“Animal Liberation” by Peter Singer, which argues against speciesism and the ethical treatment of animals, as well as “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Foer, which delves into the moral complexities of eating animals and factory farming. Both these books have convinced me to go vegan. I’ve been vegan for a decade now and don’t regret it one bit.

As a side effect, I’ve also become more health conscious, because a strict vegan diet doesn’t provide everything, so I did a lot of research into what I’m eating, what my body needs (and doesn’t need) etc. As a result I feel like my health has improved a lot - my hairloss has mostly stopped, my complexion has improved, also I used to have a skin condition which is now under control, no depression episodes, and I rarely fall sick.

It’s been an ongoing process of learning though. Most recently I’ve found out about Choline, which has a critical role in neurotransmitter function and affects your mood, and thankfully I found that my diet already has enough Choline in it, so it wasn’t a worry or anything. But it’s always interesting knowing what’s in what your eating, things your body needs etc.

Designing freedom, by Stafford Beer

I’d been a software engineer for 15 years. In that time, in all the jobs I’ve had, I’d never once worked on anything that actually made people’s lives better, nor did I ever hear anyone else in tech ever really dive into any sort of meaningful philosophical interrogation of what digital technology is for and how we should use it. I made a few cool websites or whatever, but surely there’s more we can do with code. Digital technology is so obviously useful, yet we use it mostly to surveil everyone to better serve them ads.

Then i found cybernetics, though the work of Beer and others. It’s that ontological grounding that tech is missing. It’s the path we didn’t take, choosing instead to follow the California ideology of startups and venture capital and so on that’s now hegemonic and indistinguishable from the digital technology itself.

Even beers harshest critic is surely forced to admit that he had a hell of a vision, whereas most modern tech is completely rudderless

This Is Vegan Propaganda: (And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You) by Ed Winters. I think it’s tough to read this book and not be vegan before it’s finished, it’s an extremely well considered and compelling book for for anyone who likes having their views challenged.

It changed my life profoundly in both outlook and actions, as it did everybody in my life who I suggested read it.

‘Thich Nhat Hanh - Heart of the Buddah’s Teachings’. I didn’t become a Buddhist, but it gave me some really useful mental tools to be happier.

I had a bit of a fucked up childhood, left home at 15, was really angry & bitter for a while. I was already many years into a general attempt to let go and be happier, I believe the knowledge from that book has made me happier and more resilient.

The Earthsea “trilogy”

Ok, so I have since passionately disavowed her ideas, but I did read the ENTIRE works of Ayn Rand at one point when I was right wing for a couple of years.

I list it as most influential because, one, it allowed me to understand what right wing philosophy was heavily influenced by during the late 20th century (and why), and two, when those philosophies proved to be egregiously wrong, it forced me to reevaluate my entire identity and belief structure which turned me into the particularly left leaning/socialist I am today.

In terms of books I’m still a big fan of, I love Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, BUT only when read alongside his “sequel” Island, which was his last book. It briefly articulates what Huxley believed a utopian society would look like (before said society is tragically ended by Nuclear Armageddon at the end of a hypothetical World War 3).