Industrial Society and Its Future Unabomber (Ft. Unabomber)

INTRODUCTION

1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have
been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly
increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in
“advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society,
have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings
to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffe¬
ring (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and
have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The
continued development of technology will worsen the si¬
tuation. It will certainly subject human being to greater in¬
dignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world,
it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psy¬
chological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical
suffering even in “advanced” countries.

2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it
may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve
a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but
only after passing through a long and very painful period
of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently redu¬
cing human beings and many other living organisms to
engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.
Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will
be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying
the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of
dignity and autonomy.