Anarchist Cookbook authors hopes for discontinuation (read the author review)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0962303208/103-4939988-1526235

by fogus • 16 years ago

44 39 16 years ago

tptacek10• 16 years ago

This retarded book, which has injured acquaintances of mine, is the reason I have the career I have now. If it weren't for the Anarchist Cookbook, I'd be a Windows admin today.

It's every bit as bad as the author says it is. But taking it out of print won't fix anything; the copy I had when I was 13 wasn't legit, and was accompanied by 8478439 pages of Usenet posts.

9ec4c12949a4f35• 16 years ago

Ideas on paper don't hurt people. The people who act on them do. Take some f*cking accountability for your actions; the author did not force anyone to resort to violence.

tptacek10• 16 years ago

Yes, it's true, me and my high school freshman friends really should have had a better grounding in pyrotechnics and demolitions before taking on the projects in the Anarchists Cookbook. Maybe we should have gone to mining school first. I'm sorry.

I'm not sure why this was left as a comment on my comment, though, since it doesn't have anything to do with it. We weren't "resorting to violence", unless "violence against garbage cans" is a political statement to you.

You also appear not to have noticed me crediting my career to the book you think I want to burn.

todayiamme2• 16 years ago

>>> I'd be a Windows admin today.<<<

You didn't lose any body parts with your pipe bomb right? I hope I misread your comments.

tptacek10• 16 years ago

Nope! The Anarchist Cookbook did not ruin my dreams of becoming a Windows admin, either.

Seriously, though, if you asked me how I got started with my career, "The Anarchist's Cookbook" would be one of the first thoughts in my head.

The topic is interesting to me because my thoughts on the book are so complicated.

horacegrant2• 16 years ago

Eh, who cares? So he had a big evangelical moment and saw Jesus, great, wonderful. This book continues to contain information that can be useful to people, and this is the same "book-burning" way of thinking that is so prevalent in conservative religious communities. While the document is injected with immature content throughout in terms of the motivations for the activities upon which it instructs, it contains practical knowledge that can be used for good or evil.

This knowledge cannot and should not be erased because an individual, even the original author, has concluded that violence is under no circumstance an acceptable way to prosecute change.

tptacek10• 16 years ago

What do conservative religious values have to do with not publishing books that teach 13 year olds how to blow their hands off?

9ec4c12949a4f35• 16 years ago

Spanish inquisition and something about making rats burrowing into pregnant jews or something. Not that religious values are bad and the bible should be removed from print or anything...

hugh3• 16 years ago

it contains practical knowledge that can be used for good or evil

How can said practical knowledge be used for good? In the real world, I mean, not hypothetical-land? Where do you suggest I should plant my homemade bomb in order to make the world a better place, really?

You don't have to have a "big evangelical moment" to see that this book's main contribution to the world has been a bunch of teenagers blowing up either mailboxes or their own hands.

uxp2• 16 years ago

If you happen to scroll down further, you might end up reading a review[1] of a person who's college ROTC instructor used this same book as training material.

For most everyone working a 9-5 in the city with a middle-class family in the suburbs, no this book won't have any practical day to day application. But the review I'm referencing is quoted as saying, "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,". Having the book and being knowledgable about it's contents can be argued to be akin to keeping 30 days of food in storage for emergencies.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/review/R5M42EN2525C3/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm...

horacegrant2• 16 years ago

Sometimes things need to be destroyed.

kgo2• 16 years ago

Actually, the book has a lot of completely incorrect information. For example, it has a recipe for bananadyne. That's what I find offensive about it. I wouldn't trust any of the other recipes to not just blow up in your face even if executed correctly, since the author didn't test them to begin with.

edkennedy• 16 years ago

Vice Magazine tried a few of the recipes in the book in this video... like the napalm, flaming tennis balls and a rocket assisted skateboard: http://www.vbs.tv/en-ca/watch/from-the-pages-of-vice/anarchi...

godorito• 16 years ago

Thanks for the link. I was never thought to use bottle rockets when I was younger.

mattmaroon• 16 years ago

I nearly burned my patio down building the smoke bomb in high school. I learned in the process though that you could skip the entire cooking process. (It does smell awful, but that's just the sugar caramelizing.

Made for a great prank on the last day of school though.

hsmyers• 16 years ago

Not having seen the book until after I got back from Vietnam I thought it ironic in the extreme that the best way to acquire expertise on the subject matter was in fact to volunteer for the draft, survive the year, come home and get busy. With training before during and after my year in country even a then 'stoner' like myself learned more than enough to easily loose all of the body parts I had available!! Didn't though, went back to being an art major...

chopsueyar3• 16 years ago

Does anyone else here find it ironic the book is really a compilation of then available US government published information at the local library, and then copyrighted and sold by the publisher with the author losing all rights?

And Amazon allowing the Author of the book (who has no copyrights to said material) to 'advertise' his desire to stop publication and sale of a book Amazon sells?

Anarchist Cookbook authors hopes for discontinuation (read the author review)

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