A Review of Nate Silver: The Election and His Book "On the Edge"
Release Date: 11/22/2024
Horses in 1925 = Children in 2025
We Are Not Saved
Getting people to have more children may be as difficult as getting people to abandon their four-door sedan for a horse and buggy.
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Short Fiction Book Reviews- Volume 3
We Are Not Saved
Three translations of a classic, high brow literary fiction, a great book from a friend of and mine then a whole lot of pulp. Also something that might be the beginnings of a book by Neal Stephenson.
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The Case Against Superforecasting
We Are Not Saved
Audio for the keystone chapter (Chapter Zero) of the book I'm working on.
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What Does the Recent German Election Say About Immigration and Integration
We Are Not Saved
If integration is straightforward how is it that the former East Germany is so different ideologically from the former West Germany?
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Mid-length Non-fiction Book Reviews Volume 5
We Are Not Saved
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Meta Discussion and Book News
We Are Not Saved
Things are changing. Hopefully in good ways.
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Books I Want to Read vs. Books I Should Read (Sanderson's Latest)
We Are Not Saved
In which I decide that I am not going to read "Wind and Truth". And also that 63 hours on audio is just ridiculous.
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Reviews of Strange Religious Books Volume I
We Are Not Saved
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The Everest Fallacy
We Are Not Saved
A method for making better decisions should you ever find yourself in Kathmandu, or paying for SEO, or hoping to see the Supreme Court.
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Mid-length Non-fiction Book Reviews Volume 4
We Are Not Saved
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He talks about the Village, and the River, but what we really need is a Redoubt.
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
By: Nate Silver
Published: 2024
576 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
There are two different ways of approaching the world: the River, which thinks in terms of numbers, expected values, and quantification and the Village, which is the paternalistic expert class which manifests as the vast bureaucracy.
What's the author's angle?
I got the impression that Silver just wanted to write about things that interested him. Because of this, his thesis was kind of tacked on. That said, he is a fairly passionate advocate for things that interest him.
Who should read this book?
Silver is worried that people will skip the first half of the book which is about gambling, but in reality that was the best part, or at least the part I found to be novel. The second part is about Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), AI, and all the stuff you’ve already heard too much about if you spend much time online. With this in mind, I think there are three reasons to read this book:
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If you want a deep exploration of high-level poker playing.
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You have never heard of AI Risk or SBF.
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If you think my discussion of Silver’s model of the Village vs. the River is incomplete.
Specific thoughts: An mashup of the election and this book
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