Luck: what you get that you don't really deserve

Good:

Take mine for example. I have had three pieces of luck so good that it was all I needed to have a very nice life. One was the house that Beth and I bought in 1970. It was pretty run down and the neighborhood was such that the insurance companies would not have provided coverage were they not required to do so by the State. When a few years later all over the country people began to appreciate the advantages of city living and the gentrification of urban neighborhoods took hold, in Seattle that phenomenon began on our very block. After just a few years what we thought of as a temporary abode became a modestly valuable middle class residence. As well as sheltering us in quite a nice way for forty years, it has facilitated some great living experiences away from Seattle by earning rental income and several times serving as trading stock. This house also fostered the development of some of our most cherished friendships. I regard this as mostly a lucky purchase because if it had been based on some superior wisdom or vision we would have bought a lot more houses on this block as they were selling for $65,000, $75,000 and $80,000 over the years. Another piece of life shaping good luck was being born in the late 30's, about eight years ahead of the baby boom. This timing has kept me out of any wars, ahead of a booming demand for places at college and then in the housing market, and yet allowed me to enjoy the benefits of Novocaine, (and more recently Percocet), the Internet, cell phones, etc. I've lived my adult life during a great age for middle class Americans. But of course my best luck by far was marrying Beth. It was luck in the sense that at the time I proposed I had not even the shadow of an idea of the ways in which she would improve my life. I didn't know what my life was to be so how could I have foreseen the ways that she would make it possible? Specifically what she had was a psychoclogical fortitude and practical adaptability sufficient to remain married to a guy who in his late 30's decided that it wouldn't really be necessary for anyone in the family to work full time. In those days being the wife of a stay-at-home dad was not only a financial challenge, but a social one. The term stay-home-dad did not exist, but the term dead beat was well known. Men who didn't shoulder the task of providing financial support for the family, didn't get to have a family. It was her psychological strength and remarkable adaptability that allowed me to live the off beat, self indulgent way that I have.

Bad:

It seems to me that serious bad luck comes mostly in the form or financial troubles of some sort and health issues, including accidents. There is no end to the stories of awful misfortune that have befallen people. I thought of recounting one such tale at this point, but it's not really necessary. We all know plenty of tragic stories. We even know them from within the body of our own family and friends. But I can't resist a little taxonomy of bad fortune. There is death. Worse is death with pain. Worse still, death with pain, at a young age. Worse still, all this happening to your own child before your eyes. But even that is not the worst we can imagine. Suppose all that were to happen and you actually had some kind of role, some error of commission or omission that contributed. Most of the misfortune that one suffers is not the worst imaginable. Usually it is not too hard to think of someone else who has suffered worse. My real thought here in this post is a musing on the chance of avoiding serious bad luck throughout one's life.

If you live to something like the age of 80 there are about four generations that might matter. Your parents, yourself and your spouse, your children and your grandchildren. If it is your family's way to stop at two, then there would be about ten people whose misfortunes, if they are serious, might really mar your life. With the myriad of bad things that can and do befall people: illness, financial ruin, addiction, accidents, and so forth, I think it is the very unusual person who manages to get through 80 years without some personal taste of tragedy. Hardly anyone really.

A Fight I'm Glad to Miss

It’s good to be smart, right? There’s no down side is there? There’s a down side to being taller. On average tall people don’t live as long. It takes more resources to sustain a tall person. As a species we’d probably be better off if we were all a foot shorter. But if everyone were somewhat smarter, wouldn't that be unambiguously good? I think so. Even for the people who are already pretty smart. It’s probably true for our dogs as well. I can’t think of any downside to having the dog population be smarter. Cows, I don’t know. Maybe cows should just be left as they are. And as for rats, we certainly don’t want them to be any smarter. They’re too smart as it is.

How long do you think it will be before those pretty smart people who are messing around in the human gene pool will be able to make new off spring smarter? A hundred years? That doesn’t seem implausible to me. Isn’t that a direct extension of having the capability to fix the genes that predispose people to cancer or sickle cell anemia or many other genetically linked maladies? Once we can alter our genes to make us more healthy, won't we be close to being able to make ourselves smarter, or stronger, or blonder or whatever? To return to a very old allegory I think we have already reached out and plucked the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, (you could think of that as the age of enlightenment), and we are steadily moving that fruit in the direction of our lips. Once we have learned how to remake our species according to our own likes and dislikes, then we will truly be God-like, whether that God be real or simply supposed by many people to be real.

For a couple of decades there have been stories about the angst of parents feeling that the path to an Ivy League education now begins at preschool. Miss the correct feeder preschool and kiss that Harvard education goodbye. Imagine the fight there is going to be over deciding whose kids get to be born really smart. Of course there will be plenty of God fearing folk in this country who will oppose such genetic manipulation, but once the Chinese have the capability, then the national defense argument for us to do it too will be pretty forceful. Will we have a market based solution? Will the opportunity to have smarter kids be something one can or must buy? Can human society work if everyone is a genius?

Let’s suppose my grand children will be breeding in 30 to 40 years. I don’t think it will be their problem, but the fight may have begun in their lifetimes.

I'm sorry great great grand children for what you are in for, but at least you won't have to worry about getting cancer.