Kevin Simler
Writer and engineer behind the blog Melting Asphalt, and co-author with Robin Hanson of The Elephant in the Brain.
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Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 19 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Liked Every Cradle is a Grave
Sarah Perry, Every Cradle is a Grave. More unsettling to my worldview than anything else I've read in the past few years. Not sure how many of Perry's conclusions I agree with, but they're extremely thought-provoking.
Recommends PBS Space Time
I recommend PBS Space Time (astrophysics), 3Blue1Brown (math), and Caspian Report (geopolitics).
Recommends 3Blue1Brown
I recommend PBS Space Time (astrophysics), 3Blue1Brown (math), and Caspian Report (geopolitics).
Show 16 more
Loved EconTalk
Also not "reading" material, but there's some truly amazing content out there — in particular, Hardcore History and EconTalk. These two podcasts have both been around for a while, but for some reason I didn't start listening to them until just recently, despite many recommendations. Well, let me add one more voice to the chorus: these are both excellent.
Loved Hardcore History
Also not "reading" material, but there's some truly amazing content out there — in particular, Hardcore History and EconTalk. These two podcasts have both been around for a while, but for some reason I didn't start listening to them until just recently, despite many recommendations. Well, let me add one more voice to the chorus: these are both excellent.
Loved Big History
David Christian, Big History [audible.com lecture series]. Probably my favorite Audible lecture series to date.
Recommends The Story of Human Language
John McWhorter, The Story of Human Language [audible.com lecture series]. Awesome lecture series. A more accurate title might be "The Sociology of Language." Discusses the way languages are used and how they evolve in human populations. Also, McWhorter is an excellent lecturer, one of my favorites. His sentences are precise, dense with information, and spiced with a nice, dry wit and colorful turns of phrase. Highly recommended.
Mixed on Scale
Geoffrey West, Scale. I'm strongly ambivalent about this book. On the one hand, the topics he covers are extremely important, and he brings a fresh/deep perspective to them. On the other hand, the book is poorly-written. It suffers from long-winded digressions, weird jabs against non-physicists, and (most disappointing of all) a surprising dearth of explanations for the phenomena he describes. Also I think he overstates the case for some of his big claims.
Mixed on Sapiens
Yuval Harari, Sapiens. Read half of it, then lost interest. I'm ambivalent about this book. On the one hand, it provides a useful, somewhat contrarian perspective on human history. (For example: the agricultural revolution probably sucked for the people who went through it.) On the other hand, it's full of sweeping pronouncements that I can't fully endorse.
Loved Master of the Senate
Robert Caro, Master of the Senate (HT: Kevin Kwok, Alok Singh). I made it about two-thirds of the way through, so given my track record, I'll count this one as "finished." It was great!
Liked Rational Ritual
Michael Chwe, Rational Ritual. Read half of it, then got distracted — but it's very good.
Disliked The Gene
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene. See tweetstorm. Bottom line: not recommended.
Disliked The End of Alchemy
Mervyn King, The End of Alchemy. Not recommended.
Loved The Beginning of Infinity
David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity. Even better than Fabric of Reality (thanks Mills, David, Andy). Deutsch offers the most compelling left-brain worldview I imagine it's possible to construct, given our current understanding. Of special note are (1) his emphasis on knowledge as a physical phenomenon, and (2) his ideas on the evolution of creativity. Probably going on the all-time greatest list.
Loved Algorithms to Live By
I wanted to hate this book. I expected it to be a vapid popularization of trivial ideas from computer science. Mostly, I was jealous that the authors had identified such a great idea for a book, and I was hoping they would botch the job. Buuuuut they didn't. The book was great.
Loved On Tyranny
Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny. Great (and short!) book. Probably preaching to the choir, but it's a great sermon.
Disliked Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life
Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life. One of the most disappointing books I've read in a long time.
What others say about Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life →
Recommends The Dictator's Handbook
The Dictator's Handbook. Very good, highly recommended.
Recommends The Machinery of Life
David Goodsell, The Machinery of Life. Spectacular book for developing intuition of what goes on inside a cell. The text is OK but the illustrations are absolutely stunning and make the book worthy of a strong recommendation.
Where they publish
Blog Melting Asphalt Long essays on social behaviour, plus a running archive of everything he reads.
Link verified 5 Sept 2026.
x.com @kevinsimler His X account.
Recent
- still thinking about this weeks later “foreshocks of the singularity…. the money is the concrete manifestation of a much larger eldritch hyperobject roaring into existence” 30 May 2026
- Life update: I cofounded a VC firm. God help me! Please see our announcement (QTed) — but allow me to contextualize 🧵 28 May 2026
- “mirrors don’t flip text, people flip text” 23 Sept 2024
Show 16 more
- and successful theories of self also organize society 8 Jun 2024
- you’ve just been hired to teach Critical Thinking at the local high school what’s going on the curriculum? what activities/assignments do you have planned for the kids? 20 May 2024
- 2yo: it’s coldy outside weird that it can be sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, windy, stormy, even chilly… but not coldy sorry kid, English is hard 20 May 2024
- I'm excited about the LessOnline festival! May 31 – June 2 (Link in next tweet, smh Elon.....) Hit me up if you're planning to attend — it'll be great to see some internet friends IRL 30 Apr 2024
- Did it ever occur to you (before now) that plants have immune systems? 27 Apr 2024
- I never met Dennett, but he was kind enough to return some of my emails when I was suffering through a John Searle class in college 🙃 He wasn’t just my favorite philosopher — he was also my favorite *writer* of philosophy. I loved him as much for his prose as for his thinking 19 Apr 2024
- hit me with some of your favorite writing (or other art) that defamiliarizes common things 11 Apr 2024
- revisiting this @vgr gem from 2010 "Organizations are like riverbank communities. They are as old as the last significant course change or waterfront battle. The stability of the river, not the attitudes of people, is what makes old organizations seem set in their ways." 3 Apr 2024
- responses here were awesome. thanks everyone! some ppl asked for my recs: — “The Great Courses” (high-quality lecture series recorded in the studio) — particularly the history courses — all-time fav is “Big History” by David Christian — any linguistics course by John McWhorter 3 Apr 2024
- can y'all recommend some audiobooks for me? (i have audible credits i need to use) 26 Mar 2024
- mind-expanding short story by @etirabys about a "sapient mitotic species" this is a rare piece of fiction that's well grounded in evolutionary biology and psychology i read it about 6 months ago and have re-read it twice since 👇 link in next tweet 25 Mar 2024
- The Serendipity Machine — @nabeelqu's notes on using Twitter https://t.co/59Ii1wh4VR this is so good and more or less exactly what i would say 21 Mar 2024
- feeling weirdly wistful about the obliteration of Carthage a Roman Republic-sized civilization’s worth of unique literature, law, religion, politics, culture — poof, gone, `rm -rf`ed from history 21 Mar 2024
- pair bonding is important enough to invest in generating common knowledge, even with only two participants hence this ritual 20 Mar 2024
- i read this book over a decade ago been a dad for 2.5 years now it’s the framework that i rely on the most for guiding my behavior as a parent v grateful to @bryan_caplan for writing it 18 Mar 2024
- reading, writing, and conversation are complementary pleasures 16 Mar 2024
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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