Recommendations

AI, Consciousness & Futures

Essays

• Superhistory, Not Superintelligence by Venkatesh Rao - A different lens for thinking about AI's impact on humanity
• What Failure Looks Like by Paul Christiano - A really sobering, realistic look at what it could look like if we don't manage the intelligence explosion well. Most other scenarios focus on sudden AI takeover; I like Christiano's focus on what a slow-rolling catastrophe could look like.
• Gradual Disempowerment - Interactive prediction scenarios about the bulk of humanity's potential loss of relevance and control
• Existential Risk Brief by Michael Nielsen - An interesting analysis and reframe of AI risk
• Letter from Utopia by Nick Bostrom - A moving vision of what humanity--and AI--could become

Books

• The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil - Kurzweil's classic work on the singularity. Many predictions have come true; some have not; but many seem increasingly likely.
• Blindsight by Peter Watts - Provides much to think about in terms of the relationship between intelligence and consciousness. I won't spoil the plot, but worth reading if you think the two are inherently linked.
• Accelerando by Charles Stross - One of a very small number (astonishingly small, in fact) of sci-fi works that attempt to describe the Singularity. Dense, but an amazing ride.
• The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams - A really weird but interesting fictional take on the intelligence explosion.
• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson - A really interesting look at the future of the climate and people's likely responses to it in the next couple of decades. More important if you have long timelines.
• Diaspora by Greg Egan - One of the more well-thought-out posthuman futures.
• The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks - A wide-ranging series that describes one of the better possible future worlds after superintelligence.

Research, Deep Work & Productivity

Essays

I make a practice re-reading these essays at least every quarter, and considering how well I've applied them and how I can do better.

• Cultivating depth and stillness in research - Some thoughts from Andy Matuschak on maintaining focus on the fog of the unknown
• Research as a Stochastic Decision Process - Jacob Steinhardt's essay on optimizing research by efficiently reducing uncertainty
• Tips for Empirical Alignment Research - A useful set of ideas from Ethan Perez
• Velocity in Research - Michael Bernstein's slides on establishing high velocity in research. Complements Jacob's essay above
• The Scientific Virtues - An examination of the inner lives and virtue-vices of great scientists and mathematicians
• Reading books vs. engaging with them - Holden Karnofsky's thoughts on what it really takes to understand a book

Books

• Deep Work by Cal Newport - Essential strategies for focused work in a distracted world
• Mastery by Robert Greene

Philosophy, Values & Meaning

Essays

• The Nietzschean Challenge to Effective Altruism - On the tension between flourishing and helping
• Meditations on Moloch by Scott Alexander - Coordination problems and the race to the bottom
• Who By Very Slow Decay by Scott Alexander - A sobering look at end-of-life care and what we value

Books

• On the Shortness of Life by Seneca - This is one of the best, and most classic, essays on the value of the very short time we have in life and the importance of fully living it - being true to oneself as an individual and to one's nature as a human being.
• Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit - This book gave me my first real understanding open individualism and the true nature of compassion--and the value of altruism.
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig - Hard to say anything here that hasn't been said about this book, but was reality-breaking in a good way.
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - I vibe with a lot of the (real, ancient, not bro version) Stoic ideas, and this book has been with me through some hard times.
• Happiness Beyond Thought by Gary Weber - This is great book, but only if you actually want to pursue awakening fast. It has what I've found to be some of the most powerful meditation instructions I've ever read--powerful enough that I decided to step back and take some time make sure this was what I actually wanted. (To be clear, I'm not awakened, but these meditations will make you feel progress very quickly.)
• The Hymn of the Universe by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - A beautiful, poetic description of Teilhard de Chardin's vision of consciousness and intelligence gradually suffusing all of matter.
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - This book, and the movie made from it, gave me an incredible sense of connection to the human race and the future of sentient life.
• The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva - A foundational text on compassion and the path of helping all beings
• The Enchiridion by Epictetus - Essential Stoic teachings on what is and isn't under our control
• The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could Be by J.B. MacKinnon - I loved this book because I find Nature sublime and beautiful - worth preserving and restoring.
• The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman - This book is dated now, but it was the first book I read that opened my eyes to the possibilities inherent in meditative practice and happiness beyond conditions.

Films & Visual Media

• The Fountain (2006) - The first movie that made me actually understand non-duality and the acceptance of death.
• Cloud Atlas (2012) - How our actions ripple through time, extending far beyond our mortal lives.
• Interstellar (2014) - I was most captured by the depiction of a single moment where all of humanity's future rested on the shoulders of a small handful of people making a great effort.

Idea-Rich Science Fiction

Books

• The Three-Body Trilogy by Liu Cixin - Why don't we see any evidence of extraterrestrial life? One possible answer: The Dark Forest Hypothesis.
• Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons - A rich universe where humans manage to postponethe the need to deal with superintelligence.
• Wool/Shift/Dust by Hugh Howey - An extremely sobering depiction of a world where the Vulnerable World Hypothesis is realized. There may be some technologies where there is no coming back from extreme offense/defense imbalance.
• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson - Crazy like many of his books, but fun and contains cool ideas about AI education, nanotechnology, and choosing how to live in a world where you could live however you want.
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - A very relevant book in 2025 with the advent of AI-driven psychosis.
• Daemon by Daniel Suarez - If you can't imagine how a superintelligent AI could possibly mount a takeover, read this.
• The Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky - Evolution, intelligence, and communication across radically different minds
• Existence by David Brin - First contact, the Fermi paradox, and humanity's place in the cosmos
• Walkaway by Cory Doctorow - Post-scarcity society, digital consciousness, and what happens when people opt out

Films & Visual Media

• The Matrix (1999) - A classic that needs no introduction. Still relevant in 2025.
• Serial Experiments Lain (1998) - An amazing anime that explores identity, consciousness, and the merging of digital and physical reality
• Ghost in the Shell (1995) - One of the first pieces to make me feel visceral emotions about our posthuman future. Full of yugen.

Human Stories & Endurance

Books

• The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut - A fascinating look at John von Neumann's life and work.
• Endurance by Alfred Lansing - I liked this book as an inspiring description of, well, human endurance in the face of adversity.
• The River of Doubt by Candice Millard - Also a great human endurance book. Presents some civilizations with a very different view of the world.
• The Heart of the World by Ian Baker - This was just a really crazy story about Baker's long, long, arduous quest to find a hidden part of the Tibetan Himalayas that local Buddhists venerated as Shambala.
• Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett - A linguist's journey with the Pirahã people and the limits of language. It was fascinating to read about a people that think so differently from us.

Health & Performance

Books

• Outlive by Peter Attia - A comprehensive guide to longevity focusing on preventing the four horsemen of chronic disease. An excellent reframing of the search for longevity. Hint: It's mostly about exercise.
• The Perfect Health Diet by Paul & Shou-Ching Jaminet - This book is an impressive exercise of reason, research, and heuristic-construction in an area that remains very controversial and much-debated. They do a fantastic job of constructing dietary heuristics from first principles rather than relying mostly on the (IMO very flawed) world of observational studies and food-frequency questionnaires. I don't agree with all of their conclusions, but I think they've done a great job of thinking through the issues.