Here's a list of stuff (books, videos, products, habits, etc.) that made me go "fuck, that was great. I wish I had found that sooner!" Please note: I have not been paid by any authors, channels, or companies listed below or received anything for free if it's purchasable. I do not necessarily endorse or agree with anything other than what is explicitly listed.
Top Recommendation: The C Programming Language (K&R)
If you write code for a living, you can probably benefit from any of this stuff.
Top Recommendations: Cal Newport - Deep Work and Hamming - You and Your Research
Focus and empathy are in short supply these days thanks to a global pandemic and invasive social media, both of which hijack our attention and prevent us from authentically connecting to others. To counteract this, I try to treat my body, brain, and lifestyle like highly optimized, intentionally structured machines; I believe peak performance and healthy relationships require intention and effort. Here's stuff that I found useful to that end:
Top Recommendation: Robert Sapolsky's 2011 Behavioral Biology Lectures
The world we live in is ferociously complicated, as are our bodies and ancestries. So much interesting stuff happen at levels we cannot observe with the naked eye, and it can have very serious consequences on our day to day lives. Things like determinism in human behavior or heritability of physical traits are extremely relevant to current events, but get vastly oversimplified or outright ignored in the massive competition for our attention. People cannot mislead you if you are able to call them on their bullshit (or better yet, call yourself on your own bullshit).
Top Recommendation: The Social Dilemma and CGP Grey - Humans Need Not Apply
I look for information that makes sense of modern world, helps me understand how other groups experience it, or explains history in a way that can predict the future. I try to pick things that challenge my views instead of reinforcing what I already believe, and I avoid things that are overly polemical and not well cited.
Here are things I own or regularly purchase that I like a lot or had an unprecedented positive impact on my lifestyle.
Top Recommendation: Neuromancer - William Gibson
Here's the major works of fiction I love!