I have no idea what the manifesto was supposed to mean.
OK - I'll try to boil down the 35 pages.
The manifesto was an argument that technology was bad for the human race, causing more suffering than it prevented. It called for a revolution against big industry and advanced technology. (So it's the opposite of what I think.) It also rails about political correctness, especially at universities. The anti-liberal part would fit in really well with the extreme MAGA hat wearing types that "aren't racist, but...". His arguments would make him a leader of those types, because some of what he writes does hit at leftist stereotypes that do exist to some degree. (If people listen to Alex Jones, they can handle a lot more crazy than the Unabomber's arguments.) However, his stereotype of a leftist is, at its core, full of self-loathing and feelings of inferiority.
But after that, he starts making arguments I agree with. He says man requires a "power process". He need to have some control to set goals that require effort and achieve them. I do think that's a big issue we face. It used to be that providing for biological needs was a goal that required effort and was achievable through that effort. Today, he argues, you can fulfill biological need through obedience to our system, and a man has to create surrogate activities to fulfill the power process.
He lobs that argument at scientists too. He says the pursuit of technology is not generally driven by scientific curiosity or a desire to help mankind as claimed. It's a researchers surrogate activity, a way to fulfill their power process.
He equates the ability for a person to fulfill their power process with freedom and then lays out an argument that technology makes that opportunity more and more scarce to the average person.
Then he starts making predictions about the future (manifesto is 23 years old now.) He predicts that without intervention, computers will probably be able to do everything people can do, but better. He argues that if computers are allowed to make decisions at that point, we will be at their mercy, unable to predict what they will decide. Machines won't need to take over and we won't decide to put them in power, but because they always appear to produce better results, we'll do whatever they direct us to do. If complete control isn't given to machines, there will only be a few elite making decisions at the top.
If computers can't do everything better than people, they will still do a lot of things better than people, which will lead to a huge labor surplus at "lower levels of ability". At higher levels of ability, more and more will be expected and more training will be required. Fewer and fewer people will reach the top. As machines do the important work, we may keep ourselves busy with an increase in service industries. "[FONT=Helvetica, Verdana, Arial]
Thus people will would spend their time shinning each others shoes, driving each other around inn taxicab, making handicrafts for one another, waiting on each other's tables, etc. This seems to us a thoroughly contemptible way for the human race to end up, and we doubt that many people would find fulfilling lives in such pointless busy-work. They would seek other, dangerous outlets (drugs, , crime, "cults," hate groups)..."
Then he argues that it is not enough to be against something, you must also be for something and he lays out his 'return to nature' plan.
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