Hacker News Books

Absolutely.

Popularity and taste rarely coincide because most people have no taste.

(Me covets a The Doors of Perception / Heaven and Hell first edition.)

The other thing is to read books that are important, not just ones that are preferred or pleasant for a wider perspective:

- Mein Kampf

- Capital (Das Kapital)

- Technological Slavery

- The International Jew

- A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

- The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. 1-6.

- (ones by ideological opposites)

- America: The Farewell Tour

- Sorrows of Empire

Also, people who don't own any books, paper or Kindle... that's a big "nope."

I agree. I recommend that you read Kaczynski's two books:

"Technological Slavery" (2010) and "Anti-Tech Revolution"(2016).

The second book is truly extraordinary and insightful. Here's a review by MIT:

"Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How is Kaczynski’s well-reasoned, cohesive composition about how revolutionary groups should approach our mercurial future….. I recommend that you read this compelling perspective on how we can frame our struggles in a technological society."
-- The Tech, MIT's oldest and largest newspaper

This is totally false. In modern techno-industrial society you have abundant freedom to do meaningless things--you have a ton of choices in how you fritter away your time in hedonistic pursuits--but in all practical, life-and-death choices, man is completely powerless and freedom-less at the hands of powerful organizations. But it is the freedom to exercise practical, life-and-death choices that is real freedom, which people need to experience to live happy and dignified lives. Purely for the sake of technical necessity, industrial society must have these practical freedoms wrested away from individuals and placed in the hands of powerful organizations. This has been a gradual process, beginning with civilization, but it has become especially acute and accelerated after the industrial revolution.
Kaczynski's knowledge of history is deep and extensive on this point.

I recommend you read his first book, "Technological Slavery" on this topic. You can check out his second book "Anti-Tech Revolution" as well, though this deals more with ecological issues in my opinion and less with human freedom.

Kaczynski has written two books since his incarceration:
TECHNOLOGICAL SLAVERY (2010) and ANTI-TECH REVOLUTION: WHY AND HOW (2016)

His essential points, according to the preface to Technological Slavery, are:

1) Technological progress is carrying us to inevitable disaster. …
2) Only the collapse of modern technological civilization can avert disaster. …
3) The political left is technological society’s first line of defense against revolution. …
4) What is needed is a new revolutionary movement, dedicated to the elimination of technological society. …