Industrial Society and its Future

Industrial Society and Its Future, better known as the Unabomber manifesto, is a 1995 anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski contending that modern technological progress will extinguish individual liberty. It was originally printed in Washington Post and New York Times print supplements by a form of blackmail, that Kaczynski would end his 1978–1995 Unabomb mail bomb campaign if the essay went to print. His efforts to have the essay printed and taken seriously eclipsed the bombings themselves in publicity and led to his brother identifying the attacker’s identity.

The manifesto argues that human needs are subjugated to technological progress, in which individual technological advancements are seen as positive without accounting for its overall effect. He blames technology for the fall of small-scale living and rise of uninhabitable cities and institutions designed to modify human behavior to conform with the system’s needs. Kaczynski seeks to hasten the collapse of industrial society while protecting the wild.