Advanced Degrees Aren't That Smart

On June 24, 1993, Gelernter was severely injured opening a mail bomb sent to him by the Unabomber. He recovered from his injuries, but his right hand (which he covers with a glove) and eye were permanently damaged.[11][12] Some in the press suggested that there were parallels between his thoughts on the need for a human element to computers and those of the Unabomber.[2] He chronicled the ordeal in his 1997 book Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber.[13] Two years after the bombing, the Unabomber sent Gelernter a letter, writing: "People with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are."[14]

A screenshot of a biographical passage about Gelernter being injured by a mail bomb sent by the Unabomber. The punchline is the Unabomber’s smug letter claiming that highly educated people are not as intelligent as they believe, creating an absurd contrast because the writer himself is attacking an academic through a bizarre act of violence. It is shared as a darkly ironic reaction to academic arrogance or pretentious intellectual arguments.

• @antichirst / 21687 2026-02-07