. This has never happened before. I've lost all Internet connection. Have I have? But we're still streaming. The program is streaming out, so there can't be too many problems. I do have a couple of tweets anyway. Bass Ninja tweets caught the second-half live Richie. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow for the whole show. He downloads on YouTube and on automatic. Those are base Ninjas well. Yeah, I've just lost Internet there momentarily, which is kind of strange, but I'm streaming. I'm looking in our little studio here I can see the computers that are specially in the corner given over the streaming. We're streaming live, so there's no problem. And there, but my Internet has gone down otherwise I don't know what it is. Could be. The computer could be the computer itself. Right, so that's kind of more or less it then for Wednesdays,, program I'm currently producing and working on tomorrow's guests for Thursdays program. We're back anyway. It's, UM, the different type of week this week, next week we're back to normal Sunday. View will be live on Sunday morning at 11:00 AM. As usual, ongoing and then Monday through to Thursday will be live at 7:00 PM every evening. The schedule stays the same. That's all good. There is some interesting developing news. On BBC, but again I can't see it when I click on it, it won't show up for me. I'm offline and but it's some interesting stuff about Steve Bannon's book or the book about Steve Bannon and more and more revelations about that. You might want to follow that on social media, on Twitter or on bbc.co.uk or Sky News. Whatever we might talk about some of this stuff tomorrow we might not. We'll see how it goes. And in the meantime, our Twitter issues. Our e-mail issues seem to have been resolved, so if there's somebody you'd like me to get on the program if somebody you'd like me to interview on the program, do drop me an e-mail. It's Ritchie at richieallen.co.uk. That's Ritchie at richieallen.co.uk, and I'd be delighted if I can to get. Dead person #1 but just drop me a line about anything. The e-mail seems to have been resolved. Richie richieallen.co.uk. I am working on getting a website. With the program streaming on it up and running real real soon, I'll keep you posted about that on going as well, but all there is left for me to do now is say. Thanks for listening. Today it is really good to be back. Thank you very much. Stay in touch with davidlike.com. Do listen to fabradiointernational.com for a terrific. Array of programs on music on film, on television, on comedy, on drama, on science fiction. It's amazing station dude. Check it out if you haven't done it before and you and I will talk. Again tomorrow at 7:00 PM. UK time wild and windy old Night it was last night things have calmed down, now going to leave you with some Macy Macy Gray song that I love very much. This closing out the program. I'll see you tomorrow. Look after yourselves in one another until Thursday until tomorrow. It's bye for me bye now. Thank you bye.