A list of thoughts on things I’ve read, watched, or listened. Sort of sorted. This doesn’t include perpetual Youtube or Podcasts, unless they’ve ‘wrapped up’. Otherwise they are at Intake

Ranking

• ★☆☆☆☆ Avoid
• ★★☆☆☆ Only worth it because of some specific part
• ★★★☆☆ Entertaining or useful
• ★★★★☆ Some flaws, but still good
• ★★★★★ Must

Stuff on the Shelf

Philosophical or Educational

★★★★★ 📖 Lying by Sam Harris - A short, tight argument for radical honesty. I’ve long been of the same mind, but he has put more thought into this and lays out my arguments better than I could.

★★★★☆ 📖 Original Less Wrong Sequence - A few hundred essays on logic and ethics meant to ultimately make people able to understand the dangers of AI. This was 20 years ahead of its time, and other than Anthropic it is still ahead of most AI labs in terms of long-sight.

★★★☆☆ 📖 The Moral Landscape - An argument about how we can identify what is ‘good’. Much like the benefits of the Enlightenment, I buy the argument only for individuals who have similar backgrounds (or time to bridge the gap), are neuro-similar, and have some minimal abundance. To be fair, Harris (the author), probably doesn’t disagree.

★★★★☆ 📖 Remote Work - The book that made me realize async-first has strengths that partially compensate for the loss of face-to-face.

★★★★☆ 📖 Sapiens / Homo Deus / 21 Lessons for the 21st Century - Big picture view of how society evolved (shared fictions) to what the future may be. I don’t agree with all of this, but the thoughts are in depth. From my view, there is an overconfidence in the predictions held together with too few data points.

★★★☆☆ 📖 No Rules Rules - Netflix’s cultural playbook. Interesting management philosophy even if not too applicable to a company without VC funding.

★★★★☆ 📖 Four Thousand Weeks - An anti-productivity productivity book that says you’ll never get it all done, so stop pretending. I spend a lot of thought on productivity… so this was a good counter-point.

★★★☆☆ 📖 The Effective Executive - Classic management book focusing on contribution and results rather than busywork. Still valid.

★★★☆☆ 📖 The Productivity Project - Self-experiments in productivity.

★★★★☆ 📖 Getting Past No - Negotiation with people who won’t cooperate.

★★★★☆ 📖 Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith - Behavioral change book on how environmental triggers derail intentions. A bit of Odysseus and the sirens.

★★★☆☆ 📖 Life 3.0 - AI safety and the future of intelligence laid out for a general audience. If time allows, I think the original Less Wrong sequences are better.

★★★★★ 📖 Enlightenment Now - Explains how the world is getting better by most metrics, and Enlightenment values.

★★★★☆ 📖 What If? by Randall Munroe - A series of absurd ‘what if you drained the ocean’ type thought experiments. Most of them end with everyone being dead.

★★★★☆ 📖 Anarchy, State, And Utopia - I always leaned libertarian, this book pushed me more in that direction. It argues for the benefits of minimal government, allowing for different flavors of society rather than a monoculture. This is what I think the US should aim for at the federal level. It is super dense.

Health

★★★☆☆ 📖 Why We Sleep - A compelling case that sleep deprivation is wrecking everything — the science is interesting even if some of the claims have been contested.

★★★☆☆ 📖 The Longevity Diet - Research-backed dietary framework centered on fasting-mimicking diets and longevity — more rigorous than most diet books.

★★★★☆ 📖 Outlive by Peter Attia - Modern view point on aging and wellness. I should probably do more of what this book says.

Entertainment

★★★★☆ 📖 The Culture series by Iain Banks - A look at an anarchist AI controlled hippie future. Most of the plots take place outside of ‘The Culture’… because there aren’t many interesting stories in a eutopia.

★★★★★ 📖 The Methods of Rationality / Significant Digits - Harry Potter if he was raised by scientists. Written by the author of The Less Wrong Sequences.The podcast version fully voiced and also very good. I listen to it every year or two.

★★★★★ 📖 Worm - People randomly get superpowers. A high school girl gets the power to control bugs, which ends up being stronger than anyone would expect. It’s very good. The podcast version fully voiced and also very good. I listen to it every year or two.

★★★★★ 📖 The Expanse series - Hard sci-fi space opera with realistic political structures and almost realistic science. Has a deeper mystery as well.

★★★★☆ 📺 The Expanse show - Same story as above, but done exceedingly well. The only downside is that not all the books made it into the show… but it still ended in a good place.

★★★★★ 📖 3 Body Problem series - An epic book about discovering alien life with some big ideas. ‘Very Chinese’ in that the narrative does not feel like a normal western narrative.

★★★★☆ 📺 Superman & Lois - A Superman story that focuses more on Clark Kent just trying to be a good person.

★★★☆☆ 📺 The Boys - Gratuitous violence but entertaining. Lots of superheros, most of them bad people.

★★★☆☆ 📺 Nailed It - So bad it’s good

★★★☆☆ 📺 Fallout TV Series (have watched Season 1 & 2 so far) ★★★★☆ 📺 ★★★★☆ 📺Invincible

★★☆☆☆ 📺 The Magicians - The books are better.

★★★★☆ 📺 Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 1 isn’t great, but it gets better. My favorite ‘vibe’ for a realistic future society without ASI.

★★★★☆ 📺 The Orville - The closest modern thing to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

★★★☆☆ 📺 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - I think it’s the best of the modern Trek, but some episodes feels more like ‘High School in Space’ than Star Fleet.

★★★☆☆ 📺 Reacher (2022first 3 seasons watched) - A single man version of the A-Team, with each season being one story. A Marty Sue.

★★☆☆☆ 📺 Saturday Night Live - Mostly watch for Weekend Update and to keep some minimal understanding of pop culture.

★★★★★ 📺 Stargate SG-1 - Episodic where a small ‘away team’ mostly travels to other planets. With 10 Seasons, it isn’t all perfect, but it is great.

★★★★★ 📖 Commonwealth Saga / Void Trilogy / Chronicle of the Fallers - Another space opera where Earth is wormhole-connected to other planets by train. It is a massive series that deals with instant travel, immortality, inequity, aliens, and ASI.

★★★★☆ 📖 Bobiverse series - A dead software engineer wakes up as a Von Neumann space probe. Light hearted sci-fi that keeps expanding in scope.

★★★★★ 📖 Children of Time series - Uplifted spiders and octopuses develop civilizations.

★★★★☆ 🎙️ The Black Tapes - A podcast version of the X-Files. It’s great, except the last episode which you should skip.

★★★☆☆ 🎙️ SAYER - A moon based mega-corp run by a psychopathic AI. Entertaining.

★★★★☆ 📖 Project Hail Mary - An astronaut to another star system on a mission to save Earth. Hard to describe without spoiling anything.

★★★☆☆ 📖 Diaspora - Digital post-humans explore the nature of reality and physics. Not casual.

★★★☆☆ 📖 Echopraxia - Near-future hard sci-fi where baseline humans are increasingly irrelevant among augmented post-humans. Bleak and dense.

★★★☆☆ 📖 Transition - A multiverse-hopping thriller from the Culture author, sitting somewhere between his literary and sci-fi personas.

★★★★☆ 📖 Seveneves - The moon gets blown up in a freak cosmic event and is about to rain down on Earth.

★★★★☆ 📖 Foundation series by Asimov - ‘Local’ space opera about the fall of society being predicted, with a Foundation setup to try and minimize the damage.

★★★★☆ 📖 Singularity Sky / Iron Sunrise - A godlike alien visits a planet and acts like a cornucopia machine. Reads like an argument for the Prime Directive from ST:TNG.

★★★★☆ 📖 The Peace War / Marooned in Realtime - Technology is developed that allows spheres of time to be frozen for set periods of time. These are used as perfect defenses, and allow people to ‘skip forward’ through time.

★★★☆☆ 📖 Silo Series by Hugh Howey - A civilization that lives in a really big underground silo. Interesting, but not great.

★★★☆☆ 📖 Laundry Files series by Charles Stross - Sort of like Harry Potter version of the FBI. SCP foundation adjacent. It’s a desk jockey trying to protect the world from magic.

★★★☆☆ 📖 The Dispatcher - Noir story in a world where digital immortality allows murder victims to come back to life.

★★★☆☆ 📖 Feedback - Scientists trying to rewrite history with unintended consequences. Lightweight.

Video Games

★★★★★ Fallout: New Vegas - Best game of all time.

★★★★★ Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Also the best game of all time. (I haven’t played the remaster)

★★★★★ Baulder’s Gate 3

★★★★★ FTL and spiritual sequel Void War

★★★★★ Subnautica

★★★★★ Control - This game is a masterpiece. It’s a version of working at the SCP Foundation as an agent, but trapped in HQ.

★★★★☆ Monkey’s Island: LaChuck’s Revenge

★★★★☆ Cyberpunk 2077 - Really good game. Really fun. But a bit depressing when I see society / companies / government in the real world going in this direction.

★★★★☆ Watch Dog 2

★★★★☆ Kerbal Space Program - The rare game that I actually learned science from.

★★★★☆ Rimworld

★★★★☆ Creeper World series

★★★★☆ Vampire Survivors

★★★★☆ Dues Ex (the original; the Revision mod makes it playable today)