*Academic influences: Karl Popper, David Deutsch, Michael Ignatieff, W. W. Bartley, Joseph Agassi, David Miller, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Pogge.

*Literary influences: Vladimir Nabokov, Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, Martin Amis, J. G. Ballard, Michel Houellebecq, Ma Jian, Hu Yua, Hwang Sok-yong, Yi Mun-yol.