Taking The Ted Pill

Preface/Disclaimer: This is just an observation of what I’ve been seeing culminating over the last five years. I am in no way commending nor defending the actions of Ted Kaczynski, nor am I encouraging others to follow in his footsteps. 

“The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race” is a phrase that has been increasingly repeated over the past five years. While this phrase may seem innocent, it’s the opening line of Industrial Society and Its Future, the manifesto of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. Ted’s manifesto justifying his bombing campaign, which resulted in 3 dead and 23 injured. Over the last five years, Ted and his beliefs have grown in popularity and support, perhaps as a result of two domineering cultural concerns, technological takeover, and climate change.

It’s no longer a controversial statement that social media is damaging to the mental health of its users. Much of this depression and low self-esteem stems from comparison. Influencers are incentivized to post only the most perfect photos of themselves and their lives because this is what receives the most engagement, earning them more money; this unrealistic expectation often results in influencers heavily editing their photos to enhance themselves and their lifestyle. By consuming this content, naturally, users compare themselves to these influencers and wonder why their looks and lives aren’t as glamorous. Comparison on social media is a significant contributor to the globally increasing rates of mental illness and eating disorders among young adults and adolescents. In a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, 26% of teens said that social media has made them feel worse about themselves, and 4% said social media made them feel “a lot” worse about themselves. In a study published in the National Library of Medicine, 44% of adolescent girls believed that they were overweight, and 60% of girls were actively trying to lose weight, despite being within normal weight ranges. A 2019 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that eating disorders increased over 2.2 times between 2006-2018. Additionally, the Pew Center found that, while eating disorders predominantly affect women, men were also increasingly being affected. The culmination of these studies points to the fact that social media is creating more harm than good. The solution to this problem seems straightforward as deleting an app, But this reflects another damaging aspect of social media, it’s highly addictive (especially to younger, undeveloped brains). Social media algorithms create tailored feeds that show content it knows that users want to see, giving instantaneous dopamine rushes over and over, acting as a drug. Because of this, users who put down their phones or delete social media often go through withdrawal processes similar to that of a drug, experiencing anxiety, irritability,  and depression. This creates a feedback loop of mental health deterioration, and users become increasingly addicted as the app becomes their only source of dopamine.

Privacy and the “surveillance state” has been a very hot topic in the past 20 years. In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States government spent trillions of dollars on new programs, laws, and technologies to prevent something of a similar magnitude from happening again. The most infamous thing to come of this was the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act expanded the United States’ global surveillance by allowing the NSA to listen to any domestic and international phone call they pleased. This act was passed silently so as not to stir up controversy. It remained mostly unheard of until Edward Snowden leaked to the American people that the government can and often does surveil any phone call, text, or email. In addition to listening to calls and reading text and emails, he stated that the NSA could look through the webcams and cameras of computers and phones and track precise locations through your cell phone. Understandably, the leaking of this information saw an obvious bipartisan uproar; this was (and still is) a clear violation of the privacy of the American people. This gave a lot of affirmation to people who believed the world was falling into a 1984-esque, authoritarian, big-brother surveillance state. Knowing that at any moment you could be watched, listened to, or tracked without your knowledge or a warrant, led to paranoia and mistrust of government and “big tech”. In addition to government spying, the mid-2010s saw the rise of highly targeted advertisements. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google began showing eerily specific ads based on information collected from browsing cookies. These tech giants set a precedent for all websites and social media to collect as much information as possible from their users to sell this information to ad companies at a considerable profit. Quickly, users began noticing ads not just for things they searched, but for something they talked about around their phones or a local business, despite not having their location set. This, again, made people weary of “big tech” repeatedly infringing on their privacy, as these companies crept into every aspect of their lives to collect as much information as possible. Examples of this are Amazon purchasing Roomba and gaining access to 3D models of your home, purchasing One Medical and gaining access to your medical data, and releasing more and more products for their smart home system. Combining this with their phones having our fingerprints and 3D face scans saved, the amount of information they can collect from us is virtually endless. Before his (questionable) death in 2021, John McAfee, the creator of McAfee anti-virus and former cyber security expert, stated that modern anti-viruses are useless against anyone who wants to steal users’ information. He said that internet users must be willing to accept that anything they put into a computer can and will be collected. The combination of these three has led to a technological panopticon. A concept for a perfect jail created by Jeremy Benthem, where guards could always be watching; still, you would never know if they were, making you always act as if you were being watched without having to be watched. This technopticon is more akin to Foucault’s idea of the panopticon, where society acts as the prisoner and guard, governing itself for fear of punishment rather than punishment. This is how technology is today; we must govern ourselves because we know we could always be watched by the government, “big tech,” and hackers(or any combination of the three). Unsurprisingly this has led to enormous distrust and paranoia regarding technology. This paranoia was heightened during Elon Musk’s 2016 announcement of his new company, Neuralink. Neuralink’s stated goal was to create a chip that could be implanted in one’s brain to merge man and machine in order to increase bandwidth with technology and forge technological symbiosis. Unsurprisingly, people were skeptical (except unbearable Elon fans); thinking back to the Snowden leaks, one can’t help but assume that the NSA would have access to these chips, creating the real-life 1984 thought police. Surveilling not just our actions, calls, emails, and movements but our thoughts.

In Jean Baudrillard’s 1981 book Simulacra and Simulation, he discusses a societal phenomenon that he coined as “hyper-reality”; the blending of the “real” and “not real”. To Baudrillard, the “not real,” or simulacra, is created to simulate reality but is not reality. When this faux reality is blended with real reality indistinguishably, the faux reality becomes the true reality, or the hyperreality. One example he gives of this is the 1978 miniseries Holocaust, a four-part series following a fictional family living through the Holocaust. Baudrillard argues when thinking of the Holocaust, people think not of the real event of the Holocaust but of the series; the series meant to represent or simulate the Holocaust becomes the Holocaust itself. Thus, the simulation of reality becomes reality. Technology like FaceTime, online shopping, and online banking was created to simulate reality but have replaced their “real” counterparts in popularity. This shift was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, when these “real” counterparts were closed, leaving only their simulation available. As people grow increasingly connected with technology, it ceases to be a simulation of reality, instead becoming it. Another modern example of this is the spread of fake or biased news; this news is a simulation of reality, but when people consume this altered news, to them, it becomes reality.  In 1994, Baudrillard stated that “we live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning” (Baudrillard p.79). The eeriest of these simulations is the Metaverse, which is quite literally a simulation of reality that will eventually become reality itself (like the Matrix). As our perception of reality and history is tampered with, governments and corporations get closer and closer to creating a truly hegemonic society. The Metaverse is the logical extension of this, where reality is literally at the helm of its owner, making the owner God of said reality. Baudrillard states that the growth of hyper-reality and the replacement of real reality will lead to an “implosion”. He argues that this implosion will lead to hegemony and a collapse of social structures.

This has culminated in a general disdain for technology amongst the public, and a growing number of people swearing off modern technology, opting instead for, or even fetishizing, the off-the-grid lifestyles of generations past. A study conducted by VPNOverview.com in the UK found that 43% of Facebook users are considering or have considered leaving the platform. This same interview found that 37% of Snapchat users, 30% of TikTok users, and 24% of Instagram users have considered the same. Although reasons were not given for this exodus, I can only assume it has to do with these previously noted effects of social media. Another area where we can see a technological exodus is urban flight, accelerated by Covid-19. According to a Harris Poll in April 2020, 39% of people living in urban areas considered leaving because of Covid-19. While this urban flight is made possible by remote-work technology,  it’s still a rejection of modernity, instead embracing a more traditional living and connecting with nature. This sentiment has also progressed in the entertainment industry for the last ten years or so, with the rising popularity of homesteading shows and wilderness shows such as Alaska: The Last Frontier and Man vs. Wild. These shows strike a primal chord inside of us. The people in these shows aren’t bogged down by problems of modernity, like paranoia accelerated by  Jeff Bezos’ secret cameras and microphones all around their home, or Mark Zuckerberg’s new metaverseMetaverse, where he’s elected himself as god(whatever that means); the only worry of these people is their survival.

At this point, the Earth is pretty much fucked regarding climate change. Whether or not this sentiment is true, it is generally accepted by most people under 40. With such massive problems as overconsumption, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification, pollution, ozone layer depletion, etc., there’s not much to be done to stop even slow the rate of climate change without massive system change, which probably won’t happen. We’ve been pushed by the metric of our carbon footprint, a method of measuring our carbon emissions, partly created by BP. The problem with this model is its placement of the blame of climate change on the individual instead of the company, system, or country; 70% of global emissions are caused by only 100 companies. Yet, individuals are told to take colder, shorter showers, buy new energy-efficient appliances, and turn off the lights when leaving the room, all to lower their carbon footprint. In contrast, these 100 companies produce more daily carbon dioxide than anyone else will in their lives. With the wealthy and powerful ignoring the problem so as not to affect profits and celebrities emitting 1000x the amount of carbon dioxide as regular people, many feel doomed to climate change and angry with the people perpetuating and ignoring the problem for profits. The current, generally accepted goal to limit (not even stop, limit) climate change is one set by the Paris Climate Agreement. Its goal is to reduce global emissions by 55% by 2030. With global emissions rising 6% every year, this goal seems impossible. Much more will need to be done to reduce as dramatically as deemed necessary. This cannot be accomplished by any one person or a billion cold showers. Reductions are needed, changes in government are needed, which, again, will not happen (at least in the US). The Democratic and Republican parties have shown over and over again their unwillingness to and incapability of making any critical environmental legislation. With both parties in the pockets of the industry tycoons and “big -tech” alike, our politicians will never risk losing their biggest donors for the sake of doing what’s right and needed. So individuals are stuck accepting that there’s nothing individuals can do to stop climate change, accepting that their lives will be cut short due to the neglect of our politicians who claim they’re working in the best interest of their citizens, and accepting that they are rapidly approaching the end times. 

It would be dishonest to say that these feelings alone have led to the cult-like following Ted’s been growing for the past five years. To explain this, one crucial key is still missing, social media radicalization. Content algorithms on apps like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are designed to feed users content hyper-specifically tailored to their interests so that they will stay on the app for as long as possible. Political content can become very dangerous; if users consume and engage with political content, their algorithm will show more political content tailored to their personal views. This creates an “echo chamber” wherein users only interact with content mirroring their same opinions, continually affirming their biases. This has the capability to rapidly radicalize users. This algorithmic radicalization is one of the main contributors to the political polarization faced by the citizens of the United States. A huge contributor to Ted Kaczynski’s popularity is that he appeals to the fringes of every part political compass. The secret to Ted’s praise from members of all political ideologies lies in Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, which discusses the schizophrenic’s powerful ability to incite revolution. Deleuze and Guattari argue that schizophrenics think outside societal conditioning, ideology, and capitalism. Ted’s actions and thoughts do not adhere to any traditional political faction. Thus, anyone with any (radical)political views can adopt his actions and ideology. He critiqued all political parties and argued that environmentalism should not belong to any one party and should be cared about by everyone. This stance has caused his actions to be worshipped unanimously among the politically extreme. The result of this is a cult-like following of people on the internet praising him and preaching about the harms of industrial society. 

This movement of people who have “taken the Ted Pill” could certainly be easy to overlook, but coinciding with Ted’s rise in popularity, we’ve seen this social media and urban exodus. We’ve also seen an increase in eco-terrorism or “monkey-wrenching.” Last month, we saw an attack reminiscent of Ted’s in Boston, where two bombs were placed at the Northeastern campus and near the Museum of Fine Arts. While these attacks ultimately led to one person sustaining minor injuries, I fear this is only the beginning of a wave of eco-terrorism. 

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