Navigating Risk and Morality

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This chapter explores the metaphor of 'the river' to illustrate a personality type characterized by risk-taking and analytical skills, prevalent among elite professionals such as poker players and venture capitalists. It discusses the concept of decoupling in decision-making, demonstrating how individuals can appreciate products from morally objectionable sources while navigating their personal beliefs. The chapter also examines the intersection of poker, effective altruism, and existential risks related to artificial intelligence, highlighting the complexities of moral judgments and the necessity of rigorous analytical thinking in both personal and professional contexts.

Being rational necessarily involves engagement with probability. Given two possible courses of action, it can be rational to prefer the one that could possibly result in a worse outcome, if there's also a substantial probability for an even better outcome. But one's attitude toward risk -- averse, tolerant, or even seeking -- also matters. Do we work to avoid the worse possible outcome, even if there is potential for enormous reward? Nate Silver has long thought about probability and prediction, from sports to politics to professional poker. In his his new book On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, Silver examines a set of traits characterizing people who welcome risks.

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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/08/12/285-nate-silver-on-prediction-risk-and-rationality/

Nate Silver received a B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago. He worked as a baseball analyst, developing the PECOTA statistical system (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm). He later founded the FiveThirtyEight political polling analysis site. His first book, The Signal and the Noise, was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Society Book Award in Science. He is the co-host (with Maria Konnikova) of the Risky Business podcast.

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