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No, Kaczynski compiled his own writings. He also wrote a second book, Anti-Tech Revolution. In Kacynski's latest edition of Technological Slavery Skrbina's introduction doesn't even appear. It was a shitty introduction anyway.

The book Technological Slavery is not "by" David Skrbina. It is by Theodore Kaczynski. Skrbina just wrote the "afterward" in that book.

Anti-Tech Revolution and Technological Slavery are both amazing books and must-reads.

His books are even better. "Anti-Tech Revolution" and "Technological Slavery".

Agreed.

Thank you for this discussion. Suffice it to say I think you are dead wrong here. But a debate on the points you now raise is beyond the time I have to devote now.

"(a) humans behaved the way he needs them to behave for his system to work."

This is flatly wrong. Humans aren't "needed" to behave in this system in any way other than they have always behaved throughout history. The revolutionary ideal is not to create a utopia, or to control society and human behavior, it is only to destroy the industrial system. the world that will remain will approximate the world prior to the industrial revolution: full bellies and hunger, sickness and health, greed and compassion, etc. etc. But it's a world where the biosphere and humanity are not threatened with existential destruction.

"(b) you ignore all the death and suffering his solution demands."

No need to "ignore" anything. You just have to come the the conclusion that FAR more death and destruction lays in store for humans and the biosphere if technology is allowed to continue. This is a matter of facts and logic and can be reasonably deduced. You can;t somehow shirk from your intellectual and moral responsibility to think about something simply because it's painful to think about, which is essential what your doing. Would it be wrong, for example, for the Allies to have ever considered fighting and defeating Nazi Germany because it would entail millions of people suffering, regardless of the consequences of not doing anything???

You're still conflating the success of a tactic in furtherance of a goal with the success of a goal.

"..the Unabomber gets remembered as this struggle's John Brown, not this struggle's Abraham Lincoln."

You could be right about this. But then you could be wrong. Ideas still matter, and their particular expression still can have material impacts. Time will tell. Will Kaczynski's work inspire the sort of material, decisive impact that Martin Luther's works inspired during the Reformation's wars?? or Will Kaczynski as you say be more like John brown, while the real decisive impact will be made by those that actually organize and lead. (Just staying with your analogy). Only time will tell.

On this point you would do well to read the third chapter of "Anti-Tech Revolution." In it, Kaczynski argues for why an anti-tech revolution as he lays out would succeed and why its success would be more or less permanent while all other social revolutions and goals have failed and were fundamentally doomed to fail.

"You appear to be assuming the communist manifesto was a success due to the Russian Revolution."

You've missed the point. The point is not that the communist manifesto was ultimately successful or not judging by how its ideas were implemented successfully or not. It is merely to point out that there is an expected lag between when political ideas are produced and when they have an impact and it is irrational to imply that a political idea is a failure or wrong simply because you haven't observed their implementation or impact in your lifetime. Communism ultimately failed because of the fundamental failure of the ideas in the communist manifesto. But it does not follow that therefore Kaczynski's ideas, once implemented, will also ultimately fail. They are fundamentally different sets of ideas with different potential material outcomes.

Now, when looking at the short-term (historically speaking), Kaczynski's actions have been a resounding success. The manifesto and his other works are read by millions--far far more than if they were published traditionally where they would have been buried or left obscure. You may disagree with this point given the new media technologies and their leverage. But even in that case this overlooks a far more important aspect relating to revolutionary dynamics: Kaczynski's works have established themselves as the most radical and oppositional ideas in our world today by virtue of their violent context. This has the (necessary) effect of preventing the ideas from being co-opted and keeping away mild, reformist types who are offended by the actions (which is exactly what you WANT to do in the formation of any revolutionary movement).

This only makes sense if you place a limited and arbitrary timeframe on when "success" must be achieved, and what the "success" should be. Remember, the communist manifesto was published in 1848, and by your standard of "success" things more or less remained unchanged until the ideas in that manifesto culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1917--nearly 70 years later. Kaczynski understands this lag, and is quite sober and realistic about the long-term effect of ideas. This is adumbrated by the manifesto:

"If the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down. We think the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say forty to a hundred years." --Industrial Society and Its Future, paragraph 162.

Further, your statement implies an assumption which is not correct. The implication you're making is that because things have so far remain unchanged, Kaczynski's actions were therefore unjustified and/or his writings were not true. This does not follow. Just because an anti-tech revolutionary movement has not (yet) materialized and the industrial system is not (yet) under serious revolutionary threat does not invalidate the truth of Kaczynski's ideas or the validity of Kaczynski's actions. You would not be justified in implying this any more than you would be justified in claiming Galileo had no effect or was wrong because he was placed under house arrest and almost nobody believed him (at the time).

"His approach was not successful, no."

According to what criteria do you make this determination?