WEBVTT - The Unabomber: Misguided to say the least 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:05.080 Boo boo boo boo dooo boo boo doo. We're coming 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.440 to a landown under I get chuck. We're going to 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.440 Australia and New Zealand and New Zealand. That's right, oh man, 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:15.720 Like we are really excited. This has been years in 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.840 the making. We're finally pulling the trigger. In September. We 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.280 are doing shows on September one at the Astro Theater 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.760 in Perth, Sunday September two at I c C in Brisbane, 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.840 which heads up down there to you guys, that's spring 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.680 for you, not fall al right, well all September three, 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.959 Monday at Goldfields Theater in Melbourne. We're really getting around Thursday, 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.920 the sixth of September at the Inmore Theater in Sydney. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.800 And then man, we are going to wrap it up Friday, 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.479 September seven at the Bruce Mason Theater in Auckland, New Zealand. 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:50.760 I cannot wait for that one, yea. You can go 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.280 to s y s K Live dot com to get 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.560 info and to buy tickets, which are on sale April. 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.040 We will see you in September. Australia and New Zealand. 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:07.000 Welcome to stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:15.720 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.920 Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant with Jerry Rowland. Three 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:23.720 of us put together, put us in some gray band aviators, 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.040 put a gray hoodie sweatshirt on us. You got stuff 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.600 you should know? I know, I like your costume. Today. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.039 I thought I would dress up to really kind of 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.039 drive home the idea that I have. I know what 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.280 we're going to be talking about. Yeah, you know what's 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.640 funny is that today, all these years later, when you 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.360 see someone in aviators in a hoodie with the hood up, 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:46.639 you say, jeez, you know what's up? You in a barmber? 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:52.520 It's it's part of the social fabric these days. Like 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.840 I've ran across some some I guess an article from 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.320 the late nineties or whatever that was talking about that 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.600 famous sketch and how it made its way under like 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.680 coffee mugs and key chains and T shirts and like 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.960 it became like a pop culture icon. Oh yeah, I'm 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:13.639 sure it was on some T shirt design at what's 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:19.280 that terrible store? Spencer's hot topic? That was great? No 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:26.200 urban outfitters. Uh wait, so you're a Spencer's fan. Huh okay, 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.760 Spencer's over Urban Outfitters. I guess that is. That's the 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:35.320 great divide, you know, well, Michigan, Ohio state Spencer's Urban Outfitters. 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.359 Urban Outfitters is just trendy like stuff that they think 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.120 is clever, but it's not Spencer. You could go in 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.760 and get a poster of a bikini lady on a ferrari, 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:51.280 some incense and a and a giant rubber penuts right, Like, 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.080 that's a great store. I guess it is. You know 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.480 everything you need under one roof. I can't remember what 0:02:57.520 --> 0:02:59.240 I was in there for the other day, but they 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:05.480 have like most extensive um selection of tasteless shot glasses 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:09.120 I've ever seen in my life. That Spencer. Yeah, which, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.920 it's like there's people collecting that you can tell. I 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.960 wont to know who Spencer is. Spencer doesn't want you 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:16.960 to know who he is. That's why he called his 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.800 store Spencer. His real name is Jackson McClain. Oh wow, 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.919 nice work, Jackson threw me you sniffed me off the case. 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.200 Nice that was a good saved, Chuck. Thanks. Speaking of 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.240 good saves, I'm gonna bail us out of this intro 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.600 Let's do it and take us back way back to 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:41.280 nineteen seventy nine eight A little seven year old, Sorry, Chuck, 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.720 we're gonna go back one more year was seven. Oh, 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:50.880 so you knew I got it wrong. Okay. Well, in 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:55.440 in the Chicago Land area, there's a university called Northwestern University. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.480 Go Wildcats. M hmm. I didn't look this one up 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.160 at think it is the Wildcats. That's what we're going with. UM. 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.120 And there was a security officer named Terry Maker who 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.160 opened a suspicious looking package. That's I couldn't find why 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.640 Terry Maker opened it. So I should say everybody, I'm 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.000 making the assumption here that it was deemed suspicious, and 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.200 they're like, gook at the security guard. But Terry Maker 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:25.039 opened this package and it exploded. He got some minor 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.800 cuts and burns. I don't see too many people counting 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.600 him as a victim of the UNI bomber, although I 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.479 think Terry Maker would probably take issue with that. UM. 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.000 But he was, by all accounts, the first person to 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.719 come into contact with the UNI bomber or one of 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:49.000 the UNI Bomber's bombs. Yeah, he was number one that 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.120 would go on to be fifteen more bombs over the 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:58.080 seventeen year killing spree. Well in a way, he killed 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:02.440 three people in the end, when did uh many more? Uh? 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.920 And we won't go through all of the targets, but 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:10.880 they ranged from American Airlines Flight forty four to the 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:17.520 president of United Airlines Percy Wood, to Vanderbilt University secretary, 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:23.520 to timber industry lobbyist to an advertising executive. Part of 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.479 the reason why it was uh so maddening for so 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.880 many years was because the there was no rhyme or 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:34.919 reason seemingly to the victims of the UNI bomber's wrath. No. 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.440 The one thing that they all shared in common and 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.440 the UNI bomb are also UM wrote letters to newspapers 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.960 during this whole time. UM. The thing that they had 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.160 in common was that they had something to do with 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:53.479 technology or the advancement of technology UM or the destruction 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.039 of nature, one of those two. And so these these 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.040 people like that was it. That was all you had 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.039 to be doing to be of a target of the 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:06.440 UNI bomber. He was extremely indiscriminate and picking who lived 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.479 or died by his hand. Uh. And you have to 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.080 understand all of these bombs, None of these bombs were 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.040 sent to scare people Every single one of these bombs, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.359 whether they killed somebody or not, were intended to kill somebody. 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.359 Who they killed. The UNI bomber didn't much care, and 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.279 you can tell by the the kind of institution attitude 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.400 he had towards who who was targeted, like he would 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.600 get names wrong. His last victim a guy named um 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.200 Uh Gilbert Bret Murray. He was a timber industry lobbyist. 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.200 He opened the package because he was the president of 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:47.080 the timber industry lobby even though the package was addressed 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.640 to his predecessor. The reason it was addressed to his 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.240 predecessor was because the UNI bomber had picked the name 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.200 out of a directory and it was an out of 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.000 date directory. So this guy um died as a result 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.120 of the bomb, you know to do. It really was 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:02.960 and I think the unibomber if you talked to the 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.119 UNI bomber today, which you could, apparently he's very easy 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.080 to get in touch with us and become a pen 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.680 pal of UM, he would tell you totally fine, like 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:13.800 I don't care who died, like the head of this 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.600 timber lobby died. That was ultimately what I was going for. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.000 So he was killing people who are associated with an idea, 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.520 a cause, and the cause that he was opposed to 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:28.360 was the destruction of nature and the the advancement of technology. Right, 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.120 So we're talking obviously about Ted Kazinski. It was the 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:36.080 man's real name. And early on in nine right after 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.520 these attacks started happening, the Postal Service, the A t F, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.800 and the FBI got together formed a task force and 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.320 that's where they came up with the name unibomb You 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.200 n A b O M stood for University Airline bombings 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.480 because those were the first bombs that were sent. And 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.200 I guess the name of the case was by the FBI, 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.840 but the name UNI bomber was made up by the 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.120 media covering it, right, Yeah, that's usually the case. Yeah. Uh. 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.120 In the end, it would become the longest running at 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.160 the time, I don't know if it's been outdone yet, 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:13.560 but the longest running in most expensive FBI investigation in history. Uh. 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.200 Eventually had a hundred and fifty full time employees on 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.880 the case, which is amazing. And he was tough, too 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.920 tough to get and you know, he had no forensic 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.840 evidence left behind. He was very careful. He used bombs 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.520 that were made out of materials that were easy to find. 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.240 You couldn't track them. He made all of them by hand, painstakingly. Yeah, 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.120 made him all by hand. Like we said, the victims 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.520 were chosen seemingly at random, and had it not been 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.520 for his manifesto, they may still be on the lookout 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:48.719 for this guy. Yeah. And even still, the way that 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.600 they were able to connect these things was because during 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:56.240 the seventeen year campaign, he UM would write letters to U, 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.960 to the editors of newspapers around the country, claiming, we're 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.800 sponsibility for these these crimes UM. And then I think 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:08.360 half of the bombs had the inscription FC on parts 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.920 that were recovered, and FC stood for Freedom Club because 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.720 the UNI bomber didn't call himself the UNI bomber. Again, 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.400 that was the media. All of these things, including the manifesto, 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.840 was signed the Freedom Club Club of one right. But 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.680 he he always wrote about we whenever he was referring 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:30.160 to himself. So the whole thing came to a head 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:37.760 uh in when Tank Kaczynski was arrested in his cabin 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.880 in Lincoln, Montana. He was known to his neighbors as 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:43.600 the Hermit on the Hill, and he'd lived there for 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.840 years and years and years. I think since the early seventies. 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.240 I believe, Yeah, I mean it was a little primitive 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.959 cabin off grid. Inside they found about forty thousand pages 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.680 worth of journals describing all his crimes. They found bomb 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.800 parts U, they found a bomb ready to be mailed, 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.320 and they knew they had their guy thanks to his 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:11.720 brother David turning him in essentially after reading this manifesto. Uh. 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.480 He was eventually reigned in Sacramento, which is where the 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.040 final murder took place, and he was sent to jail. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.160 Initially said no, I don't want to. I don't want 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:26.800 to uh be uh, I don't want to plead insanity. 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.360 But that's a big, big point, yeah, because I don't. 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.720 I don't think he would have admitted something like that. 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.560 But he tried to kill himself in early and his 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.800 jail cell. That triggered a psychiatric evaluation and he was 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:44.280 diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which triggered a plea bargain that 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.079 basically said, you can avoid the death penalty now if 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.320 you take this plea bargain. He did, and in January 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:55.280 of eight he pleaded guilty, accepted the eight life sentences 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.599 with no parole, and is now living was quite a 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:04.240 few other famous bombers. Um at the Florence, Colorado Alcatraz 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.320 of the Rockies, the X there's that place in and 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.160 of itself is crazy. I looked into it. Yeah, I 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.439 feel like it's come up in plenty of other episodes 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.880 before because it certainly sounds familiar. So I was looking into. Um, 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.840 there's this fascinating article called Harvard in the Making of 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.559 the UNI Bomber by a guy named Alston Chase, who 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.760 I think wrote a book on it. But in this article, um, 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.000 he you read it too, so he he really kind 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:35.520 of lays out a pretty great case based on evidence 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.559 that he compiled from interviews and things like that, that 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.439 it's definitely not a slam dunk diagnosis that the UNI 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.440 Bomber has schizophrenia. And he also, I don't know if 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.200 he says it outright, but he at the very least 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:53.559 intimates that that it was teg Kazynski's brother David and 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:57.560 his legal team that created the public persona of the 0:11:57.640 --> 0:11:59.960 Union Bomber as a as a person with his friend 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.400 you to keep him from getting the death penalty. This 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:06.840 is much much, much to the chagrin of the Union 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:11.000 Bomber tak Kaczynski, who eventually did cop to this plea 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.160 bargain because it became clear to him that if he 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.120 went to trial, his defense team was going to put 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.800 in an insanity defense, whether he liked it or not, 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.480 and he was denied the ability to represent himself. So 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.200 he was presented with a choice either go to trial, 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.880 plead insanity, maybe get a lesser defense, but in the 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:36.480 meantime his manifesto would be painted as the ramblings of 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.360 a madman because he would be deemed insane or plead 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.520 guilty and not insane. Defend insanity and then, in his 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:50.320 hopes um also by by extension, defend his manifesto and 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.920 the ideas in it. Yeah, so he is still in 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.240 prison in Colorado. Apparently, like you said, he's got a 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:01.200 lot of pen pals because he lived in a tiny, 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.920 little primitive cabin for so many years. By all accounts, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.280 he has adapted pretty well to prison life. Being in 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.440 a small room is no big deal to him. And 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:12.960 you can actually go to the and I'm gonna totally 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:14.160 check this out. I don't know if I can do 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.520 it on this upcoming tour, but you can go see 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:22.199 that original cabin at the Newseum in Washington, d C. 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:24.560 And I've looked up pictures and it's kind of all 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.280 right there, which is pretty interesting. Yeah, the whole thing 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.360 is just right there in the Newseum. Yeah. So he 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.200 was a brilliant guy. Uh, like you said, he went 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.960 to Harvard. He's a national merit finalist, he was a 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:40.000 math prodigy, started Harvard at sixteen, had an i Q 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.640 or has an i Q of one sixty seven. And uh, 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.600 it was just a is just a brilliant and brilliant guy. 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.160 And I think we should take a break. I'm getting 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.280 a tingle, and we'll come back and we'll talk. Uh. Well, 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.040 I guess we should talk about the manifesto. Let's all 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:26.960 right right for this? Hyeh all right, chuck him. We're 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.920 back and were kind of left it off on. Uh, well, 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.920 we promised we're about to talk manifesto, So let's talk manifesto. Yeah. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:39.520 And after reading the cliffs notes of this thing um 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.440 in a few different places, one thing is clear is 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:48.320 it's not the ramblings of a madman a b he 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.600 has and I hate saying this, but he has a 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.440 lot of very salient points about where society is headed 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.800 due to technology or or where it was headed back 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:03.640 in nineties where it fully is now. Yeah, very much 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.280 ahead of his time, thinking wise. The way he went 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:13.960 about correcting this was was not was abhorrent obviously, but 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.960 when you read parts of this thing, the industrial Revolution 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.760 and its consequences, uh, like here, just let me pull 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.480 this one for instance. Um, here's here's one pull quote. 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.920 Once a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually become 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.320 dependent on it so that they can never again do 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.600 without it unless it is replaced by some still more 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.320 advanced innovation. Not only do people become dependent as individuals 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.040 on a new item of technology, but even more the 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:43.440 system as a whole becomes dependent on it. Does it 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.560 sound like anything that everyone carries in their pocket every 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.720 day exactly? And he also points out that like the 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:55.640 way the way that this happens, this this dependence on technology, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.920 it comes about because new technology seem good and help 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.520 full and useful, and then we eventually adapt ourselves to 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.880 fit them better. We change our behavior, we change the 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.440 way we see things, we change the way we think 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.880 and interact with stuff to fit the technology. And his 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.040 whole idea was that that that is the the u 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.480 inevitable outcome from the Industrial Revolution, and that ever since 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:27.320 the Industrial Revolution, our society has been in a stranglehold 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.040 at the service of technology and the people who serve technology, 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:35.040 and society has been restructured and reshuffled to the detriment 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.480 of the individual human to local communities as a whole. 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.640 And that, um, the only way that this is such, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.160 this is so ingrained now in our world. The only 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:50.880 way to stop this is to violently overthrow the current system. 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.520 And he has very las a fair attitude about what 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.800 comes after. He said that we have no illusions about 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.200 the feasibility of creating a new idea old form of society. 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.280 Our goal only is to destroy the existing form of society. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.280 That was it. That was the whole reason for his 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:13.280 campaign was to be the one of the provocateurs of 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:18.960 this revolution that upended technological society. Yeah, here's another summation 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:23.000 of another part of the manifesto about the social infrastructure 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.040 that he says is dedicated to modifying our own behaviors. Uh. 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.440 This infrastructure includes an array of government agencies with ever 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.800 expanding police powers and out of control regulatory system that 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:38.480 encourages the limitless multiplication of laws and education, establishment and 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.880 stresses uh conformism, ubiquitous television networks. Who's Fair is essentially 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.640 an electronic form of valum and a medical and psychological 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.040 establishment that promotes the indiscriminate use of mind altering drugs. 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.440 So again, I don't want this to come across that 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:57.760 I like look up to this guy in anyway. But 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.240 when you read some of the stuff, you think, Man, 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.720 if this guy had only reined it in, he could 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:08.159 have done good. Yeah. I can't remember what the turning 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.920 point was, but there was some there was some potential 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.720 path that he was on where he could have done 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.960 this peacefully, and he pulled back and went a violent way. 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.760 And I think, I think quite rightly that if he 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.120 were not well locked up for the rest of his life, 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:26.520 he would he would keep sending bombs out. He would 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:31.840 not stop because he's he doesn't he's not a a 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:36.439 moral agent. He is a rational agent, and he sees 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.119 this as a rational and to the means. To his means, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.200 which is taking out people who may or may not 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.920 be in a position to advance technological society. Well, yeah, 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.640 and that's what was That's where the line the delineation occurs, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.880 where he was he's such a smart person, but that's 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:59.080 such a dumb like there's blowing someone up, is gonna 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.840 is not gonna haul any innovations or change the course 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.280 of where we're headed as a society. It was just uh, 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.560 I mean to call it misguided is the understatement of 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:14.720 the year. So and forgive me for armchair psychologalizing here, 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.080 But now you start to get into the idea of 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.400 whether or not he was fulfilling or indulging his own 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.280 desire to kill right, Well, you never know, because if 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.399 he is thinking about things like this, and he is 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.280 such a rational person, surely there would have been other 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.400 ways to to do this that were either more productive 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:40.439 or on the other hand, more destructive, right, Like sending 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.359 a bomb that might take out one or two or 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.480 three people is not it's and and by making these 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.520 bombs painstaking lee by hand over the course of months 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:54.040 and probably years, sometimes that's not a very productive way 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.800 of achieving this goal. So it makes you wonder, did 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.080 this guy just want to kill people? And and that 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.600 that coupled with this this view of technological society to 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.760 form what we know as the UNI bomber. Well, I 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.600 think that was probably the case. Is he was angry 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.480 at where things were headed and he wanted to take 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.119 it out on somebody. Yeah, but again I want to 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.359 go back to this idea that he is schizophrenic. Um 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.399 there is a uh that that is not necessarily the case. 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:26.560 He was given a temporary or provisional or conditional schizophrenic 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:32.920 diagnosis of schizophrenia by a court ordered psychiatrist, forensic psychiatrist, 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.560 and that was it. I don't believe she ever went 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.159 back and made an official diagnosis. Other people in the media, 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:44.560 other psychiatrists were basically diagnosing them from afar. Some some 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:49.200 psychiatrists met with him, but they didn't officially um examine him. 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.440 So basically, just based on his actions and his manifesto 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.879 and what was contained within, he was largely given this 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.520 diagnosis of schizophrenia. And I couldn't find anything that said 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.320 that he's being treated for schizophrenia now, which is kind 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.080 of a big deal because it's a two two full 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.399 big deal. One it it says it dismisses him as 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.720 just a complete madman who who is delusional, but it 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.000 also does a tremendous disservice to people with schizophrenia because 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.600 it says this is what people with schizophrenia, Do they 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.680 send bombs to people They go and live in like 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.320 Montana for alone for thirty years and send bombs to 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.080 people the whole time. Yeah, So it's it's doing that 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:37.800 same armchair psychologicalizing that I was doing. Is it's it's 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.760 it's worse if you're an actual psychiatrist, you know. Yeah. Uh, 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:44.080 all right, Well, I think we should talk a little 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.679 bit about how this this manifesto came to be in 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:52.560 public view, because it's a super interesting sub story in itself. Um, 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:54.840 the great, great article from the Washington Post where I 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:57.480 got most of this part, but uh, they make the 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.840 point in this article super interesting to me that, um, 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.080 the time that this happened in the mid to late nineties, 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.920 it was a transitionary time in technology in and of itself, 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:13.080 and that the Internet was around, but it wasn't ubiquitous, 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:16.640 and it's not where everyone went for everything, including news. 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.720 So the fact that this publishing of the manifesto in 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:23.040 the Washington Post, which we'll talk about in a second, 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.919 it says here it was perhaps the last one, the 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:31.040 last newsworthy document to appear only in print, and it's 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:35.919 very ironic considering what he was railing against was that. Um, 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:37.879 it was before everyone was getting their news from the internet. 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.080 So the fact that they actually it was it was 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:44.520 an era that was it was being forgotten the newspaper print, 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.840 uh in print. And that's how he got his message 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:54.280 out finally by sending packages containing this manifesto to the 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.720 New York Times in the Washington Post in June. Yes, 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.080 so they each one got a package one day after 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:03.879 the other, and the one to the Post had a 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:09.120 return name and address Boonlong Hot s O nine Reynaulso Court, 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:12.320 San Jose, California, nine five one three six. And it 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:15.679 turns out that that address and that person it was 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:19.520 he he was a CFO of a tie circuit board 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.960 maker whose headquarters were in San Jose. That was the 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:26.680 address for that. So they Um, you can imagine that 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:30.639 Boonlong Hoe was pretty nervous because rather than being like 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.200 the recipient of a bomb, he was supposedly the center 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:36.639 of these this manifesto to the Washington Post. But the 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:41.440 FBI investigated and quickly cleared Boonlong ho Um and the 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:45.840 Post and the Time suddenly had a decision to make 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.080 because in this in this package with this manifesto was 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.320 a letter that said, if you published this, I will 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.280 stop killing people. If you don't, I'm gonna start, or 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:58.960 we will start making our next bomb. Yeah. So they 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.400 obviously got touch with the FBI. Uh. The FBI took 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:04.200 one look at the letter and said, I think this 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:08.760 is from the Unit Bomber. They went, duh, uh, of 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:11.320 course it is. There is no Well, they actually they 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:13.760 didn't know at the time how many people were sending 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:17.080 these bombs UM, but they met with Uh, they had 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:19.400 three meetings I think with the FBI's director at the time, 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:23.960 Lewis Free, and the task force. And then two out 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:27.040 of those three meetings, Attorney General Janet Reno came, that's 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:30.919 like such a nineties meeting. So nineties Lewis Free and 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:34.560 Jane Arena. Oh yeah, yeah for sure. Uh. So they said, listen, 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:37.439 we're not in the safety business. We're not experts on this. 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:39.639 You tell us what you think we should do, and 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:42.440 then we'll make our mind up what we should do. Basically, 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:46.960 everyone said, you should probably publish this UM because A 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:51.440 we can maybe tag and track newspapers in northern California 0:24:51.480 --> 0:24:55.360 where we think he might be be. Maybe someone will 0:24:55.400 --> 0:25:00.359 recognize this guy and come forward. Uh. Was there, c No, 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:04.399 it's the saying okay. And so this is a note 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:10.040