It's not really about intellectual honesty or validity, but about morality.
The only reason any of us are discussing Kaczynski now is because he sent those bombs; he would almost certainly be an unknown if he had not. This gives us an moral quandary, because do we really want to make murderers famous, even when they have something interesting to say? Won't this incentivise future acts of murder and terrorism?
And for what it's worth, I read his book and I thought it raised interesting points, but I am somewhat troubled by this, and I can 100% understand if someone would choose different, even more so if they personally know one of his victims.
See, Kaczynski's theory is also about morality. He's complaining about the damage that technology does. Well, why do we care that it does damage? That's a moral question, not a scientific or technical one. He's making a moral argument.
So, if he's making a moral argument and murdering people, that means that I for one am unwilling to trust his moral judgment. It means I can't trust him when he says that we would be better off without technology. I can't trust his whole argument, because it's primarily a moral one.
I never intended to make an argument against Kaczynski's ideas, I'm just pointing out that people could have reasonable moral objections against distributing his work. It's "negotiating with terrorists" kind of stuff. Whether his ideas are good or bad is an entirely separate matter.
> We can have an intellectual dialogue without devolving to "this made me feel bad therefore you're wrong!"
The people who are dead or wounded feel very bad indeed. And I never said you're wrong, either, or that Kaczynski's ideas are wrong.
The only reason any of us are discussing Kaczynski now is because he sent those bombs; he would almost certainly be an unknown if he had not. This gives us an moral quandary, because do we really want to make murderers famous, even when they have something interesting to say? Won't this incentivise future acts of murder and terrorism?
And for what it's worth, I read his book and I thought it raised interesting points, but I am somewhat troubled by this, and I can 100% understand if someone would choose different, even more so if they personally know one of his victims.