There is also a personality cluster that can be found in the flow. These traits are a bit more self-explanatory. The people in the flow try beat the market. In sports betting, the average player loses money because the house takes a cut of every bet, so if you follow the consensus, you’ll eventually be broke. Investing is more forgiving; if you simply put your money in index funds, you’ll still have a positive expected value. Still, professional traders try to get a better return than the market average.

So part of the job of people in The River is to be critical of consensus thinking, often to the point of being querulous. Silicon Valley in particular prides itself on its querulous nature – although it can be conformist in its own way. Some people in The River can switch off these traits in interpersonal settings, others have difficulty doing so. It is no coincidence that many Riverians enjoy arguing about politics on the Internet.

In this context, people in The River are often very competitive. In fact, they are so competitive that they make decisions that can be irrational, and continue to gamble even when they have essentially already set themselves up for life (think of Elon Musk’s decision to buy Twitter when he was then the richest person in the world and one of the most admired). If you’ve never bet against other people, let me tell you: it can be quite exhilarating. Winning money feels good, feeling like you’ve outsmarted an opponent feels good, and when the two come together, your brain is literally flooded with dopamine. It’s no surprise that people chase the thrill, sometimes to their own demise.

Finally, I placed risk-taking in the personality cluster because a willingness to stand out from the herd and go against consensus is certainly not the safest career path. Entrepreneurs tend to have high levels of openness to experience and low levels of neuroticism, the “Big 5” personality traits that correlate best with risk-taking.

The River vs. The Village

There is another community that competes with The River for power and influence. I call it The Village. I imagine The Village as a mid-sized city, like Washington DC or Boston, the kind of place that is just small enough that everyone knows everyone else and is somewhat aware of each other. The community is made up of people who work in government, large parts of the media, and parts of academia (perhaps excluding some of the more quantitative academic fields like economics). The political line is decidedly left of center and associated with the Democratic Party.

It may be partly due to a personality clash—remember, Riverians love decoupling and Villagers hate it—but the communities are increasingly at odds. Media coverage is now much more hostile to the tech sector, and is generally skeptical of movements like Effective Altruism (EA) and Rationalism. But the resentment goes both ways: People within The River are seeking more political influence. Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to become a major political player, donating millions of dollars openly to Democrats but also covertly to Republicans. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in 2022 was treated by people in The Village as a matter of existential importance. I find this reaction silly, but it shows the extent to which these communities see each other as rivals and are willing to go to battle. And there are high-stakes debates ahead, such as over AI regulation.

As someone who moves between these worlds, I have a unique perspective. To be clear, I am not an unbiased observer. The people of The River are – for better or for worse –my kind of people. On the other hand, I’ve never been particularly fond of The Village and often felt that the media coverage of me and FiveThirtyEight was based on misinformation, especially after the 2016 election.

But I hear a lot of complaints that these communities have about each other. I don’t think they’re always well articulated, though. Despite being a Riverian myself, I have my fair share of criticisms of The River, and I think it could use criticism that hits the mark more often. So here’s a quick attempt to outline what I think are Steelman’s versions of them. A Steelman argument—a popular technique of EAs and rationalists—is the opposite of a strawman argument. The idea is to build a robust and well-articulated version of the other side’s position, even if you don’t agree with it. Let’s start with The River’s criticism of The Village, since I tend to agree with it by nature.

River’s Steelman’s review of the Village

A common complaint from people in The River is that the villagers are “too political.”

What does that mean exactly? It means that the Villagers are banding together when they should be splitting up. The River fears that The Village’s claims to academic, scientific and journalistic expertise are becoming increasingly difficult to separate from the Democrats’ political partisanship.