• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has marked me. Personally, I value kindness, strategy, knowledge/learning, and humor.
• Something that has marked me is capitalism and its consistent threat of leaving me so poor that my quality of life goes to shit. I want to both be good enough at something so that I can eat food tomorrow but also change this fucked up system to something more humane.
• Especially important has been Mary Midgley’s The Ethical Primate and its view on empathy, as well as it’s view of models, theories, and metaphors as not that different to each other (similar to another comment here).
• In terms of evaluating models/theories/metaphors, I love Maxwell’s view of validity. Validity happens when there are no validity threats that you think are important enough. Validity threats are the answers to the question “How can I be wrong?”
• I also think a lot about Piketty’s view that proposals must always consider both the current relations of power as well as the ideological and institutional content of any proposal.
• In terms of an epistemological stance, not only has Mary Midgley changed my view, but so did my high school texts on epistemology. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the texts, but I do remember the ideas. Specifically, the idea of groups of knower’s and how those are many and are constantly learning and forgetting.
• There’s also Carol Dweck’s growth mindset. This one is not so automatic for me, but I strive to internalize it.
• I also think a lot about Sen’s view of capabilities as freedom. I love it. I want that. If seen through Welzel’s human empowerment process, it not only gives you a basic set of tools, but it also lays a map of the world currently regardingcapabilitieas, values, and what to do to change the world with the most impact.
• I also like Epstein’s Range. I wonder if I’m justifying not being a superhuman of sorts right now, but it gives me reasons to try different things and not just stick with one thing.

I’ll leave it at that. Maybe some of this resonates with you. Let me know if it does! Also let me know if it totally doesn’t. That’s fine too :)