Clay
If you had to rename this niche anti-fascist research archive, what would you call it?
The name of the archive is The Ted K Archive. It was set up mainly for people to be able to research the threat of fascism and reactionaries, with a tonne of critiques of Ted Kaczynski‘s philosophy included (the anti-tech terrorist from the 90s), as Kaczynski was a reactionary, and he has a lot of eco-fascist fans.
We also worked on archiving a lot of analyses of fascist circles that then get copied over to the anarchist library like this book:
Ideally, anarchist and leftist community centers, squats, book publishers, and online archives would avoid platforming and promoting Ted K’s texts, so as not to associate anarchism with anti-tech vanguardism. Most anarchists would agree that hosting the complete works of Mao under the banner of The Anarchist Library—simply because he was once an anarchist—would be an unjustifiably embarrassing endorsement of those ideas, just as prominently displaying Mao’s collected works in the window of an anarchist bookstore would be. So, I think it’d be good for those texts be left to anti-fascist research archives like ours. We are a distinct research project that hosts his writings alongside extensive critiques of both his ideas and those of his supporters.
This post is party a way to seek suggestions for renaming the archive and rewriting the main page & about page to help clarify all this.
The Current Domain Name
I’m 90% sure I’d prefer to keep the short domain name we have currently — The Ted K Archive — as it’s similar to the ‘Ted Kaczynski Papers’, which is a special collections archive at the Uni. of Michigan, and ‘The Definitive UNABOM Page’, which was an old online archive in the 90s. However, it’d be interesting to see what other names people can come up with.
We picked a short domain name that we thought would draw in people like liberal true crime fans and academic political violence researchers. One of the main goals of the website is to use interest in the story of Ted’s life to recommend lots of left-anarchist critiques of Ted’s philosophy that might draw a few people over to the various left-anarchist potential remedies offered in such texts.
If I did go ahead with changing it, it would just involve redirecting people to a new domain name for a few months until everyone remembered the new name, then letting the old domain go dead.
Or, I could keep the two domains going for as long as anyone wanted to donate to specifically keep the old domain going in some form. Maybe after a while I could stop redirecting right away, and instead have the old one’s main page be a whole different pitch for what’s on the website, and just say that it would redirect to a new domain after people click on any of the links.
I think many liberals who dislike Ted’s essays — as well as die-hard anti-tech critics who object to the many texts critiquing Ted — would prefer the website to have a name like “The Ted K Stinks Archive,” making it unmistakably clear that it is an anti-Ted K project. However, a name like that feels too churlish for a serious research subject. I want to remain respectful of Ted as a human being, someone whose brother is still alive and loved him, and also of the bombing victims and their families, who would reasonably expect a serious academic research archive. I also recognize that Ted popularized some valuable critiques of technology use, even though I’m still glad of new scientific and technological advancements.
It’s kind of like if anarcho-primitivists happened to be the first people with the energy to archive a bunch of Abdullah Ocalan’s writings, along with a pile of critiques. They might enjoy arguing about naturalist philosophy, but they’d probably get tired fast of people assuming that running the archive meant endorsing the terrorist violence Ocalan’s group carried out in the 1980s. At that point, they’d have a branding problem: how do you make it clear you’re hosting material for debate, not cheering it on?
That’s basically the same issue here in reverse. How should pro-tech, lefty anarchists rebrand an archive about Ted K to signal engagement without endorsement?
One reason I like the simplicity of the current name is; even if we changed the name I think people would still refer to it in shorthand as ‘the ted k archive’, like someone might ask ‘what archive are you talking about?’ And it would feel natural to reply ‘the Ted K archive’. Even anti-tech people who don’t like that we archive a lot of critiques of their ideology refer to it as ‘the unofficial ted k archive’.
We could rename it “Critiques of Kaczynski”, though I would kinda like it to be clear in the name that it’s a big online archive of some sort like ‘The _______ Library/Archive/Papers/Page’. The critique part is really important, as I wouldn’t want to platform Ted’s writings without disclaimers at the top of many of his writings and lots of critique texts on the website. But yeah, I wouldn’t want to signal that it’s solely critiques also, as the archive is currently split into eight main categories: Introductory Texts, Original Texts, Primary Source Documents on Ted K, The Collected Works of Ted K, Analyses of Ted’s Ideas & Actions, Suggested Reading, Broader Topics & The Criminal Justice System.
We could rename it “The Beyond Kaczynski Archive”. Although it might still be related as a ‘post-Kaczynskist, fairly positive about his ideology, archive’, like the way a ‘post-Trotskyist’ might be interpreted.
Disclaimers on the Main Page
I think we offer well-written disclaimers on the main page, but I’m open to arguments it should be more detailed in various ways:
One goal of this project has been to help clarify the distinction between Ted’s ideas and actually anarchist philosophy in the hopes that it will help encourage more people to positively re-evaluate anarchist philosophy.
We recognize Ted had some good critiques of technology and the psychology of many people on the left and right. So, we do value living a more tech minimalist lifestyle and forming small groups with different objectives to your average left-winger. However, we still see the value in small far-left groups helping draw people over to a radically different world over a long period of time by agitating from the radical fringe. So, making centre-left policies look more reasonable in comparison to centrist politics, then the tried and tested policies of the future, then far-left, then far-left and anarchist projects the majority global reality.
Although the people Ted targeted held a wide range of views on many issues, I found it reassuring to read this request — quoted below — from William Dennison, the final person Ted sent a mail bomb to. Understanding one’s adversaries is important, and anti-tech vanguardists and eco-fascists are certainly adversaries of anarchists and progressives.
I respectfully urge the court, Your Honor, to open all the Kaczynski materials, including the decoded journals, to public scrutiny in the expectation that valuable public safety information may be obtained and used to save many lives. Academician analysts will certainly be able to draw a more accurate picture of the mind of a killer and the connections to eco-terrorism if the original materials are in their hands.
Further disclaimers on the About Page
Similarly with the about page, I think there’s enough well-written disclaimers for people to get a sense of what the online archive is about:
We, everyone who has contributed, have archived:
A ton of primary source documents on Ted’s life and ideas.
Documents analyzing the effect he had on the public’s understanding of radical environmentalists, anarchists, terrorists, criminals, the mentally ill & simple mental neurodivergence.
Lots of great suggested reading on anarchism & other issues.
We, the archivists who bought the website domain, are pro-tech anarchists, but we just find his life story and impact really interesting.
So, we’re hoping the website will continue to draw people in with similar politics to him and similar mental health issues frankly. Then for the cold hard reality of the primary source reading material, the epic-ness of the suggested reading material and the inviting discussion spaces connected to the website, to all have a deprogramming effect and be a mental health support.
For example, a popular text on the website for a while was simply a book on how to Unfuck Your Friendships and the associated discord server plays host to discussions between people encouraging each other to think rationally about their depression diagnosis.
Also, there are fans of Ted K who literally glorify the Khmer Rouge’s genocide and burning down of cities, so having books about that genocide on the archive to hopefully, yes deprogram, simple dogmatic reasoning, holding people back from compassionately relating to how fucked up a policy that was is we think a good thing.
The reason we’re saying all this is simply to promote transparency. We think due to the undesirability of anti-tech philosophy, opening all its rarer arguments up to scrutiny is likely going to have a positive outcome in drawing in more critical analysis and leading more people to reject the ideas.
This archive aims to serve a similar role to the existence of other archives dedicated to tragic events like 9/11. Ideally, a 9/11 memorial archive would include documents on (1) the terrible harm to families and firefighters as the long-term victims of that attack, as well as (2) documents explaining the grievance narratives of the perpetrators, such as documents on imperialist wars, intelligence agency tricks, extractive corporations, etc. Plus, (3) documents on actions that could be pursued going forward, to try to reduce the likelihood of similar tragic events happening again.
So, with regards to Ted, we see part of the solution to reducing the emergence of similarly alienated people like Ted as; agitating for rewilding at least 50% of the world, boycotting animal agriculture and living a minimum viable use tech lifestyle to partly provide this incentive, plus forming housing and worker co-ops for kids general well being growing up. For further reading on the general politics of archivists, see Clay’s contributions to these two texts:
Discussion
Northernfrostbite: Keep it as is pls. I appreciate you making the info freely available.
Clay: Glad you like the archive and current name. We likely will keep the same name, but yeah just in case there’s any confusion, even if it the name was changed slightly, we’d still keep all the same texts freely available, it would just have a different domain name, banner and logo.
Khanate: You could keep the ted k archive domain to host all his writings and articles directly about him and spin off a new domain purely for the critiques. That way you have a serious academic research archive and a place for more freeform debate. maybe call it the modernist anarchist and make a link visible in the header or footer of every (related) page on the ted k archive?
Clay: I definitely plan to spin off some unrelated texts to new archives like a philosophy archive when they’re set up. However, I wouldn’t feel comfortable platforming Ted’s writings without the critiques and debate texts being on the same website.
Like I think it’s good that when someone uses the website search bar to research ideas covered in Ted’s works that it also throws up works critiquing the way Ted applies those ideas. Obvs, it can throw up too many at the moment, but yeah I think there’s a balance.
adler: I am thinking something simple like that name or the “anti-Ted k” archive. Or “archive against XYZ” with that variable being whatever extremist category you’d want to categorize ted’s ideology as.
Dominyk: I feel as if the current name is the best possible one; short and simple- yet gets to the point perfectly. I also believe you should keep neutrality present (as opposed to ‘ted k stinks’ and likewise)
boltsie: I think the less you go “Ted K stinks”, more effective the archive will be. The fact is, Ted’s own texts are the best cure when it comes to his fans. There more you read his thoughts and diary entries, the clearer it gets he was disturbed, angry and unhappy incel, in many ways an evil person. The problem is, his personal texts are not easy to come by, and it takes some effort to find them online. I personally think having all this non-ted K stuff on the archive is distracting and possible works against your goals. It’s likely hard for a newbie to find Kaczynski’s text from the archive, and the “messier” the archive is, more likely the person is to just drop off than keep figuring it out. Just my 2 cents.
It’s very unlikely the pro-Ted people will ever read stuff archived on “anti-Ted K archive” or “Ted K stinks archive”. I really prefer the current name and also encourage you to look at neutral as possible. It’s a good website for both academic research and easy access of his “self harming” texts, which are both way better tools to undermine his “legacy” than some critique that will be skipped by most if not all of his fans.
adler: Good point. Maybe highlighting certain texts may be a good approach.
Clay: Appreciate your thoughts botsie.
Part of the problem is that I’ve been wanting to get some other archives off the ground for a long while, so I’ve simply been using this website to warehouse many newly archived texts so that they at least get a few more views than they would on some other niche amuse wiki archives that are less popular e.g. when the book ’22 cells in Nuremberg’ was archived on The LUL, it only got 125 clicks on the PDF, whereas on The TKA it got up to 2300.
I think 90% likely I’ll keep this domain as a way people can access the complete collection of Ted’s writings and a fair few critiques of Ted, but that I might also get a second domain where I can host a large collection of analysis of anti-tech philosophy and the primary source reading around Ted’s life.
I think it’s also a good idea to be able to adapt to current events and predict for future events. Like hypothetically say there were 10 more Jacob Grahams over the next 5 years who were getting arrested after getting lost in their post-apocalyptic fantasies due to TV programs like Manhunt Unabomber and the anti-tech spaces online people can find to flatter their delusions about collapse just being round the corner. I don’t know whether or not that would just be too weird a world in which to own a website called The Ted K Archive. It’d be like the situation the people who owned restaurants called ISIS were in after ISIS took over large parts of Syria.
The old events that were part of the reason the current domain name was chosen was wanting to add to an inter-anarchist critique of The Anarchist Library (T@L). As one of the goals of it’s creation was to put increased public pressure on the people who run T@L to delete the Unabomber texts and other pointlessly edgy eco-extremist & misanthropic texts from their online library.
The idea being to say there’s this other archive that hosts the texts now in a more responsible way with disclaimers, and distanced from the ideology of anarchism by not having anarchist terms in the domain name or header. So, T@L can go ahead and delete them now without the concern about serious researchers having no place to read the texts. To limit the amount of views the texts get and distance the Unabomber’s ideas from the more popular political ideology of anarchism. So that newbie anarchists don’t stumble across the Unabomber’s ideas and think they’re more popular than they are.
Further reading: