This page summarizes the books, films, games, and other cultural artifacts that most influenced me.

Books – Non-Fiction

I wrote about the top 5 non-fiction books that most influenced me back in 2017, and remains largely unchanged as of 2026.

• Ray Kurzweil‘s The Singularity is Near (read in 2006) redpilled me on transhumanism, AI, and radical life extension. I identified as a transhumanist ever since.
• Paul Kennedy‘s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (2003) was my introduction to geopolitics and the importance of The GDP (richer coalitions have tended to win Great Power wars). All serious geopolitics (as opposed to geopolitical wishcasting or fanfiction) must start from acknowledging the primacy of the economic factor.
• Jonathan Adair Turner‘s Just Capital (2005) was my proper introduction to economics, and in retrospect grounded me in rational views on markets despite subsequent flings with protectionist and cybernetic planning ideas.
• Nick Bostrom‘s Superintelligence (2015) reminded me to take AI seriously and an important corrective to Kurzweil’s unalloyed optimism. Since I was never deep into the LessWrong ecosystem, I would have likely been uncritically blithe towards “doomer” arguments in the current AI debate (though Bostrom himself has become notably much more whitepilled on AI, see Deep Utopia and Optimal Timing for Superintelligence).
• Charles Murray‘s and Richard Herrnstein‘s Bell Curve (2013) confirmed my early intuitions, groked in high school, on the deep theoretical and predictive validity of intelligence. Arthur Jensen‘s The g Factor (2014) reinforced it, but strict chronological precedence goes to Murray for tying it together in a theoretical framework beyond forum/HBD blog discussions, Richard Lynn‘s papers, Howard Bloom‘s The Lucifer Principle, and J. Philippe Rushton‘s Race, Evolution, and Behavior. Special mention also to Heiner Rindermann‘s Cognitive Capitalism.
• Balaji Srinivasan‘s The Network State (2023) is perhaps the most influential book I read in the 2020s to date, despite significant criticisms from Balaji’s de facto infatuation with state power (e.g. on immigration control) and the very long and muddled middle section about his theory of history which is somewhat disjoint from the main thesis.
• Steven Pinker‘s Enlightenment Now (2018) I dismissed initially, but it has grown on me over time (more so than than Better Angels (2013), which was too long and rambling, or The Blank Slate (2016), since I was already deeply acquainted with “HBD” when I read it). The world really has gotten better and we see the perils of neglecting to respect that empirical observation with every new dumb populist initiative.
• Andrey Korotayev, Artemy Malkov, and Daria Khaltourina‘s Introduction to Social Macrodynamics (2009) really sold me on cliodynamics – the idea that history can be mathematized just as economics and the social sciences were. (Peter Turchin’s books on this, esp. Secular Cycles, War and Peace and War, and Ultrasociety are all great, but the above was my first and densest introduction to cliodynamics.
• Charles Murray‘s Human Accomplishment (2014) is magisterial, but didn’t really surprise me, at least beyond Europe being even more scientifically and culturally dominant than I’d assumed)
• David Hackett Fischer‘s Albion’s Seed (2018) is basically the one book you must read to understand America.
• Adam Tooze‘s Wages of Destruction (2017) was a major update on my understanding of WW2 and the Nazi German economy. In my view, you should read in conjunction with Trevor Dupuy’s work e.g. A Genius for War and select Axis History Forum data-centric threads for shortest route to comprehensive understanding of the WW2 European theater.
• Kenneth Pomeranz‘s The Great Divergence (2011) was strongly influential, but now I think works such as Ian Morris‘ Why The West Rules/The Measure of Civilization, Greg Clark‘s A Farewell to Alms, and even David Landes‘ The Wealth and Poverty of Nations are more relevant to understanding economic history. Nonetheless, I have to acknowledge my debt to him for igniting an interest in economic history and human capital formation that was more sustainable than Jared Diamond‘s Guns, Germs, and Steel (2003).
• Peter Thiel‘s Zero To One (2021)… like the author’s politics or not but this is the most legible description of how Silicon Valley economics works.
• Mark Tegmark‘s Our Mathematical Universe (2016) wasn’t mind-blowing because I was already a digital universe believer, but it’s great at spelling out this thesis.
• Samuel Huntington‘s The Clash of Civilizations (2006) and Francis Fukuyama‘s The End of History (2008) both influenced me a lot at the time but I have since recognized them to be overly simplifying ideological tracts that are vindicated as often as they are refuted (i.e., predictively useless).
• Nicholas Nassim Taleb‘s Black Swan (2012) was entertaining and introduced me to multiple important ideas around superforecasting and prediction markets. (This has to be acknowledged, despite ambiguous attitudes towards the author and his strange and dishonest subsequent behaviors).
• Yuri Slezkine‘s Jewish Century (2011) has one of the best frames for thinking about Jews (modernity as becoming Jewish).
• Barbara Tuchman‘s The Guns of August (2009)… there are more accurate and more insightful WW1 histories, but this is just beautifully written. So just about trumps Niall Ferguson‘s The Pity of War (2006).
• Simon Schama‘s Citizens (2004) is a skeptical history of the French Revolution, and the interpretation I think is likely more accurate. The closest thing to this for the Russia Revolution I have read might be Sean McMeekin‘s but I have reservations about how diligent he is with interpreting sources.

Check out Non-Fiction Reviews for the full list.

Leopold Aschenbrenner‘s Situational Awareness (2023) remains the most important thing (I think) that I read about AI in the 2020s. Andrew Cutler‘s Eve Theory of Consciousness (2025), through strictly not a book (yet), was the most mind-blowing thing I read in 2025. Normgroid as this sounds the most ah-ha moment I had in 2026 was Vlad Vexler’s theory of narcissistic supply to explain Trump.

In terms not of books but in general, I have also been strongly influenced by Nick Bostrom and his many papers, I regard him as the best/most relevant modern philosopher. To a lesser extent, the giants of modern rationalism: Scott Alexander; Robin Hanson; Eliezer Yudkowsky; Gwern. That said, I have always been much more of a classical transhumanist than a rationalist.

Books – Fiction

• Fedor Dostoevsky‘s The Brothers Karamazov (2007) is he “classic” that I would rate highest – more so than Crime and Punishment, which would also be in the Top 5. So yes, I love Dostoevsky. In fairness, though, I have read very few of the “Great Books.”
• Cormac McCarthy‘s Blood Meridian (2025) is the ur-American novel and the best “literature” I read in the 2020s to date.
• Jorge Luis Borges‘ Labyrinths (2010)… any one of his short stories could be expanded into a book, but he respects your time, and has good ideas about the English language.
• I’m a big fan of existentialist literature. I highly appreciated Albert Camus’ The Stranger (2010), Miguel de Unamuno’s San Manuel Bueno, Martyr (2009), and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (2007). These would all easily be in the Top 10.
• Stephen King‘s Carrie (2007). I read a lot of his oeuvre’s but when it comes down to it I still think his first short book is most memorable.
• Arthur Conan Doyle‘s The Hound of the Baskervilles (2003) is representative of his work, of which I’ve read almost everything. However, I can’t really judge because I haven’t really read much detective fiction elsewhere.

Check out Fiction Reviews for the full list!

Books – Fantasy

• Robert Jordan‘s The Wheel of Time (2003-2013)… endless as my quibbles with it are, the more and deeper it has grown on me over the years. I don’t think this is just a marketing blurb: “Jordan has come to dominate the world that Tolkien began to reveal.”
• J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit (2000), Lord of the Rings (2001), and Silmarillion (2002) goes without saying. (Incidentally, I believe The Hobbit was the second series I got into after starting learning English with Redwall).
• George R.R. Martin‘s A Song of Ice and Fire (2013) rounds out the top three – yes, I suppose I am quite “conventional” in my fantasy rankings. ASoIaF will probably flip both WoT and LOTR if Martin ever finishes it, but I’m not going to reward laziness
• Eliezer Yudkowsky‘s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality has grown on me, I like it more than the J.K. Rowling originals LOL (brilliant and extremely influential as she is). Imagine Harry Potter, but both heroes and villain get a 2 SD boost in IQ.
• Ursula Le Guin‘s Earthsea (2004?) is probably #4 for me.
• Brandon Sanderson has often been criticized for a relative lack of artistry, and TBH I agree with this, I view him as the fast food of fantasy. But fast food is delicious, and honestly, I think the original Mistborn (2009) is pretty much the perfect archetype of the Fantasy Trilogy.
• J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter (2004-2007) for all the criticisms has to be acknowledged.
• I also need to make a more personal acknowledgement to Brian Jacques‘ since I believe Redwall (1997) was the first English language book I ever read. I substantially learned English from this series.

Check out Fiction Reviews for the full list!

You have to stop somewhere but I will state that I also liked C.S. Lewis Narnia (2001-2002), Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (2012), Joe Abercrombie‘s First Law (2011-2012), and Andrzej Sapkowski‘s Witcher (2025-unfinished). However, they won’t be making it into the top tiers. I suspect the main works that might yet reach that stage, which I have yet to read, are Erickson’s Malazan and perhaps Bakker’s Prince of Nothing (but we’ll see).

Books – Science Fiction

• Jules Verne‘s Around the World in 80 Days (2000?) is IIRC the first sci-fi book I ever read and still remains the most memorable. Perfection.
• Vernor Vinge‘s True Names (2000) is still my most memorable sci-fi short story. (Unfortunately I have yet to read his novels, huge lacuna).
• Walter M. Miller‘s A Canticle for Leibowitz (2006) is probably my all time favorite post-apocalyptic novel.
• George Orwell‘s 1984 (2005) is top dystopia.
• H.G. Wells‘ The Time Machine (2004) is another classical trope-layer (Eloi vs. Morlocks theme which will echo down into Fallout, A Boy and His Dog, Sexsmission, etc.).
• Hugh Howey‘s Silo (2015) is brilliant post-apoc dystopia and the show is great as well.
• Strugatsky Brothers‘ The Inhabited Island (2022) predicted the Z war.
• Dmitry Glukhovsky‘s Metro 2033 (2010) is another really good dystopia but I feel he kind of ruins it with overly blatant political satire later in the series (disrupts “suspension of disbelief”). I actually think the games are better.
• S.M. Stirling‘s Emberverse (2011) is memorable to me on account of its exploration of how archaic social norms are rediscovered in a post-apoc world.

Check out Fiction Reviews for the full list!

Special mentions will go to Neal Stephenson‘s The Diamond Age, Stephen King‘s The Stand, Kim Stanley Robinson‘s The Years of Rice and Salt, and Greg Egan‘s Permutation City, and Robert Harris‘ Fatherland.

Books – Self-Help

• Tim Ferriss‘ The Four Hour Workweek (2009) redpilled me on the Pareto principle and geoarbitrage.
• Neil Strauss‘ The Game (2008) redpilled me on womyn (entertaining journalistic journey through the PUA community this sphere became weird and performatively misogynistic).
• M.J. Demarco‘s The Millionaire Fastlane (2012) seems like the most legible guide for making money from a business. (Would be significantly outdated today).

Check out Self-Help Reviews for the full list!

That’s it. In terms of writing, some select articles e.g. from Scott Alexander, Kurt Vonnegut, Sanderson on the laws of magic, are of greater help. On trading and making money, I am mostly indebted to a few individuals on CT.

Films

• Dr. Strangelove is my favorite film of all time. I probably rewatched it a dozen times.
• The Matrix is my favorite sci-fi series, incredible philosophical depth, and I consider Matrix: Resurrected to be as good and valid as the main trilogy.
• The Big Lebowski – I can’t really explain it.
• Solaris – Favorite Tarkovsky movie (1972); it’s about aliens, but is just as valid applied to LLMs.
• Pulp Fiction – Favorite Tarantino.
• Lord of the Rings – Quibbles aside, a genuine masterpiece and legitimate adaptation. (In some parts better than the original, e.g. cutting the Scouring of the Shire plotline).
• Idiocracy – dysgenics 101.
• The Godfather – a classic, nothing to add.
• Stalker – the Tarkovsky movie.
• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2025) – a film that defines America.
• Ex Machina – the AI control problem, illustrated with naked women.
• The Wolf of Wall Street – funny.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day – classic AI uprising film.
• Schindler’s List – I’m conventional, best Holocaust film.
• Dark Planet – Adaptation of Strugatskys’ Inhabited Island.

These are the ones at 10/10 or very close. Check out Film Reviews for the complete list.

Video Games

• Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (~2000) is the game I spent way too much on and the associated history forums in school.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2014) is best entry in the Deus Ex series and the consummate transhumanist classic.
• The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (2013) is a deserving classic and still perfectly playable with mods in 2026.
• Fallout: New Vegas (2017) is the ur-American video game, and a cult classic amongs the “very online” for… reasons.
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2004) so engrossed me at the time it’s still the only game I ever wrote some minor fanfic for.
• Civilization 4 (2006) and Civilization 2 (1999) were the strongest entries in this series IMO.
• Mass Effect (2025-) I am getting into way late and the fact it’s nonetheless making an impression testifies to its incredible strength.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2006) is the GTA game and protagonist (CJ) that’s most memorable to me to this day.
• Metro 2033 and the series is great and I actually prefer them to Glukhovsky’s books.
• Puzzle games: Greatly enjoyed both Portals (2014-2015) and The Talos Principle (2022).
• DOS Classics: Wolfenstein 3D, Prince of Persia, and the forgotten niche Loom.
• Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Zombie Panic!: Source, Mount & Blade: Warband all notable for me having spent way too much time on them in the 2000s and 2010s.

Board Games

Regarding traditional board games, I used to play chess at near national level at school in the UK but lost interest in it entirely when I realized there were no prospects there. I probably prefer go though I was always a total novice at it. Warhammer was popular with the nerds at school, but I didn’t have enough money to build armies, so I just contented myself with the lore (interesting but overly grimderp).

Regarding games I’d most enjoy playing in a social setting, that would be poker (Texas Hold’em) and Mafia games and its variants (e.g. Secret Hitler).

Art & Music

In both categories I am most appreciative of the Romantic era and early 20th century, esp. piano compositions (used to play a long time ago).

Top composers: Chopin; Tchaikovsky; Beethoven; Liszt; Wagner; Mendelssohn; Stravinsky; Rachmaninov; Dvorak; Brahms; The Mighty Five; Weber; Saint-Saens; Scriabin.

Moderns: Philip Glass; Einaudi.

Top visual artists: The various national Romantics (e.g. Caspar Friedrich, Thomas Cole, John Martin, J.M. Turner), Ivan Aivazovsky and his seascapes, Auguste Rodin, Maurits Escher, and modern sci-fi artists like Vladimir Manyukhin.

Philosophers

There are two groups of philosophers I respect.

The philosophers who strive to understand the basis of wealth, intelligence, and power: Liberal ethicists from utilitarians like J.S. Mills to Rawls, and the political economists and students of science and society (Smith, Ricardo, Galton, Darwin, Herbert Spencer).

The philosophers who try to scry the future: The transhumanists, from the Russian cosmists (Fyodorov, Vernadsky, Tsiolkovsky) to the extropians, Ray Kurzweil, Bostrom, Vinge, and sundry sci-fi authors.

And one group that I don’t.

The continentals (e.g. Heidegger) who don’t appear to have anything important to say because if it was otherwise they’d have found some way to do it without the reams of verbiage; wordcel economists (Marx) who spent hundreds of hundreds of pages laboriously groping towards some semblance of an economic model but never quite getting there; and neurotic existentialists (e.g. Kirkegaard) who I get the impression just mostly write about their own depression and other psychoses.

The only exception I’d make here is for Nietzsche who at least is entertaining.

I used to be interested in nationalism at an intellectual level. I am past that now but I have to pay my respects to the late Egor Prosvirnin and yarowrath (see The Z of History).

World Cities

As of 2025, my top cities include: San Francisco; Bangkok; Vienna; Amsterdam; New York City; London; Berlin; Moscow; Saint-Petersburg; Paris; Lisbon; Las Vegas; Chicago, in approximately this order.

However, note that I have vast lacunae, in particular I have yet to properly tour East Asia. I expect Tokyo to score very highly. Constantly updating this and similar things in the Travel section.

World Cuisines

Top cuisines: Indian/South Asian; French; Italian; Japanese; Thai; Chinese; Russian; American; Greek/Turkish/Balkan.

Over the years, North/East European cuisine has gained in the rankings relative to East Asian and Middle Eastern cuisines. Possibly regression to racial mean with age.

I think Georgian and Mexican cuisine is overrated (though I do like Mexican cocktails a lot).