For a Revolution Against the Technological System

‍"It is useless to rail against capitalism. Capitalism did not create our world; the machine did."

‍— The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul

When discussing the ongoing environmental catastrophe, I am often asked what 'solutions' I propose. In this particular use of the term 'solution,' it does not mean 'a set of decisions and actions that can resolve a difficulty' (as defined by the dictionary). Instead, it refers to 'a set of decisions and actions carefully planned by scientists, technicians, and governments, capable of resolving the socio-ecological crisis without taking risks and while maintaining modern material comforts – Wi-Fi, Internet, smartphones, computers, cars, refrigerators, microwaves, washing machines, ovens, stovetops, kettles, heating, air conditioning, running water, hot water, electricity, hospitals, high-speed transportation, supermarkets, cinemas, etc.'

You can’t solve anything while keeping most of the elements that constitute the problem. It takes 3,000 tons of sand to construct a building the size of a hospital, 200 tons for a single-family home, and 30,000 tons for a kilometer of highway [1]. In 2017, approximately 44 billion tons of sand, gravel, and clay were extracted from the Earth's crust — the equivalent of more than four million Eiffel Towers [2]. Replacing this sand with another material only shifts the problem and ultimately creates new ones. Maintaining the addiction to modern comforts based on reckless extractivism, while blindly submitting to the authority of a bunch of incompetents, is not a solution; it’s suicide. The solution is Revolution. Not to implement yet another utopian political project destined to fail as miserably as the others, but to abolish technological slavery, put an end to the deadly reign of machines, and restore humanity’s dignity.

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The Growing Popularity of Theodore Kaczynski's Ideas

Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was a brilliant mathematician who became infamous for his mail bomb campaign that shook the United States for nearly two decades. He is also the author of Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How? (2016). The central idea advocated in this book is that only the complete dismantling of the techno-industrial system can halt the destruction it causes. This article is not intended to excuse Theodore Kaczynski's actions or encourage anyone to imitate him. Its purpose is to present his diagnosis of the current situation and his proposals for addressing the mess we have inherited. At no point does Kaczynski advocate violence; instead, he offers a highly strategic treatise that will appeal to those determined to tackle the ongoing catastrophe.

With an IQ of 167 and having entered Harvard University at the age of 16, Theodore Kaczynski was far from being a madman, as can be seen by reading his works, watching the Netflix series Unabomber: In His Own Words [3], or researching his trial [4]. Nevertheless, for those more susceptible to media demonization, a prominent psychology professor reminds us that 'dehumanized monsters exist only in our oversimplified minds' and that 'being immoral is never equivalent to lacking morality entirely [5].' In the United States, Kaczynski's ideas are attracting an increasingly diverse audience, ranging from anarchists and environmentalists [6] to conservatives and Fox News commentators [7], as well as many teenagers expressing their rejection of modernity on TikTok.

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"Using the hashtags #tedpill, #tedk, and #tedkazcynski—which have collectively garnered millions of views—the Tedpilled place photographs of the Unabomber in “duets” with other videos, creating a counterpoint between Kaczynski’s views and the supposed excesses of influencer culture.

[…]

To swallow the “Ted pill” is to embrace the romance of a return to a pre-industrial, hunter-gatherer lifestyle. It is to reject modernity, agriculture, and civilization itself. [8]"

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If Theodore Kaczynski's ideas resonate with such a wide political spectrum and appeal to so many people in the United States (and worldwide), they are worth a closer look. People are drawn to certain ideas because they strike a chord within them, likely addressing their concerns, expectations, and/or current needs. Is it unreasonable or illogical to wish for the collapse of a system that threatens the survival of our own species? To me, this attitude seems entirely natural, wise, and coherent. It is the same survival instinct that allowed Homo sapiens to spread across almost every continent and adapt to environments that sometimes had harsh climates. Without this instinct, our species would have quickly gone extinct and would not boast a longevity of 300,000 years today. To put things in perspective, the industrial civilization born about two centuries ago accounts for less than 0.1% of human history. Yet, in this extremely short period, the industrial system has inflicted immense damage on living systems, biological diversity, and cultural diversity.

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A Problem of Culture, Not Human Nature

Just a century ago, this world was still teeming with life: several million Indigenous people—up to 18 million individuals, according to some estimates [9]—inhabited North America before the European invasion and they coexisted with 30 to 60 million bison [10] (by 1890, only 750 bison remained [11]); in the 19th century, still in North America, massive flocks of passenger pigeons “darkened the sky almost out of sight” and could “break tree branches and sometimes knock them down” (descendants of Europeans exterminated the species in a few decades, likely by the early 20th century [12]); in Africa, where the human population stood at around 140 million in 1820 [13], more than 20 million elephants roamed the savannas and forests (today, only a few hundred thousand remain [14]); according to WWF, “only 150 years ago, the African savannas were full of rhinoceroses and other wild animals [15]”; more than 85% of wetlands have disappeared since the 18th century, the famous century of “Enlightenment,” and more than 75% of major rivers have had their courses altered by infrastructure [16]; coral has declined by half in less than 200 years [17]; seagrass beds have decreased by 10% per decade during the 20th century [18]; the biomass of large predatory fish has been reduced by nearly 70% in a century [19]; livestock accounts for 59% of the total biomass of terrestrial vertebrates, humans 36%, and wild vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians) only 5% [20]; a million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction in the coming decades, “something that has never occurred before in the history of humanity“ [21].

While many human cultures have coexisted with animal and plant species for millennia, and today 80% of the remaining global biodiversity is found on lands "owned, occupied, or used [22]" by Indigenous peoples, the problem lies not in human nature but in the types of societies humans have created. In fact, cultural diversity is disappearing alongside biological diversity. 90% of languages will have vanished by the end of this century[23]. Since the rise of city-states and agriculture, civilizations have systematically destroyed forests, halving the planet's plant biomass and reducing its diversity by over 20% in 11,000 years [24].

"From Judea to Morocco, and on the other hand from Athens to Genoa, all those bald summits which look from on high into the Mediterranean have lost their forests, their crown of cultivation. And will those forests adorn those summits again? Never. If the ancient gods, and the active and strong peoples, in whose time those shores were blossoming, should to-day rise from their graves, they would say : " O gloomy peoples of the Book, of grammars, of words, and of vain subtleties, what have ye made of Nature ? [25]"

— The Bible of humanity, Jules Michelet (1864)

Non-state peoples are certainly capable of damaging their environment (and sometimes do), but it is nothing compared to the barren deserts left in the wake of ancient civilizations. The first industrial revolution and the power of motorized machines have tremendously amplified the destructive power of civilization. Moreover, the exploitation of coal probably saved Western civilization from collapse due to the scarcity in the 15th and 16th centuries of the main fuel that powered cities and industries: wood [26].

The outcome is well-known.

Controlling the development of a society is impossible

To return to Theodore Kaczynski, he specifies in the introduction:

"The entire work-the part published here together with the parts that at present exist only in the form of imperfect drafts-goes far beyond my earlier works, Industrial Society and Its Future and Technological Slavery, and it represents the more-or-Iess final result of a lifetime of thought and reading-during the last thirty-five years, intensive thought and specifically purposeful reading."

We are inclined to believe this given the impressive number of references cited throughout the text. The work is divided into four chapters, and I will focus here on the first.

Based on numerous historical examples, Kaczynski argues that it is impossible to rationally control the evolution of a society.

"In specific contexts in which abundant empirical evidence is available, fairly reliable short-term prediction and control of a society's behavior may be possible. For example, economists can predict some of the immediate consequences for a modern industrial society of a rise or a fall in the interest rates. Hence, by raising or lowering interest rates they can manipulate such variables as the levels of inflation and of unemployment. Indirect consequences are harder to predict, and prediction of the consequences of more elaborate financial manipulations is largely guesswork. That's why the economic policies of the U. S. government are subject to so much controversy: No one knows for certain what the consequences of those policies really are.

Outside of contexts in which abundant empirical evidence is available, or when longer-term effects are at issue, successful prediction-and therefore successful management of a society's development-is far more difficult. In fact, failure is the norm.

[…]

There are good reasons why humans' capacity to control the development of their societies has failed to progress. In order to control the development of a society you would have to be able to predict how the society would react to any given action you might take, and such predictions have generally proven to be highly unreliable. Human societies are complex systems-technologically advanced societies are most decidedly complex-and prediction of the behavior of complex systems presents difficulties that are not contingent on the present state of our knowledge or our level of technological development."

This inability to control the development of a society increases with its complexity. This explains, among other things, why complex societies—civilizations—have an average lifespan of a mere 336 years [27], compared to countless other cultures that have persisted for several millennia (BaYaka, San, Hadza, Maasai, Australian Aboriginals, etc.). However, this does not mean that non-state societies lasting for millennia control their development either. The more a society increases in complexity—rapid population growth, the emergence of cities and the state, the development of bureaucracy, modern technologies, a market system replacing traditional systems for resource distribution—the greater the risk of collapse. Nevertheless, technological progress could potentially come to the rescue of a faltering Leviathan.

"Studies on urban development conducted by Luis Bettencourt of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico support this thesis [of diminishing returns on innovation]. His research team's work suggests that an ever-increasing rate of innovation is required to sustain urban growth and prevent stagnation or collapse, and in the long term, this cannot be sustainable [28]."

The phenomenal power of artificial intelligence—particularly with the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or strong AI—could significantly increase the rate of innovation and, logically, delay the collapse of industrial civilization. Such a scenario cannot be ruled out, especially since global AI experts like Jürgen Schmidhuber and Ilya Sutskever seem very confident in the advent of 'this new form of life that will make us obsolete [29].' However, according to Kaczynski, it wouldn’t even take that; it would suffice for AI to surpass humans in certain specific technical domains for the work of both muscles and brains to become permanently unnecessary for maintaining and expanding the technological system. What will become of humans in this scenario? No one knows.

Kaczynski then cites a passage from an op-ed published in 2000 in Wired magazine by Bill Joy, co-founder and former chief scientist of the tech firm Sun Microsystems, who expresses concern about the potentially cataclysmic consequences of developing extraordinarily powerful technology, particularly nanotechnology.

"[U]nintended consequences [are] a well-known problem with the design and use of technology .... The cause of many [unintended consequences] seems clear: The systems involved are complex, involving interaction among and feedback between many parts. Any changes to such a system will cascade in ways that are difficult to predict; this is especially true when human actions are involved."

Further into the same article, he states:

“An immediate consequence of the Faustian bargain in obtaining the great power of nanotechnology is that we run a grave risk—the risk that we might destroy the biosphere on which all life depends.”

He is far from alone in sharing this view [31].

As inequality, unemployment, and poverty rise, so does the anger they generate, driving tensions in industrial society to unprecedented heights. Instability grows, and in response, people increasingly turn to authoritarian leaders who promise to restore order, prosperity, and dignity. What held true in the 20th century remains just as relevant in the 21st. Yet the power of ancient emperors, absolute monarchs from the 15th century onward, and 20th-century dictators—romanticized in the collective imagination—was, in reality, far more constrained than commonly assumed.

"Revolutionary dictators of the 20th century, such as Hitler and Stalin, were probably more powerful than traditional "absolute" monarchs, because the revolutionary character of their regimes had done away with many of the traditional, formal or informal social structures and customary restraints that had curbed the "legitimate" monarchs' exercise of their power. But even the revolutionary dictators' power was in practice far less than absolute."

Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was 'unable to regulate its own labor force,' as workers frequently changed jobs at a high rate, creating a chaotic labor market. The 'Great Terror [32]' of 1937 and 1938—during which 1.5 million people were arrested and 750,000 executed—was 'the largest state massacre ever carried out in Europe during peacetime.' However, it was far from a meticulously planned and masterfully orchestrated process by Stalin. While he was certainly its instigator, 'it was a process hastily initiated by a frightened dictator who quickly lost control.' The recklessness of the Terror is evident in its consequences: it led to the elimination of 'almost all trained and experienced officers in the upper ranks of the Soviet army and navy.' Weakened by the purges, the Soviet military was unable to withstand the assault of German forces in 1941."

Kaczynski offers a comparable analysis of the Nazi regime. During the 1930s, opposing the war effort and rearmament, the German working class resisted the reduction in consumer goods production demanded by the regime (the production of everyday goods hindered arms manufacturing). In 1936, in the Münster region, popular resistance forced 'the Nazis to reinstall crucifixes they had removed from school buildings.' Moreover, many Wehrmacht generals likely felt that Hitler's delusional plans would lead Germany to ruin, and some went so far as to attempt his assassination, including the organization of a spectacular bombing on July 20, 1944. Between 1938 and 1944, multiple attempts were made to assassinate the Führer. Hitler himself was said to have had 'incredible luck,' always being 'saved at the last moment by some fortuitous circumstance.'"

On the inability of civilizations to control their development, Kaczynski cites the words of a prominent 20th-century German writer and sociologist, Norbert Elias. He wrote that:

"[…] about the unplanned and unintended character of all earlier historical change. […] The process of civilization [moves according to] the blind dynamics of people interweaving their actions [...] "

Considered one of the greatest historians of the 20th century, Fernand Braudel made a similar observation.

"Civilizations are collective mentalities [...]

In every period, a certain view of the world, a collective mentality, dominates the whole  of society. Dictating a society's attitudes, guiding its choices, confirming its prejudices and directing its actions, this is very much a fact of civilization. Far more than the accidents or the historical and social circumstances of a period, it derives from the distant past, from ancient beliefs, fears and anxieties which are almost unconscious — an immense contamination whose germs are lost to memory but transmitted from generation to generation. A society's reactions to the events of the day, to the pressure upon it, to the decisions it must face, are less a matter of logic or even self-interest than the response to an unexpressed and often inexpressible compulsion arising from the collective unconscious.

These basic values, these, are assuredly the features that civilizations can least easily communicate one to another. They are what isolate and differentiate them most sharply. And such habits of mind survive the passage of time. They change little, and change slowly, after a long incubation which itself is largely unconscious too."

Kaczynski mentions several political leaders and bureaucrats in his text (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Henry Kissinger, etc.) who have admitted that they did not possess the power they are usually credited with. Henry Kissinger, a highly influential American consultant and diplomat in the 20th century, stated:

"History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren't realized, or wishes that were fulfilled and then turned out to be different from what one expected."

For his part, Harry S. Truman, Roosevelt's successor as President of the United States in 1945, declared:

"The President may have a great many powers given to him in the Constitution, and may have powers under certain laws which are given to him by the Congress of the United States ; but the principal power that the President has is to bring people in and try to persuade them to do what they ought to do without persuasion. That’s what I spend most of my time doing. That’s what the powers of the President amount to."

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Even those in power seem fully aware of their inability to steer the course of society in any specific, deliberate direction. So why do politicians seek the throne if the consensus among elites is that governments cannot control the development of society? What legitimacy can a government still claim in this context? These questions should prompt us to seriously reconsider the true role of the state and international institutions. What are their real objectives? Does their power truly serve to ensure long-term security and well-being for the people? Do they actually have the means to achieve these goals? Or is the reach of their power limited to safeguarding the short-term interests of the elites at the top?

"It is crucial to recognize that much of the reduction in inequality during the 20th century was driven either by wars or by political responses to those wars, often made under urgent circumstances. The reduction of inequality was not a calm, natural outcome of the parliamentary democratic process [34]."

— Thomas Piketty, French economist.

The historian Walter Scheidel supports Piketty's view [35].

Further into the first chapter, Kaczynski critiques the technophiles who believe that technological power and the ability to control (and improve society) follow the same upward trajectory. However, their argument is based not on solid evidence but on a mere belief—that technology is inherently good (for the more naïve among them, like Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine), or that technology is neutral (as most others contend). In his analysis of industrial society, sociologist and historian Jacques Ellul demonstrated that technology is not neutral [36].

Kaczynski continues:

"Right down to the present (2013), people who should know better have continued to ignore the fact that the development of societies can never be rationally controlled. Thus, we often find technophiles making such absurd statements as: "humanity is in charge of its own fate"; "[we will] take charge of our own evolution"; or, "people [will] seize control of the evolutionary process." The technophiles want to "guide research so that technology improve[s] society"; they have created a "Singularity University" and a "Singularity Institute" that are supposed to "shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications" of technological progress, and "make sure … that artificial intelligence ... is friendly" to humans.

Of course, the technophiles won't be able to "shape the advances" of technology or make sure that they "improve society" and are friendly to humans. Technological advances will be "shaped" in the long run by unpredictable and uncontrollable power-struggles among rival groups that will develop and apply technology for the sole purpose of gaining advantages over their competitors."

The cult of technology inevitably leads to biased judgments on these matters. Jacques Ellul wrote that "man cannot live without the sacred," which is why "He therefore transfers his sense of the sacred to the very thing which has destroyed its former object: to technique itself [37]."

In the second chapter, Kaczynski further develops his theory, offering a compelling explanation for the impossibility of rationally controlling the development of society. The "rival groups," which he refers to as "self-propagating systems," include "nations, corporations, labor unions, churches, and political parties; also some groups that are not clearly delimited and lack formal organization, such as schools of thought, social networks, and subcultures" These "self-propagating systems" compete with one another to continually expand their power and size, ensuring short-term survival. This is why these systems cannot focus on their long-term survival and instead fall into a suicidal spiral, pulling all of humanity down into the abyss.

"Like biological organisms, the world's leading human self-prop systems exploit every opportunity, utilize every resource, and invade every corner where they can find anything that will be of use to them in their endless search for power. And as technology advances, more and more of what formerly seemed useless turns out to be useful after all, so that more and more resources are extracted, more and more corners are invaded, and more and more destructive consequences follow.

[…] if the development of the technological world-system is allowed to proceed to its logical conclusion, then in all probability the Earth will be left a dead planet-a planet on which nothing will remain alive except, maybe, some of the simplest organisms-certain bacteria, algae, etc.-that are capable of surviving under extreme conditions."

Many still fail to recognize the gravity of the situation—or dismiss it for various reasons. Some reject the idea of humanity's self-destruction through technology as too extreme, radical, or even laughable. Recently, when french journalist Salomé Saqué, 27 years old, discussed the consequences of climate change and the impending global "apocalypse," she was ridiculed by several older editorialists, who laughed uproariously on the 28 minutes show on Arte [38]. These journalists mock her because, in truth, the apocalypse is already here—it’s called industrial civilization—and they are among its primary beneficiaries on Earth. The main flaw in Saqué’s intervention is that, like many others, she doesn’t seem to grasp that the industrial revolution itself is the trigger for the rapid acceleration of climate change. Climate change is a symptom, not the root cause. Just as fossil fuels gave rise to the techno-industrial system, they are so essential to it that the system can never function without them. As Australian physicist Derek Abbott points out, to run an industrial civilization entirely on nuclear power, at least 15,000 additional nuclear plants would need to be built, on top of the 445 already in operation [39][40]. This is unlikely to happen before the climate crisis intensifies (and perhaps that’s for the best). Meanwhile, the renewable energy industry will continue to grow, which is why Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI, co-founded by Elon Musk, has said the following:

"I think it's pretty likely the entire surface of the earth will be covered with solar panels and data centers. [41]"

A rather delightful prospect, isn't it?

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But Kaczynski is not only critical of technophiles; he also highlights the credulity of certain well-known technocritical thinkers, including Ivan Illich.

"In a particularly fuddled excursion into fantasy written several decades ago, the noted technology critic Ivan Illich asserted that "society must be reconstructed to enlarge the contribution of autonomous individuals and primary groups to the total effectiveness of a new system of production designed to satisfy the human needs which it also determines," and that a "convivial society should be designed to allow all its members the most autonomous action by means of tools least controlled by others"-as if a society could be consciously and rationally "reconstructed" or "designed.""

The goal here is not to discard Illich's critical work on industrial society, but rather to highlight the utopian remarks of many intellectuals and scientists when proposing realistic solutions to the problems of their time.

For all these reasons, and to prevent irreversible damage to the biosphere with devastating consequences for humanity, Kaczynski argues that the only realistic solution is to dismantle the techno-industrial system. Achieving this goal, he asserts, requires a revolution against technology. He further elaborates in the third and fourth chapters on "how to transform society," the "pitfalls to avoid," and the "strategic directions for an anti-technology movement." These topics, however, will not be addressed here.

The proposition put forward by Theodore Kaczynski may seem extreme or radical at first glance, but it is important to remember that we are likely facing the greatest challenge in human history. In many ways, the situation mirrors the period of the Occupation during World War II, where the tyranny of machines has replaced that of the Nazis. Technological slavery is the legacy of the scientific and technical revolutions of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, which desacralized nature (including humanity) and sanctified technological progress. The technological system that resulted is a blind, colonizing, and genocidal force. In this case, we are talking about the potential extinction of the human species and all complex life forms on Earth. While we hesitate to consider all available options, invoking dogmatic beliefs, the technological system continues to inflict increasing damage on the biosphere. The more damage it causes, the less the Earth will be able to support life—humans included—once the technological system collapses. Refusing to prioritize effectiveness by citing extravagant philosophical or moral rationalizations is not a dignified or responsible stance in light of the gravity of the situation.

The mining industry is aggressively lobbying to mine the ocean floor in the Pacific in search of essential metals for disruptive technologies and so-called "green" technologies. This is yet another absurdity, as marine sediments play a crucial role in regulating the carbon and oxygen cycles [42]. The convergence of NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Sciences), a "transhumanist" societal project aimed at enhancing the performance of humans and nature, is being imposed on the United States, Europe, Japan, and China by governments, international institutions, and transnational corporations without any democratic consultation [43]. Scientists are fervently seeking ways to produce substitute fuels from industrial plantations of various plant species [44]. Entrepreneurs and scientists want to use geoengineering to tame the climate, without any consideration for the chain reactions such interventions might provoke. Furthermore, carbon capture and storage techniques, known as "negative emissions," are presented as a softened version of climate engineering [45]. But how could applying the same deadly technocratic logic – replacing inefficient living systems with artificial ones to meet the growing needs of technological civilization – which has trapped us in the industrial deadlock for two centuries, possibly be effective in freeing us from it?

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When you think about it, stopping and dismantling the technological system is a relatively simple task from a technical perspective. It’s far less complex than sending humans to the Moon or robots to Mars, and it’s nothing like designing a nuclear plant, a smartphone, a computer, or even a car. What is lacking is the will, the desire to resist and fight for a just and noble cause. In an era where the techno-industrial system condemns us to ever more degrading "bullshit jobs," what could be more inspiring than embracing the revolutionary ideal of a world free from the grip of machines?

Ernesto Che Guevara, who used the right method—the revolution—in the service of a misguided goal—establishing socialism in Cuba—wrote:

"The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to conceive of a true revolutionary without this quality. [46]"

Do you love life? Do you love this world, its forests and oceans, its lakes and rivers, its meadows and mountains? Do you love its inhabitants? If your answer is yes, then you should read Anti-Tech Revolution, for the technological system will destroy it all. I leave the final word to Theodore Kaczynski, with more quotes from his book.

"Anyone who thinks the technological world-system is ever going to stop burning fossil fuels (while any are left) is dreaming. But whether or not the system ever renounces such fuels, other destructive sources of energy will be utilized. Nuclear power-plants generate radioactive waste; no provably safe way of disposing of such waste has yet been indentified, and the world's leading self-prop systems aren't even trying very hard to find a permanent home for the accumulating radioactive garbage. Of course, the self-prop systems need energy for the maintenance of their power here and now, whereas radioactive waste represents only a danger for the future and, as we've emphasized, natural selection favors self-prop systems that compete for power in the present with little regard for longterm consequences. So nuclear power-plants continue to be built, while the problem of dealing with their burned-out fuel is largely neglected. In fact, the problem of nuclear waste is on track to become totally unmanageable because, instead of a few of the big, old-style reactors, numerous small ones ("mini-nukes") will soon be built, so that every little town can have its own nuclear power-plant. With the big, old-style reactors at least the radioactive wastes have been concentrated at a relatively small number of sites, but with numerous mini-nukes scattered over the world radioactive wastes will be everywhere. One would have to be extraordinarily naive, or else gifted with a remarkable capacity for self-deception, to believe that each little two-bit burg is going to handle its nuclear waste responsibly. In practice, much of the radioactive material will escape into the environment.

"Green" energy sources aren't going to wean the system from its dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power. But even if they did, green energy sources don't look so green when one examines them closely."

"Those of us who believe that the technological system is an evil are often tempted to attack some of the subordinate evils that are associated with it [...]. This temptation should be resisted. One may, of course, use evils like those I've listed as tools to attack the technological system by pointing out that similar evils inevitably accompany any such system. But it is inadvisable to attack any of the subordinate evils independently of an attack on the technological system as a whole."

"You have to make a decision: Is the elimination of the technological system worth all of the desperate risks and terrifying disasters that it will entail? If you don't have the courage to answer "yes" to that question, then you'd better quit whining about the evils and hardships of the modern world and just adapt yourself to them as best you can, because nothing short of the collapse of the system will ever get us off the road that we are on now."