WEBVTT - Selects: The Unabomber: Misguided to say the least 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.280 Hey, everybody, it's me Josh. For this week's select, I've 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:08.280 chosen our twenty eighteen episode about the unibomber Misunderstood. You 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.840 could say that the environmental visionary who predicted some of 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.360 the more negative aspects of our modern world. Yes, indeed, 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.720 unrelin and killer who didn't care who he hurt. Absolutely, 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.000 and that kind of undercuts everything else, doesn't it. Still, 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.239 it's a fascinating episode, and I hope. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:25.720 You enjoy it. 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:38.200 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:40.559 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.800 I'm Josh Clark with Charles W Chuck Bryant with Jerry Rowland. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:48.080 Three of us put together, put us in some ray 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.440 band aviators, put a gray hoodie sweatshirt on us. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:52.920 You got stuff you should know. 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.080 I know, I like your costume today. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.480 I thought I would dress up to really kind of 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.400 drive home the idea that I have. I know what 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:02.760 we're going to be talking about. 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.720 Yeah, you know what's funny is that today, all these 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.560 years later, when you see someone in aviators in a 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.160 hoodie with the hood up, you say, cheez. 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:12.039 You know what's up? You in a bomber? 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:17.960 It's it's part of the social fabric these days. Like 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:22.360 I ran across some I guess an article from the 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.360 late nineties or whatever that was talking about that famous 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.600 sketch and how it made its way onto like coffee 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.679 mugs and keychains and T shirts and like it became 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:33.440 like a pop culture icon. 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.400 Oh yeah, I'm sure it was on some T shirt 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.959 design at what's that terrible store? 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.280 Spencer's. Well, no, no, hot topic. 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.040 That one's great. No Urban Outfitters. 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:52.720 Wait, so you're a Spencer's fan. Huh sure, Okay, Spencer's 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:53.960 over Urban Outfitters. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.000 I guess that is. That's the great divide. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.760 You know, well, Michigan, Ohio State Spencer's Urban Outfitters. 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.800 Urban Outfitters is just trendy like stuff that they think 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.520 is clever, but it's not Spencer. You could go in 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.239 and get a poster of a bikini lady on a Ferrari, 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:16.760 some incense and a giant rubber peanuts, right, Like. 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.480 That's a great store, I guess it is. You know, 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:21.840 everything you need under one roof. 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:23.760 I can't remember what I was in there for the 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.360 other day, but they have like the most extensive selection 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.480 of tasteless shot glasses I've ever seen. 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:32.760 In my life at Spencer. 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.200 Yeah, which, it's like there's people collecting this. 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.480 You can tell I want to know who Spencer is. 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.160 Spencer doesn't want you to know who he is. 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.040 Okay, that's why I called his store Spencer. 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.000 Yeah, his real name is Jackson McClain. 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.760 Oh wow, nice work, Jackson threw me. You sniffed me 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:50.320 off the case. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:53.280 Nice. That was a good saved, Chuck. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:53.680 Thanks. 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.160 Speaking of good saves, I'm gonna bail us out of 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:00.440 this intro. Let's do it take us back way back 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.640 to nineteen seventy nine. Eight. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:05.360 I'm a little seven year old eight. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.400 Sorry, Chuck, We're going to go back one more year 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:09.359 in nineteen seventy eight. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:10.239 Yeah, I was seven. 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.800 Oh so you knew I got it wrong. Okay. 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.880 Well, in nineteen seventy eight in the Chicago Land area, 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.880 there's a university called Northwestern University. 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:22.960 Go Wildcats. 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:24.919 I didn't look this one up. 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.440 I think it is the Wildcats. That's what we're going with. 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.480 And there was a security officer named Terry Maker who 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.600 opened a suspicious looking package. That's I couldn't find why 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.040 Terry Maker opened it. So I should say everybody, I'm 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.440 making the assumption here that it was deemed suspicious and 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.320 they were like, gook, get the security guard. But Terry 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:49.960 Maker opened this package and it exploded. Yeah, he got 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.560 some minor cuts and burns. I don't see too many 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.920 people counting him as a victim of the unibomber, although 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.600 I think Terry Maker would probably take issue with it. Sure, 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.440 but he was, by all accounts, the first person to 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.200 come into contact with the unibomber or one of the 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:10.680 Unibomber's bombs. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.360 Yeah, he was number one in nineteen seventy eight. That 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.560 would go on to be fifteen more bombs over the 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:23.520 seventeen year killing spree. Well, in a way, he killed 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:28.479 three people in the end, wounded many more. And we 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.640 won't go through all of the targets, but they ranged 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:36.800 from American Airlines Flight four forty four to the president 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:42.840 of United Airlines, Percy Wood, to a Vanderbilt University secretary, 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:48.839 to a timber industry lobbyist to an advertising executive. Part 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.880 of the reason why it was so maddening for so 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.599 many years was because there was no rhyme or reason 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.799 seemingly to the victims of the Unibomber's wrath. 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.719 No, the one thing that they all shared in common, 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.320 and the Unibomber also wrote letters to newspapers during this 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.120 whole time. The thing that they had in common was 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.760 that they had something to do with technology, or the 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:19.839 advancement of technology, or the destruction of nature, one of 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.640 those two. And so these people like that was it. 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:25.279 That was all you had to be doing to be 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.640 a target of the unibomber. He was extremely indiscriminate in 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:34.560 picking who lived or died by his hand. And you 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.960 have to understand all of these bombs, None of these 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.960 bombs were sent to scare people. Every single one of 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.520 these bombs, whether they killed somebody or not, were intended 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.640 to kill somebody. Who they killed the Unibomber didn't much care. 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.680 And you can tell by the kind of insution attitude 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:55.000 he had toward who was targeted, like he would get 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:55.760 names wrong. 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:56.440 Yeah. 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:02.560 His last victim a guy named Gilbert Brent Murray. He 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.559 was a timber industry lobbyist. He opened the package because 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:11.200 he was the president of the timber industry lobby even 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.280 though the package was addressed to his predecessor. The reason 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.719 it was addressed to his predecessor was because the Unibomber 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.080 had picked the name out of a directory, and it 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.760 was an out of date directory. So this guy died 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:24.000 as a result of the bomb. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:25.800 You know, that's a very thing to do. 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:26.560 It really was. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.360 And I think the unibomber if you talk to the 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.680 unibomber today, which you could apparently he's very easy to 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:33.960 get in touch with as and become a pempal of 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.600 he would tell you totally fine, like I don't care 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.240 who died, Like the head of this timber lobby died. 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.479 That was ultimately what I was going for. So he 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.400 was killing people who were associated with an idea, a cause, 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:48.520 and the cause that he was opposed to was the 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:53.080 destruction of nature and the advancement of technology. 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.440 Right, So we're talking obviously about Ted Kaczinski. It was 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.880 the man's real name and early on innineteen seventy nine, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:06.000 right after these attacks started happening, the Postal Service, the ATF, 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.200 and the FBI got together formed a task course and 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.800 that's where they came up with the name unibomb unabom 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.840 stood for University Airline bombings, Yeah, because those were the 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:19.160 first bombs that were sent. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.080 And I guess the name of the case was by 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.200 the FBI, but the name Unibomber was made up by 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:26.840 the media covering it, right. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.480 Yeah, that's usually the case. Yeah. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:31.480 In the end, it would become the longest running at 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:33.560 the time. I don't know if it's been outdone yet, 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.600 but longest running and most expensive FBI investigation in history. 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.600 Eventually had one hundred and fifty full time employees on 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:49.600 the case, which is amazing. And he was tough to 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.360 tough to get and you know, he had no forensic 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:53.760 evidence left behind. 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:54.720 He was very careful. 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.200 He used bombs that were made out of materials that 0:07:58.240 --> 0:07:59.880 were easy to find, you couldn't track them. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:02.400 He made all of them by hand, painstaking lee. 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:03.560 Yeah, made them all by hand. 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.080 Like we said, the victims were chosen seemingly at random, 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.600 and had it not been for his manifesto, they may 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:12.480 still be on the lookout for this guy. 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:13.080 Yeah. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:14.880 And even still, the way that they were able to 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.640 connect these things was because during this seventeen year campaign 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:23.720 he would write letters to the editors of newspapers around 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:28.960 the country claiming responsibility for these crimes. And then I 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.760 think half of the bombs had the inscription FC on 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.920 parts that were recovered, and FC stood for Freedom Club 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.240 because the unibomber, didn't call himself the unibomber. Again, that 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.800 was the media. All of these things, including the manifesto, 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:45.679 was signed the Freedom Club. 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.040 A club of one right. 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:51.120 But he always wrote about we whenever he was referring 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:55.240 to himself. Yes, So the whole thing came to a 0:08:55.320 --> 0:09:01.720 head in nineteen ninety six when take Hisski was arrested 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:06.520 in his cabin in Lincoln, Montana. He was known to 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:08.480 his neighbors as the Hermit on the Hill, and he'd 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.320 lived there for years and years and years, I think 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.200 since the early seventies, I believe. 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.320 Yeah, I mean it was a little primitive cabin off grid. 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.280 Inside they found about forty thousand pages worth of journals 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.720 describing all his crimes. They found bomb parts, they found 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.199 a bomb ready to be mailed, and they knew they 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:33.959 had their guy thanks to his brother David turning him 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:38.120 in essentially after reading this manifesto. He was eventually reigned 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.480 in Sacramento, which is where the final murder took place, 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:45.880 and he was sent to jail. Initially, he said, now 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.160 I don't want to I don't want to be I 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.240 don't want to plead insanity. That's a big, big, point, yeah, 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.160 because I don't think he would have admitted something like that. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.679 But he tried to kill himself in earlynineteen ninety eight 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.920 and his jail cell that triggered a psychiatric evaluation and 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:09.000 he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which triggered a plea 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.600 bargain that basically said, you can avoid the death penalty 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.000 now if you take this plea bargain. He did, and 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.600 in January of nineteen nine eight, he pleaded guilty, accepted 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.720 the eight life sentences with no parole, and is now 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:28.800 living with quite a few other famous bombers at the. 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.319 Florence, Colorado Alcatraz. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.120 Of the Rockies the eight X there, right, which that 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:34.520 place in and of itself is crazy. 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:35.280 I looked into it. 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:38.040 Yeah, I feel like it's come up in plenty of 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.720 other episodes before, because it certainly sounds familiar. Yeah, So 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:45.680 I was looking into There's this fascinating article called Harvard 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:47.600 in the Making of the Unibomber by a guy named 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.240 Alston Chase, who I think wrote a book on it. 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.920 But in this article it was so good you read 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.880 it too. Oh yeah, So he really kind of lays 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:01.160 out a pretty great case based on evidence that he 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:06.040 compiled from interviews and things like that, that it's definitely 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.400 not a slam dunk diagnosis that the unibomber has schizophrenia. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:12.640 And he also, I don't know if he says it outright, 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.040 but he at the very least intimates that it was 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:21.199 Ted Kaczinski's brother David and his legal team that created 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.800 the public persona of the Unibombers as a person with 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:29.760 schizophrenia to keep him from getting the death penalty. This 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.640 is much, much, much to the chagrin of the unibomber 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.920 Ted Kaczinski, who eventually did cop to this plea bargain 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.840 because it became clear to him that if he went 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.640 to trial, his defense team was going to put in 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.880 an insanity defense, whether he liked it or not, and 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.480 he was denied the ability to represent himself. 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.840 So he was presented with a choice. 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.839 Either go to trial it plead insanity, maybe get a 0:11:53.920 --> 0:12:00.600 lesser defense, but in the meantime his manifesto would be 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.520 painted as the ramblings of a madman because he would 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:08.600 be deemed insane or plead guilty and not insane, defend insanity, 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:14.720 and then, in his hopes also by extension, defend his 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:16.760 manifesto and the ideas in it. 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.480 Yeah. So he is still in prison in Colorado. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.040 Apparently, like you said, he's got a lot of pin 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:27.640 pals because he lived in a tiny, little primitive cabin 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.440 for so many years. By all accounts, he has adapted 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.280 pretty well to prison life. Being in a small room 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:34.319 is no big deal to him. 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:35.280 Apparently not. 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.960 And you can actually go to the and I'm going 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:39.319 to totally check this out. I don't know if I 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.559 can do it on this upcoming tour, but you can 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:47.319 go see that original cabin at the Newseum in Washington, 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.760 d C. And I've looked up pictures and it's kind 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:51.560 of all right there, which is pretty interesting. 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.720 Yeah, the whole thing is just right there in the Newseum. 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:55.520 Yeah. 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.480 So he was a brilliant guy. Like you said, he 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.240 went to Harvard. He's a nash MERIT finalist, he was 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.360 a math prodigy, started Harvard at sixteen, had an IQ 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.160 or has an IQ of one sixty seven. And it 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.000 was just a is just a brilliant, brilliant guy. 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:17.520 And I think we should take a break getting a tingle. 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.000 And we'll come back and we'll talk. Well, I guess 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:22.360 we should talk about the manifesto. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:24.360 Let's all right, right for this. 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.440 All right, Chuck, and we're back and were kind of 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.360 left it off on Well, we promised we're about to 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.520 talk manifesto, So let's talk manifesto. 0:13:58.920 --> 0:13:59.479 Yeah. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:05.040 And after reading the cliffs notes of this thing in 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:09.320 a few different places, one thing is clear is it's 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:14.040 not the ramblings of a madman a b he has 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.160 and I hate saying this, but he has a lot 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.800 of very salient points about where society is headed due 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:23.520 to technology. 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:25.960 Or or where it was headed back in the nineties 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:27.640 where it fully is now. 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:33.160 Yeah, very much ahead of his time, thinking wise. The 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:38.440 way he went about correcting this was not was abhorrent, obviously, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.840 but when you read parts of this thing the industrial 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:46.160 revolution and its consequences, like here, just let me pull 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:50.440 this one for instance. Okay, here's one pull quote. Once 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.760 a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.120 on it so that they can never again do without 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.880 it unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation. 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.240 Not only do people become dependent as individuals on a 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.920 new item of technology, but even more, the system as 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.480 a whole becomes dependent on it. Does it sound like 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.160 anything that everyone carries in their pocket every day exactly. 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.440 And he also points out that like the way that 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:22.280 this happens, this dependence on technology, it comes about because 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:27.080 new technologies seem good and helpful and useful, and then 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.720 we eventually adapt ourselves to fit them better. We change 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.440 our behavior, we change the way we see things, we 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.200 change the way we think and interact with stuff to 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:39.560 fit the technology. 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.280 And his whole idea was that that is the. 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.880 Inevitable outcome from the Industrial Revolution, and that ever since 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:52.479 the Industrial Revolution, our society has been in a stranglehold 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.479 at the service of technology and the people who serve technology, 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.440 and society has been restructured and reshuffled to the detriment 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.880 of the individual human to local communities as a whole, 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:09.760 and that the only way that this is so ingrained 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.520 now in our world, the only way to stop this 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.840 is to violently overthrow the current system. And he has 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.760 a very lase fair attitude about what comes after. He 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.160 said that we have no illusions about the feasibility of 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.800 creating a new ideal form of society. Our goal only 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.520 is to destroy the existing form of society. That was it, 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.120 That was the whole reason for his campaign was to 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:40.880 be one of the provocateurs of this revolution that upended 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:42.400 technological society. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.800 Yeah, here's another assummation of another part of the manifesto 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.360 about the social infrastructure that he says is dedicated to 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.120 modifying our own behaviors. This infrastructure includes an array of 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.760 government agencies with ever expanding police powers and out of 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.240 control regulatory system that encourages the limitless multiplication of laws, 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:08.159 an education establishment and stresses conformism. You biquit his television networks. 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.320 Who's Fair is essentially an electronic form of value, and 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.199 a medical and psychological establishment that promotes the indiscriminate use 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:20.119 of mind altering drugs. So again, I don't want this 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:21.800 to come across that I like look up to this 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.439 guy in anyway. But when you read some of the stuff, 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:28.639 you think, Man, if this guy had only reined it in, 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:30.040 he could have done good. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:31.840 Yeah. 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.360 I can't remember what the turning point was, but there 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.399 was some there was some potential path that he was 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.200 on where he could have done this peacefully, and he 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.080 pulled back and went went a violent way. And I think, 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.119 I think quite rightly that if he were not locked 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.080 up for the rest of his life. He would he 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.159 would keep sending bombs out, he would not stop. No, 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:59.000 because he's he doesn't he's not a. 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:58.199 A moral agent. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.439 He is rational agent, and he sees this as a 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.919 rational and to the means, to his means, which is 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.040 taking out people who may or may not be in 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.679 a position to advance technological society. 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.399 Well, yeah, and that's what was That's where the line 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.719 the delineation occurs, where he was he's such a smart person. 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:24.040 But that's such a dumb like there's blowing someone up, 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.920 is gonna is not gonna halt any innovations or change 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:28.840 the course of where we're. 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:29.879 Headed as a society. 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.240 Right, it was just I mean to call it misguided 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:35.240 is the understatement of the year. 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:42.000 So and forgive me for armchair psychologalizing here, but now 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.920 you start to get into the idea of whether or 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:50.520 not he was fulfilling or indulging his own desire to kill. Well, 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.080 you never know, because if he is thinking about things 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.240 like this and he is such a rational person, surely 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.320 there would have been other ways to do this that 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.720 were either more productive or on the other hand, more destructive, right, 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.439 like sending a bomb that might take out one or 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.639 two or three people is not. It's and by making 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.520 these bombs painstaking lee by hand over the course of 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:19.159 months and probably years, sometimes that's not a very productive 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.679 way of achieving this goal. So it makes you wonder 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.439 did this guy just want to kill people and that 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.000 that coupled with this this view of technological society to 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:30.639 form what we know is the unibomber. 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.280 Well, I think that was probably the case, is he 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:36.639 was angry at where things were headed and he wanted 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:37.720 to take it out on somebody. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.360 Yeah, but again, I want to go back to this 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.200 idea that he is schizophrenic. 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.840 Right, there is a that is not necessarily the case. 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:51.920 He was given a temporary or provisional or conditional schizophrenic 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:58.480 or diagnosis of schizophrenia by a court ordered psychiatrist forensic psychiatrists, 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:00.560 and that was it. I don't I don't believe she 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.919 ever went back and made an official diagnosis. Other people 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:08.760 in the media, other psychiatrists were basically diagnosing them from afar. 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:14.600 Some psychiatrists met with him, but they didn't officially examine him. 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.880 So basically, just based on his actions and his manifesto 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.320 and what was contained within, he was largely given this 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.920 diagnosis of schizophrenia, and I couldn't find anything that said 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.760 that he's being treated for schizophrenia now, which is kind 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.040 of a big deal because it's a twofold big deal. 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.480 One it says it dismisses him as just a complete 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:42.680 madman who is delusional, but it also does a tremendous 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.760 disservice to people with schizophrenia because it says, this is 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.080 what people with schizophrenia do, They send bombs to people. 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.680 They go and live in like Montana alone for thirty 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.760 years and send bombs to people the whole time. So 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:01.680 it's doing that same armchair psycho logulizing that I was doing. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.639 Is it's worse if you're an actual psychiatrist, you know? 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.520 Yeah, all right, I think we should talk a little 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.960 bit about how this manifesto came to be in public view, 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:18.119 because it's a super interesting sub story in itself. The 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:20.359 great great article from the Washington Post where I got 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.199 most of this part, but they make the point in 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.800 this article is super interesting to me that the time 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.639 that this happened, in the mid to late nineties, it 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:34.360 was a transitionary time in technology in and of itself, 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:38.520 and that the Internet was around, but it wasn't ubiquitous, 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.480 and it's not where everyone went for everything, including news. 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:46.119 So the fact that this publishing of the manifesto in 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.439 the Washington Post, which we'll talk about in a second, 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:52.320 it says here it was perhaps the last one, the 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.440 last newsworthy document to appear only in print, and it's 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:00.400 very ironic considering what he was railing against was that 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:03.280 it was before everyone was getting their news from the internet. 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.480 So the fact that they actually it was it was 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.600 an era that was it was being forgotten the newspaper, 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.280 print in print, and that's how he got his message 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:19.680 out finally by sending packages containing this manifesto to the 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:21.639 New York Times in the Washington Post in June of 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:22.560 nineteen ninety five. 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.160 Yeah, so they each one got a package one day 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:29.200 after the other, and the one to the Post had 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.920 a return name and address Boon Long Ho thirty six, 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.320 nine Renoso Court, San Jose, California, nine to five one 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.240 three six. And it turns out that that address and 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:43.040 that person it was a He was a CFO of 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:47.840 a Thai circuit board maker whose headquarters were in San Jose. Yeah, 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.080 that was the address for that. So they you can 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:55.119 imagine that Boon Long Ho was pretty nervous, yeah, because 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:57.320 rather than being like the recipient of a bomb, he 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.720