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Bad People

61. Unabomber 1: How far are technophobes willing to go?

Bad People

BBC

True Crime

4.41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From 1978 to 1995, Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, built and mailed a series of homemade bombs, killing three people and injuring many more. Kaczynski lived alone in a cabin in the woods, in Lincoln, Montana and documented his ‘failures’ and ‘successes’ in code, in a personal journal. His targets were university professors, technocrats and anyone seen to further, as he saw it, technological development. In this episode of Bad People, Dr Julia Shaw and comedian Sofie Hagen unpick what motivated Kaczynski’s violent behaviour. It turns out that Kaczynski was inspired by French anarchist philosopher, Jacques Ellul, fears about technology. Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen reflect on their own “technophobia” and how it affects their lives. Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence and terrorism. CREDITS Presenters: Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen Producer: Louisa Field Assistant Producer: Simona Rata Music: Matt Chandler Editor: Rami Tzabar Academic Consultants for The Open University: Lara Frumkin and James Munro #BadPeople_BBC Commissioning Assistant Producer: Adam Eland Commissioning Executive: Dylan Haskins Bad People is produced in partnership with The Open University and is a BBC Audio Science Production for BBC Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, let me ask you, sir, have you heard George's podcast?

0:06.1

Me and Ben Brick are back with a blast, this time with stories from Africa's past.

0:11.0

Not too distant, unsolved mysteries, unsung heroes from untold histories, I'm trying

0:16.9

to make sense of the present day, join me on this journey by pressing play.

0:23.8

Have you heard George's podcast?

0:25.7

Chapter four.

0:27.1

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:29.5

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts, three, two, one.

0:39.4

What's your biggest fear when it comes to technology?

0:42.5

It's thinking that I've left a Zoom call that I haven't actually left, and then a whole

0:47.0

group of people can just hear me talking to myself and farting and doing all sorts of

0:51.9

weird stuff.

0:53.2

You think you've left a meeting and then you're like, what a bunch of assholes!

1:01.0

You come back, there's just this awkwardness in the room, you don't know why.

1:04.6

So guys, I was just reading through the script for this play that I was rehearsing, which

1:09.0

is called a bunch of assholes.

1:13.3

What is yours?

1:14.5

Mine is, have you seen Charlie Brooker's series Black Mirror?

1:18.2

I saw a few episodes, but I haven't finished it.

1:20.7

Well, as you probably know, it involves various sort of near future scenarios of technology

1:25.0

gone bad.

1:26.7

And in one of the episodes, USS Callister, or Callister, I don't know, a man creates

...

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