The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord

Partially Examined Life podcast did an episode recently on the book. The ideas are related, not quite the same.

Contra another commenter, I don't think it's easy to separate Marxist critique of capitalism from spectacle / simulation replacing reality - I do believe that capitalism is responsible for the alienation, the alienation doesn't just apply to the labourer and his output, but also to consumers and what is consumed.

Not really. I'd say that although unorthodox Marxists the situationalists would see themselves as following on from Marx. After all, the whole of The Society of The Spectacle begins with a reformation of the opening to Marx's Capital!

> The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord

Very much this, though I must also recommend his Comments on it, for the reader who has a hard time penetrating the critique. I have a short list of related books at the bottom of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15299592

Michel Foucault's "This is not a pipe" is very similar in theme to Baudrillard's work. Deleuze and Guattari (recommended by another commenter) are another pair of giants. I'm currently reading "Deleuze and Guattari for architects" and would strongly recommend it. Actually, most of the Thinkers for Architects [1] books are excellent and accessible. Despite being for architects, I would expect most engineers to benefit from them.

[1]: https://www.routledge.com/Thinkers-for-Architects/book-serie...

i'm not vippy but the capitalism and schizophrenia series is really good (anti-oedipus and a thousand plateaus).

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach. I also recommend Zizek's The Sublime Object of Ideology, but it's dense, so his film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology is a good stand in.

Agree on everything except Zizek. He's an entertaining provocateur, but there's no way he's at the level of Hegel and Kant. His interviews in the British news media are hilarious though.

Hofstadter's book is brilliant, funny, delightful - a real treasure.

I'll throw a line to Zizek. In his serious works, he does set out a systematic ontology of reality. I don't fully understand it, if there is even something to fully understand, but along the way he without doubt makes you think, and gives relatively accessible interpretations of a ton of other thinkers.

He's not a major philosopher like Kant, but he is much more than a charlatan or provocateur.

To his credit, I probably wouldn't have picked up his serious work if his antics hadn't first put him on my radar many years ago.