This year I decided to get into the effective altruism community in person. (I’ve been some kind of radical consequentialist and crazyist since before the movement was named.)

This year I quit two consecutive jobs.


Papers


Books

  • Brewer’s Rogues, Villains, and Eccentrics by William Donaldson
  • Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
  • Doing Good Better by Will MacAskill
  • Penguin Book of Japanese Verse
  • New Year Letter by WH Auden
  • The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch
  • Behind the Wall by Colin Thubron
  • The View From the Ground by Martha Gellhorn
  • I Think You’ll Find It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That by Ben Goldacre
  • Critical Mass by Philip Ball
  • Intelligence by Stuart Ritchie
  • Plato at the Googleplex by Rebecca Goldstein
  • Herzog on Herzog by Werner Herzog
  • Keeping On Keeping On by Alan Bennett

Worst book: The Bald Prima Donna


Essays


Films / TV

  • Toni Erdmann
  • La La Land
  • Hunt for the Wilderpeople

  • The Young Pope
  • Planet Earth II


Songs

  • These Romantic Moments’ by Swamp Spice
  • Critics,
  • One-Way Glass,
  • I Saw Your Hair Between the Trees
  • Chifundo,
  • Let the Mystery Be
  • If I Think of Love
  • Saponkanikan,
  • Oro mo Bhaidin,
  • Solanin - Rotti
  • Tiny Geometries - Ray Lynch
  • Got it Bad - LEISURE
  • Girlfriend - Mind Enterprises
  • Oh Baby - Micachu
  • Cadence - St South
  • Falling - Opia
  • Coffee - Yuna
  • Sunset Lover - Petit Biscuit
  • Our Sun - Tendts
  • Atomic Bomb - Hot Chip


Albums

  • Living with Animals - Portland Vows
  • Sky Girl, Various Artists
  • The Caretaker - Everywhere at the End of Time
  • The Blasting Company - Over the Garden Wall
  • Field Music - Commontime
  • Space Echo: The Mystery Behind the Cosmic Sound of Cabo Verde
  • Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
  • Kiran Leonard - Grapefruit
  • Anna Meredith - Varmints