The term 'river' in poker signifies the last card dealt and has roots in the history of poker on Mississippi riverboats, where unexpected actions could lead to serious consequences. This concept represents a crossroads where risk-takers and analytical thinkers meet. It serves as a metaphor for navigating life’s uncertainties and opportunities, exemplified by personal moments of change and readiness for new experiences.
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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