Why /pol/ generals are not worth your time
A critique of Chad Haag and his Kaczynski book
Don't ask questions, just parrot Ted and call opponents names
Here I would like to vent a few of my issues with the anti tech movement, and why in my opinion, they have become ironically, the leftists they hate so much.
I’d like to start by using the example of /tkg/ and 4chan in general as it is the place I have looked at most in regards to Tedites.
/tkg/ was a general discussing Ted, anti tech movements, technology and so forth. To the people who made it, they said it was for people of all opinions. It said was open to everyone, including anti ted and pro tech people.
The problem is that the general had the same issue as every other general thread on /pol/.
If you don’t know, generals are usually places to discuss certain ideologies. There are exceptions such as brit/pol/.
For example /ptg/ is a general based around Trump. Other generals include the natsoc general, communist general and the general on the Ukraine war.
The problem with a lot of /pol/ general threads is that they usually become circle-jerks with very little actual debate.
Because 4chan is a site where users are anonymous, it usually means that people cannot come together and create said circle-jerks.
Its very important to mention that 4chan is very diverse in terms of opinion. Therefore, most discussions involve people of various different ideologies. Sometimes, Tedposters do indeed show up in non Ted discussions.
One of the reasons why 4chan users despise places like Reddit, is due to the idea that subreddits become circle-jerks and echo chambers where dissenting opinions are crushed. It doesn’t matter if your opinions are backed up or well defended, it goes against the collective so its wrong.
However generals eliminate the diverse opinions of 4chan by focusing on an ideology. This of course attracts more ideologues than regular users.
So generals, for the most part, can be described as nothing more than hugboxes, echo chambers and circle-jerks. They usually involve ideologues as the dominant force, with the odd individual making a post against them to get a reaction, or anti-circlejerk memes.
For those who understand this, they are immune mostly to the circle-jerk. But for those with low self esteem, depression, poor social lives, or just new to 4chan, they are more susceptible to the circle jerk.
By looking at /tkg/ it gives the illusion that the dominant narrative is agreed upon and that all dissent is either poor, or just jokes.
Generals also eliminate the anonymity created by 4chan due to the fact the same people participate, leading to people trying to one up one another. These generals turn into chatrooms where political truth is the truth. When this political truth is hammered into ones face over and over, those who are more susceptible, assimilate into the collective.
/tkg/ is no different. It is ironic that regulars on the general feared about the dangers of turning the thread into a hugbox or circle-jerk, only for them to contribute to the problem.
Most times someone put forth a question they would usually copy paste material from their FAQ expecting the person to fully agree. This FAQ was heavily skewed towards Ted, and was treated as something akin to a workers manual, rather than explaining the views held by Tedposters and Ted himself, leaving it to the individual to think for themself.
Because most questions were answered like this, in which these points were concrete and one couldn’t disagree with one or the other, it lead to a hugbox in which very little criticism or dissent happened.
Every last person who challenged Ted or the /tkg/ collective was outnumbered and so Tedposters start to believe they can’t be beaten in debate, no one has proper answers to them. Admittedly this is because most times, those against Ted would make the “he was MK Ultra’d and almost became a woman” to rile them up, or someone who doesn’t seem to have a lot of knowledge on Teds ideas or writings saying we should use technology better, which is akin to saying to Nazis that not all Jews are bad. There’s no real point because they’ve made up their minds already.
Then you had the original posts at the start which showed a clear bias in regard to Ted and the issue of technology, the same as most generals.
This turns away some who are less in agreement with Ted’s views as given the way generals work, any attempt at discussion would be futile. More often than not in my research, genuine criticism or nuanced discussion came from non-Ted threads.
I will briefly focus now on Chad Haag. Chad is a third-positionist who moved to India becoming disillusioned with the US. He has written a book on Ted’s ideology and views claiming to be the first to do so. In it, he states his goal is to look at Teds views as objectively as possible, not to put in his own idiosyncratic beliefs. I have to praise him, this is a noble goal.
Unfortunately, Chad does indeed put in his beliefs into the book, in which he makes small rants about America and the first world, as well as praise Ted and Zerzan whenever he could. An objective philosophical examination would abstain from this, purely focusing on Ted’s ideas and opinions. When the book does this, it is fine, however you have to deal with the myriad of rants in-between. A rule of thumb, when your title for a book aiming at an objective analysis of a philosopher says they were right, you may have failed. It is no longer an objective analysis, it is propaganda for your movement.
Of course, I may indeed state that I agree with Ted on a certain topic or issue, but that is all. The focus is on Teds views, not mine. An objective philosophical analysis should allow the individual reading to decide on whether he agrees with Ted, not to degrade the reader by making up his own mind for him or by coercing them.
And so I have to avoid recommending the book, and instead recommend Count Dankula’s Absolute Madlads of Ted on YouTube as a better introduction of his views.[1]
Moving back to online discourse, the issue of /tkg/ shows an issue in regards to the anti tech movement. That is, they tend to stick within circle-jerks. I have already discussed /tkg/ devolved into one, whether by accident or because /tkg/ simply masqueraded under the illusion of discussion. Some of the regulars on /tkg/ stated that one of their goals was to entice people into the movement or to build momentum. If it was, then the idea that /tkg/ was a genuine discussion is flawed. If people are trying to coerce you into a revolutionary movement then one can say that they aren’t looking to have a civil discussion where you can state your opinions. They want a civil discussion where they bring you in.
Was /tkg/ effective? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps it got people to read his books. Maybe they gained the odd one or two people into their movement. From my perspective, this is about as effective as it was. However, if one sees outside of /tkg/ they will see that tedposters have in fact turned some people away from him.
The issue around the anti tech movement is the belief, whether intentional or not, that everything Ted has stated in regards to situations or scenarios is true. Every answer he gave in regard to questions is true or correct. For example, if one believes we need to be more sensible with tech or support decentralisation, Tedposters will respond that you cannot take the good things from the bad things because its all interconnected and that society cannot be controlled. These people will state in their opinion that they disagree with Ted as he doesn’t explain it very well, and the Tedposters get upset.
Tedposters also post in non ted threads and proceed to try and entice people into the movement. Some will reject them and arguments begin. This turns off those who cannot stand the tedposters attitudes from teds own views, damaging their movement.
I believe that this is due to many in the anti tech movement residing mainly in communities or servers or chats in which their ideology dominates. For example /tkg/ has a discord server and when I checked, they had 17 members. Then you have other servers, the biggest I found is around 100-120 members. These servers try to connect to one another.
Because of this, they have been so conditioned by propaganda from the movement, or because they only ever talk to other tedposters, that they have lost the ability to think critically.
The average person finds Teds ideas thought provoking, however they listen to a variety of different people, rather than putting all eggs in one basket and so are able to reject certain ideas or statements.
Tedposters meanwhile are practically all the same. They rarely if ever, make an original opinion. They have become something similar to drones. They are less individuals than clones of one another.
I am by no means saying this is true of all tedposters. Some in the anti tech movement may genuinely believe in what ted is saying out of their own free thinking.
Nor am I saying all Tedposters fully agree on everything. When I mean Tedposters are practically all the same, I mean Tedposters can have any view they want, so long as it is unimportant.[2] You can think Jews are a problem, you can maybe disagree with the possibility of revolution if you explain enough, so long as you subscribe to the dominant view that the system must be destroyed.
You challenge any one of Ted’s important ideas or beliefs? You’re in trouble.
Catfights between tedposters usually happen because of their fanaticism. They’ll blame one another for hurting the movement, claiming not to have read Ted properly, calling others shills and stating that others “aren’t true tedposters”.
One can only compare this to Tumblr users arguing over pronouns. It is always the case with these kinds of people. Radical movements will grow, then there is an inevitable split over something stupid.
Those who believe in preparing for a “collapse” or become self sufficient in hopes of being the change they want to see will be at odds with those calling for revolution and destruction. They’ll argue about who is damaging the movement more till the end of time.
/tkg/ seems to no longer exist. Of course maybe some of these users moved elsewhere to discuss ideas. Ideas that won’t be criticised by people who think differently to them. These people will remain together in their echo chambers until there is a breakup or they choose to try and gain members a different way.
The cycle will continue over and over. Nothing on the issue gets resolved. Its been 25+ years since Ted wrote his manifesto, and his revolution has been non existent.
Since his manifesto, we have gone through a global economic crisis, a pandemic, riots, and more. Yet, despite these opportune times to strike against the system, the revolutionaries have done nothing. And if they have, they probably got arrested before any damage was done.
Newsflash, Ted is famous due to being one of the very few people who made a coherent explanation for the killings he did and for leaving little evidence for the FBI for over 20 years. You aren’t him. You are just one of his copycats who no one will remember.
I have not heard any news of a small, committed group destroying cable lines. And no, that won’t be enough, they’ll get someone to repair the few lines you cut off. Then someone else tries, then someone else, it goes on.
Eco-Terrorism is the most common form of terrorism, yet, the system has kept chugging along.
As for collapse, well even Ted admits it is speculative. You’re just going to sit around twiddling your thumbs waiting, praying that one day the system will just suddenly roll over and die?
If it does collapse, do you think you’ll be the ones to take over and implement a new system, against all the other ideologues and power hungry radicals?
Let’s just entertain the idea. The system does collapse. But just because it is collapsing doesn’t mean it won’t go swinging.[3]
And that’s if the collapse is all encompassing and not a long, drawn out one.
The thing with this collapse-fetish is this imagery of Rome, in chaos and panic, everything ending in one horrific event.
The collapse of Rome was a long term decline over around a century, maybe more. When Rome fell, yes it was horrific, but it was simply conquered by the barbarians like any end to a war. We didn’t go from the Roman Empire all the way back to hunter gatherer society.
My belief is if the system does collapse, or is collapsing, it will change society, but not as drastic as these people think.
But I’m going off topic.
At the moment, the Tedposters, and those of a similar nature are the “true believers”. While they very well might believe what they do, most of them likely have a fetish for collapse and destruction. They merely want to see the world burn without any care for the fact everyone else would regard this solution as a nightmare. Perhaps it is why they are so opposed to less extreme methods, it doesn’t give them the post-apocalypse LARP.
It is here I will give my reasons for why the anti-tech movement is destined for the same fate as leftists.
As I have stated, they tend to stay within circle-jerks and rarely discuss things outside of said circle-jerks.
Over exposure to the same views leads to political truth becoming actual truth.
Lack of genuine criticism leads to overconfidence and arrogance that a world-view is the truth.
Any extreme movement usually encompasses societal outsiders suffering the issues that affect leftists. This point deserves its own essay/article.[4]
Buzzwords are plenty with leftists and the anti-tech movement.
Any slight deviation in important ideas within the movement is heresy
Constant catfights and drama within the movement
Instant denial of opposition, leftists will call theirs “Nazis” “Racists” “Bigots” and so forth, anti-techies will call theirs “defenders of the system” “technophiles” ect.
Black and White thinking, good vs bad.
Making martyrs of individuals (Ted referred to as Uncle Ted), leftists (Pick whichever)
[1] Admittedly, Dankula does say that Ted is right, however, he is more critical of Teds actions and does not condone them, nor does he encourage them, stating that in order to change society, you need society on your side. Chad, to his credit, does not encourage violence either. However, if you want a rundown on Ted and his manifesto, Dank does it in a way which is less frustrating, and even when he says that Ted is right, he completely understands differing viewpoints.
[2] Remind you of something from ISAIF about the system?
[3] By the Battle of Berlin, Nazi Germany was done for, it was delaying the inevitable. During said battle, it began to collapse fairly rapidly. Yet despite this, the Soviets were faced with stubborn resistance. And after about a decade from this forced collapse, Berlin and the two German states were doing fine.
Also, the Communists faced stiff opposition from the White Army in the Russian Civil War only a few years after they took power.