# Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Short essay people cite for understanding self-propagating systems and as a text worth reading. Critics say it picks arguments to reach a predetermined conclusion.

## Why people recommend it

- Short essay worth reading (2 comments): "I recommend reading this short essay to understand what self-propagating systems are" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49246469)) "i’d rather be reading Industrial Society and Its Future by good ol uncle Ted" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47929202))

## What people warn about

- Selects arguments to force conclusion (1 comments): "picks and chooses the arguments so as to make the terrible conclusion all but inevitable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477128))
- Arguments are incoherent or egregious (2 comments): "you can see it's complete incoherent garbage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740252)) "the arguments are a bit egregious" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49372075))
- Few worthy ideas in it (1 comments): "You have to be very generously looking for the worthy ideas." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581811))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Programming as Theory Building by Peter Naur](https://hackerapproved.com/p/programming-as-theory-building.md): 32 recommend
- [Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ur-fascism.md): 18 recommend
- [Politics and the English Language by George Orwell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/politics-and-the-english-language.md): 14 recommend
- [Right to Read by Richard Stallman](https://hackerapproved.com/p/right-to-read.md): 12 recommend
- [Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander](https://hackerapproved.com/p/meditations-on-moloch.md): 11 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0994790147?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780994790149) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski", https://hackerapproved.com/p/industrial-society-and-its-future/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).