Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by: Peter Hessler
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration by: David Roberts
The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by: Michael Shaara
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:
If you want a deep exploration of high-level poker playing.
You have never heard of AI Risk or SBF.
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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Briefly, what are these books about?
The alleged connections between organized crime and national intelligence agencies which led to the numerous illicit operations including Watergate, Iran-Contra, the JFK Assassination, and of course the entire Jeffrey Epstein mess.
A key component of these operations was the tactic of collecting blackmail and using it to convince people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t.
What's the author's angle?
Charitably, Webb is an autodidact with an enormous command of facts and connections.
Uncharitably, she’s someone with a weak evidentiary filter making conspiratorial mountains out of tenuously connected molehills.
Who should read these books?
No one should just read them. You should either ignore them or study them intently as part of an “Intro to Conspiracy Theories” curriculum. Of the two I would recommend the former. Read on to see why.
I- How does one approach a book like this?
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