Personal Canon

Inspired by Duncan Graham's canon, and transitively, by David Cole's, here is a list of people and works that have inspired me. Individually beautiful and interesting; together they make me who I am.

This is a work in progress.

Rationality

• Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex)
• Eliezer Yudkowsky
• Gwern Branwen

Economics

• Tyler Cowen
• Robin Hanson
• Bryan Caplan

Computing

• Conor McBride
• Simon Peyton-Jones
• John Carmack
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (and Classical Mechanics) -- I somehow discovered SICP at around the same time as Gödel, Escher, Bach (must have found a list of classics online). Though it's an introductory book, it goes deep.

Physics

• Scott Aaronson writes about quantum computing.
• Richard Feynman -- For his tireless push to simplify and understand (then explain). "Surely you're Joking" is a template for living a good life while doing good, intellectual work. Also great: What Problems to Solve.
• Maxwell's Equations / General Relativity / QED

Business of Software

• Joel Spolsky
• Paul Graham
• patio11 (Patrick McKenzie)
• Zero to One

Books

• Calvin & Hobbes -- My favorite comic ever. I think every reader saw themselves in Calvin, his imagination and refusal to follow the rules. Credit to Bill Watterson for creating consistently great content and ending the strip before the content ever got stale.
• Asterios Polyp
• Musashi
• Visual Complex Analysis -- This book takes an intimidating subject, tells you to ignore the equations and focus on the intuition. Wonderful visualizations. This is what I'm all about.
• The Diamond Age
• Gödel, Escher, Bach -- This book helped me to become interested in logic and computing.
• Alice in Wonderland
• Dune
• Neil Gaiman anything, especially Sandman
• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feyman! (as well as QED)
• The Book of the New Sun
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Stories of Your Life and Others. Or anything by Ted Chiang (The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate is very good)

Screen

• The Sopranos, The Wire, The West Wing, Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul, and Succession are my favorite TV shows.
• Anything by Wes Anderson

Misc

• Bret Victor -- Inventing on Principle is a classic closely related to my interests, but it's just one example of consistently great work from Bret.
• Bertrand Russell
• You and Your Research -- Richard Hamming