After Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto, Industrial Society and its Future, was published it hasbegun a small, but growing movement of people who support his ideas. After beginning my research, I have seen a rise in the visibility of Kaczynski’s ideas online. This thesis focuses on the Anti-Tech Collective (ATC) who, as a radical online community has begun promoting his ideas. This thesis has used communication phenomenology as a method to see how the ATC views their relationship with Kaczynski and his writings. In further analysis I then used Freudian defense mechanisms, repurposed as account structure as a way for the ATC to maintain social acceptability while promoting a radical ideology. In this research, I identified ways that the ATC views Kaczynski and his ideas and where this fits in online radicalism. These methods can be employed in looking at any radical online community where its members desire to maintain some level of social acceptability.

Thesis advisor: Alan Lawson / Technology should enhance the human experience. Instead, it often alienates people from aspects of life that are considered most important. Artists are separated from their works, friends are separated from each other, and human ingenuity is filtered though computers before it can impact the world. These five short stories focus mainly on alienations inherent to communications and media technology, but also touch on database management and copyright concerns. Some take place in the present day; others present views of the future. All five stories use fiction to explore the truth of humanity's absurd relationship to technology. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2006. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program.