The Unabomber




    I suppose of all the things that I consider myself, a nihilist must be the most difficult to comprehend (although I once wrote a letter to the editor in my undergraduate college's political newsletter demanding equal treatment for political organization on campus besides the Republicans and the democrats. People seemed to have such a hard time with it, especially when I declared myself a monarchist, that they could only be satisfied when I assured them it was sarcastic). How, for instance, can I be a nihilist and also a monarchist or a progressive? Well when I think of nihilism, I don't think of belief in nothing (as in the nihilists in The Big Lebowski ) or the desire that there should be no social structure or social materials again. I merely think that our world has past the point of no return, that we will only make life worse in our vain attempts at making it better. The real solution is to destroy everything and start from scratch. Seriously (though not really seriously, since I haven't even begun to consider how that might be possible to both destroy everything and have someone to start from scratch, but I seriously believe that's the way it'll have to go).

    Most people get upset at the idea that people will die. Now, no one wants "people to die" except maybe the mad, but we have this strange notion that each individual life is so sacred that we should even sacrifice life in order to preserve it. Eventually there will be three people on this earth. One person will be the last remaining member of a totalitarian government. The other two will be screaming at this one-person government that the other is threatening his life and should die. The loudest will win. Maybe my story is a bit extreme, but we should decide at some point that everyone cannot be more free than everyone else.

    Being a nihilist involves being na�ve, so I'll be na�ve. It's na�ve to think that we could destory our world to the point that the remaining humans could live like the !Kung San did only several decades ago. It is indeed na�ve to think that the !Kung San lived how we think they did. But I find comfort and focus in that na�ve dream.

    The following are hyperlinks to various sites dealing with the most famous of nihilists (at least I say he's a nihilist and here I am with my own web page to make it so), I'm speaking of the Unabomber.

      Unabomber Information Page , by Kyle Montgomery and Tony Sodano, two high school students from the state of Washington

      Industrial Society and its Future, from the pages of Tung-Hui Ho

      Pathfinder's Unabomber Page. It contains excellent resources, but it is ironically overrun by mainstream media and commercialism.

      Unabom Information Center , by [email protected]. While this site also contains excellent information, it has a distracting design.

      The Right Side of the Web's Al Gore/Unabomber Quiz. You try to distinquish quotes by the Unabomber from quotes by the Vice President.

      "Stylistic Evidence Unmasks the Unabomber" by Robert J. Ciaffani from DuomatrX

      Unabomber Political Action Committee. This site is filled with fun and interesting bits of information, articles, responses, etc., all wrapped in a great design. Apparently it's a parody (for that's what Yahoo! says it is).

      HotWired's Unabomber Site. Another excellent site supported by banner ads.

      The Frog Farm's Unabomber Page. Actually, this whole site is cool.

      Unabomber, Thoreau, the Bomb , by Scott Alexander

    Of course, the web is full of stuff about the Unabomber, some good, some not worth the server space. One should also be aware that sites drop out of existence fairly frequently.