18 Comments
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James Kenny's avatar

You’re overstating the seriousness of the study and the role it played in Kaczynski’s thinking.

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Astral's avatar

Whitey Bulger was, not Dahmer

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Astral's avatar

It wasn’t just the study he participated in, it was the entirety of his experience at Harvard and the reading he was doing during and after. Read the book “Harvard and the making of the Unabomber” and read the psychiatric evaluation he underwent during trial. You also have to understand this man had untreated serious schizophrenia for decades. It’s pretty clear that this experience, along with several other compounding factors I mentioned, completely broke him.

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James Kenny's avatar

I think it's a mistake to psychoanalyze people and use that as an explanation for the ideas presented. His ideas are coherent and valid. You don't need to agree with them automatically, but it isn't fair to dismiss the ideas because the person stating the ideas is supposedly "crazy".

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Captain Kipps's avatar

It’s odd that so many MKUltra participants (Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc) had such violent later futures. The fast and loose nature of the program may very well have impacted Kaczynski in profound ways. There were experiments within the experiments. They were America’s version of Unit 731.

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Hence Forth's avatar

Do you know when / what year Whitey Bulger had MKULTRA tests ?

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Astral's avatar

I don’t. Ive considered going back and looking at it and doing an episode but im just not all that interested but…maybe

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Hence Forth's avatar

Would be interesting to see how many famous criminals had an MKULTRA background

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Astral's avatar

I’ve looked it up and there aren’t that many “famous” but what I didn’t know was that Alan Ginsberg was part of it.

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Hence Forth's avatar

Me neither. Have you ever checked out the work of Dave McGowan ? You might find it interesting

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Astral's avatar

Yeah programmed to kill. I have weird scenes and will be getting to it at some point

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throwingromans's avatar

Great episode. I’ve very much come to appreciate your material. Thank you for creating and sharing. 🙏🏻🫡

Also, no…it’s definitely NOT coincidence that the psychologist would wear dresses and do all he did and Ted manifesting into what he did. It’s almost unbelievable how absolutely degenerate people in history have been. Absolute psychopaths.

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Nematode's avatar

Fantastic episode! Excellent mix of storytelling and theorizing mixed with cultural context. 👌🏼

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Captain Kipps's avatar

Two books I very much enjoyed on this general topic were “Operation Chaos” and “Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops, and the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream.” Both books are wild rides.

https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Tom-O-Neill-Dan-Piepenbring-audiobook/dp/B07S84VPXK/ref=

https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Scenes-Inside-Canyon-audiobook/dp/B074WDVWMQ/ref=

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Astral's avatar

I read the first and own the second. I did read programmed to kill

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Captain Kipps's avatar

I’ve never read Programmed to Kill. But I found “Chaos” deeply informative regarding the Manson murders and that whole music, entertainment, and drug scene from the 1960s.

“Weird Scenes” is very much in the same vain. The (Boomer) Author also makes an unforgettable Boomer sin stating that those famous 1960s bands were frankly not that good. Their music only sounded decent after getting heavily modified in the studio! 😂😂😂

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Dave's avatar

Great episode.

Can you share what the program Yeltsin participated in that you mentioned in the episode?

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