Books I read this year:

• Bowling alone by Robert D. Putnam: Classic book on social alienation in America. I’d like to see more updated statistics and international comparisons. Aside from generational succession, the main driver of the fall in social capital seems to be technological change. This make me pessimistic and I wonder how today’s communitarians hope to solve this problem.
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis: I took fairly detailed chapter by chapter notes. I’ll admit that I didn’t find his arguments convincing and at times I found them hard to follow. But overall, I enjoyed the books and the opportunity to learn more about the Christian worldview.
• The Bible (partially: Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, Job, John): I started the Bible in a Year reading plan in early August and haven’t missed a day yet. I’m on Day 149 and have been taking notes and listening to the accompanying podcast. Above are the books I’ve completed in entirety. Readings often vary wildly in how engaging or interesting they are but overall I’ve enjoyed the readings and look forward to the day I can say I’ve completed it.
• A Time to Build by Yuval Levin: I read this book early fall and didn’t take any notes so my reflection here will be surface level. Levin makes a good argument that America’s current problems are caused by weak institutions. However, its hard to see how to apply this revelation except in the most personal manner. I also don’t see how empowering our institutions in their current state would be good for us. I’m more interested in building alternatives.
• The death of expertise by Tom Nichols: This is another book I don’t fully remember. I didn’t find the argument that we don’t trust experts enough very convincing. I think there is a lot of fake expertise and the response to the pandemic has made that more clear than ever.
• The Precipice by Tony Ord: Very well argued and informative book. It covers a wide range of issues but the author handles it very well. The arguments are presented in a very clear and precise manner. I hope to read it a second time soon. The subject matter is somber but still in general makes me excited about the future of humanity.
• Doing Good Better by William MacAskill: Good book introduction to Effective Altruism. I was already familiar with most of the concepts behind the book but I still enjoyed it.
• Human Compatible by Stuart Russell: I’ll admit that I’m new to the issue but I don’t find the idea of AI as an existential risk very convincing. I hope AGI reading group can help me better understand the arguments presented here. I may re-read this book afterwards to better formulate my criticisms.

Books I’m still reading:

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: Very short. It’s interesting but I haven’t had much use for its wisdom I guess.
• The Bible (remainder): I’ll probably take a break when summer rolls around.
• The structure of scientific revolutions by Thomas Kuhn: I started this one over the summer. I was already familiar with the argument of this book through summaries in other media but felt I ought to read the original.

Looking forward to next year:

I struggled to keep up with my reading pace when the semester got busy. Having one book (Bible) I was constantly making progress through did work though. Looking forward through, I need to figure out how to do so with other books if I’m going to get as much reading done as I’d like.

I don’t expect to get as much reading done. I’ll mostly be focused on personal projects and self-study. I’ll hopefully get into the AGI Safety Fundamentals Program but the reading list is mostly papers.

I’ll focus on finishing up Meditations over the next week, then I’ll continue the Bible reading plan. If I have free time, I hope to read some sci-fi classics. Also, now that I’ve read some intro EA stuff, I hope to read some books off of the Progress Studies reading list.

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