The book serves as a compendium of his thoughts and philosophies on technology, freedom, and the impacts of societal progression on individual autonomy.

The book includes Kaczynski's correspondence with various intellectuals, his responses to criticism, and further elaboration on the themes of technological dominance and its opposition.

Kaczynski's letters and essays throughout the book elaborate on his manifesto points, including detailed responses to critiques from Dr. David Skrbina and others.

[7] The letter was never published by the journal, though Kaczynski includes it as the introductory piece of the book, presumably because it establishes some of the main tenets of his arguments and is highly controversial and provocative.

[9] Kaczynski highlights that the negative physical and social consequences of scientific advance are inherently unpredictable and therefore uncontrollable.

Kaczynski concludes by stating there are good reasons to believe that, notwithstanding the future implications of continued scientific advance, the current social consequences of technological progress are "on balance highly negative".

[10] The original manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future", had 36 endnotes to substantiate various points made in the paragraphs of the body text.

But suitable leaders are needed for this revolution that are rationally guided and not "enraged adolescents acting solely on the basis of emotion".

[17] For example, many activists who have been rebelling in favor of "nonviolence" continue to do so in times of war when this rebellion is in fact contrary to the system's interests.

But on the whole, Kaczynski claims the fact that the "trick" backfires occasionally does not prevent it from being an effective means of subverting rebellious impulses by redirecting them in the service of modest reforms before they can take on a truly revolutionary direction.

Kaczynski notes at the opening of the section that in some sense his ideas have evolved since this correspondence, and if there are any conflicts between what he writes here and what he subsequently wrote in his second book, Anti-Tech Revolution, the latter represents his current view.

According to Kaczynski, societies do not evolve, in the grand scheme, due to human agency, but result from the influence of "objective" factors, or material conditions.