On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
“Silver takes on the ambitious goal of reconciling the two groups that he sees driving America’s divisiveness.”
Nate Silver is a widely followed political reporter and statistician. He is perhaps best known for his high-profile models that calculate the probabilities of the candidates winning recent U.S. presidential elections. He also is the bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise.
In his new book, On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, Silver takes on the ambitious goal of reconciling the two groups that he sees driving America’s divisiveness. He calls the two groups the River and the Village, and he acknowledges that he is a Riverian. He asserts that the most significant difference between the two is how they assess risk, and he makes much of the fact that “a foundational concept” in Riverian thinking is the use of +EV or “positive expected value” to assess risk.
Silver also describes the differences between these the two groups. For example, he writes that the River has “several subregions . . . I imagine Upriver as being like Northern California with its major research universities, rolling hills, and ocean views—but also eccentric and aloof, not quite fitting in with the rest of the country.” The Riverians have “two clusters of attributes that are important for success in this environment.” Under “cognitive cluster” he lists “Analytical, Abstract, Decoupling.” Under personality cluster he lists “Competitive, Critical, Independent-minded (contrarian), Risk Tolerant.”
The Village “competes with the River for power and influence.” Silver thinks of the “Village as a mid-sized city, like Washington, D.C., or Boston where” everyone knows everyone else.” It consists of people who work in government, in much of the media, and in parts of academia (although perhaps excluding some of the more quantitative fields such as economics). “It has a distinct left-of-center politics associated with the Democratic Party.”
Put simply, Riverians are risk-tolerant, and Villagers are risk averse. How does Silver explain this difference between the two and what examples does he use? Here is where Silver takes a turn that makes his book distinct. You see, not only is Silver a high-profile reporter, statistician, and author, he also is a high-stakes poker player and has been for many years.
Silver asks the reader to travel through about 150 pages of descriptions of poker players and poker strategies. If, like me, you do not play poker, this might be challenging. The reader can judge how effective it is to use risk assessment and strategy from poker to teach us about risks in private business and public policy. Still the discussion of poker (including a 24-page glossary of Riverian terms) is one of the things that makes On the Edge a resource that belongs on many bookshelves.
Two other chapters—with unique titles—give a more traditional foundation for Silver’s book. The last chapter of the book is titled “Chapter 1776. Foundation.” The year 1776 marks a seminal moment of the American Revolution when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Also in 1776, Adam Smith published his classic work on market economics: The Wealth of Nations. Though not explicit, Silver and other Riverians place value on the freedom to take risks, and profit from them, that is at the core of democratic capitalism. Entrepreneurs are the leaders on innovation and, therefore, the main characters of democratic capitalism.
The other uniquely named chapter, “Chapter 13. Inspiration: Thirteen Habits of Highly Successful Risk-Takers” is a taunt to the superstitious. In this chapter, Silver expands his analysis of risk takers to other professions not traditionally viewed in this context. Silver introduces the reader to “five exceptional people who take physical risks: an astronaut, an athlete, an explorer, a lieutenant general, and an inventor.” The personal stories in Chapter 13 reveal the most important traits of risk takers including: “cool under pressure,” “courage,” “well-trained,” “adaptable,” “good estimators,” “try to stand out, not fit in,” and “not driven by money.” Silver’s excerpts from his interviews in this chapter also make this book worth reading.
To conclude the book, Silver attempts to bridge the great divide between the River and the Village. His “peace offering” from the River to the Village is summed up with three words: “agency, plurality, and reciprocity.” Agency means having “good options where the costs and benefits are transparent.” Plurality “means not letting any one person, group, or ideology gain a dominant share of power.” Reciprocity means treating “other people as intelligent and capable of reasonable strategic behavior.” His conclusion offers a basis for compromise between increasingly polarized groups of people and is an optimistic way to end the book.