Here’s a list of all the books I’ve read over the past 10 years.

[1] https://taylor.town/books

My general advice is to read classics.

[2] https://taylor.town/eschew-the-new

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Here are some audiobooks that I think HN folk would enjoy:

• Guns, Germs, and Steel: https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0...

• The Anthropocene Reviewed: https://www.amazon.com/Anthropocene-Reviewed-Essays-Human-Ce...

• Snowcrash: https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0553380...

• How to Win Friends and Influence People: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/1...

• Distrust That Particular Flavor: https://www.amazon.com/Distrust-Particular-Flavor-WILLIAM-GI...

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: https://www.amazon.com/Supposedly-Fun-Thing-Never-Again/dp/0...

• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynmann!: https://www.amazon.com/Surely-Youre-Joking-Mr-Feynman/dp/039...

• Faster: https://www.amazon.com/Faster-Acceleration-Just-About-Everyt...

• How We Got To Now: https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Got-Now-Innovations/dp/1594633...

In the science fiction novel Snow Crash an image containing random white and black pixels contained a virus that could infect any developer that would see the image: https://www.amazon.fr/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/14915150...

I loved Snow Crash ( https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/1491515... ) too.

Something I find interesting is that the instructions described in the book, the Sumerian 'Me', actually existed. They were instructions on how to do fundamental things, managed by the priests and which the Sumerians believed came from their gods and goddesses. The concept of neurolinguistic programming by the Sumerians is a nice fiction, or at least there's never been any evidence of it.

A good book on it is Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, by Samuel Noah Kramer. https://www.amazon.com/Sumerians-History-Culture-Character-P...

An online version can be found at his university: https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/...

Interesting bits around the Me are around page 116.

Let me kick off by giving my choices:

BOOK - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/05533809...)

ARTICLE - The Resolution of the Bitcoin Experiment (https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin...)

PAPER - Are we living in a simulation? (http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf)

"I think social could become one of the biggest applications of VR. Being able to sit in a virtual living room and see your friend’s avatar?" -- But that was Second Life! I'm trying to imagine what 2L would have been like with convincing VR.

First, probably not anywhere near technical feasibility for at least several years. Remember the lag when a bunch of avatars were in one place? Or how long it took for a scene to fill in after you teleported? And the bandwidth, good lord...

But then I imagine what it would be like if the bandwidth and server performance issues were magically solved. And I realize that it was all imagined before decades ago, in Snow Crash[1].

[1]http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal-Stephenson/dp/05535626...