You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison | Penguin Random House
On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything by Nate Silver
Published in August 2024
According to Nate Silver’s 2024 book, On the Edge (which I read pre-election), you (probably) and I (definitely) are full citizens of the Village. And we Villagers are losing.
The Village consists of academics, scientists, nonpolitical federal government professionals, mainstream journalists and employees of moderate to liberal nonprofits, think tanks and professional organizations.
Ascendant is the River. Silver characterizes the River as an entrepreneurial, risk-taking, probabilistic thinking and expected value-maximizing class. The River runs strongly through the worlds of tech, finance, gambling and, lately, the federal government.
The last thing we citizens of the Village want to do at this current moment is read an entire book about how the River thinks. Most of my friends in the Village have never quite forgiven Silver for predicting (accurately, it turns out) a Trump victory.
Here are my thoughts after reading On the Edge in October and thinking about the book between now and then.
We Villagers need to understand how the River thinks and learn to speak to Riverians by learning their language, customs and culture. On the Edge is a good place to start.
I don’t think we will ever understand or find common ground with those who are working to dismantle the infrastructure of basic science and public health. Some canyons are too wide to cross.
Instead, we in the Village should be confident enough in our place in the world to learn some things from the River.
One of Silver’s main arguments in On the Edge is that the Village is too risk-averse. By thinking probabilistically, members of the River are more willing to make big bets as long as the long-run expected value calculation is positive.
If we in the Village, specifically us academic Villagers, are to thrive over the next few years of Trump/Musk attacks, then we will likely need to change some things up. What are the big bets that we should be making? What high-reward/high-risk endeavors might we pursue?
I imagine universities putting their capital, expertise and brands behind a big effort to leverage AI to transform our institutions. We could decide that we are not going to cede that ground to for-profit companies but instead invest in determining our own AI destiny.
Much of On the Edge is a deep dive into the mechanics of gambling (mostly high-stakes poker), the rise and fall of crypto (and Sam Bankman-Fried), and the evolution of tech culture from (basically) progressive to increasingly libertarian. Silver’s stories from the River are mostly fun and usually edifying, although On the Edge would have benefited from a more active editor and a rewrite or two.
No matter. If this is a time for those of us in the higher education Village to consider a new path for our future, then the ideas from On the Edge will prove helpful.
What are you reading?
