An Excerpt from Industrial
Society and Its Future
Theodore John Kaczynski
 121.
A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in favor of
freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in which all parts
are dependent on one another. You can't get rid of the "bad" parts
of technology and retain only the "good" parts. Take modern medicine,
for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry,
physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical
treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that can be made available
only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society.
Clearly you can't have much progress in medicine without the whole technological
system and everything that goes with it.
122.
Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of the technological
systems, it would by itself bring certain evils. Suppose for example
that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency
to diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone
else. Natural selection against genes for diabetes will cease and
such genes will spread throughout the population. (This may be occurring
to some extent already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled
through use of insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other
diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation of
the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program
or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the future
will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending
on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.
123.
If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW,
just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution
of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction
of genetic engineering of human beings, because the consequences of unregulated
genetic engineering would be disastrous....
124.
The usual response to such concerns is to talk about "medical ethics."
But a code of ethics would not serve to protect freedom in the face of
medical progress; it would only make matters worse. A code
of ethics applicable to genetic engineering would be in effect a means
of regulating the genetic constitution of human beings. Somebody
(probably the upper-middle class, mostly) would decide that such and such
applications of genetic engineering were "ethical" and others were not,
so that in effect they would be imposing their own values on the genetic
constitution of the population at large. Even if a code of ethics
were chosen on a completely democratic basis, the majority would be imposing
their own values on any minorities who might have a different idea of what
constituted an "ethical" use of genetic engineering. The only code
of ethics that would truly protect freedom would be one that prohibited
ANY genetic engineering of human beings, and you can be sure that no such
code will ever be applied in a technological society. No code that
reduced genetic engineering to a minor role could stand up for long, because
the temptation presented by the immense power of biotechnology would be
irresistible, especially since to the majority of people many of its applications
will seem obviously and unequivocally good (eliminating physical and mental
disease, giving people the abilities they need to get along in today's
world). Inevitably, genetic engineering will be used extensively,
but only in ways consistent with the needs of the industrial-technological
system.....
128
While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere
of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to
be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications
... -how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other
of the innumerable technical advances that have made moderm society?
It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone,
for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages.
Yet, as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances
taken together have created a world in which the average man's fate is
no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends,
but in those of politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous
technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence....
The same process will continue in the future. Take genetic engineering,
for example. Few people will resist the introduction of a genetic
technique that eliminates a hereditary disease. It does no apparent
harm and prevents much suffering. Yet a large number of genetic improvements
taken together will make the human being into an engineered product rather
than a free creation of chance (or of God, of whatever, depending on your
religious beliefs). 
I
suggest my essays Ravin'
Evermore, Monday, August 12, 1991, and The
Lone Raver Writes Again, Friday, April 12, 2002. They’re both
available on Pharos.
—editor
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